About AWS Route 53
Amazon Route 53 is AWS's DNS service. It offers advanced routing policies but for Orchid eCommerce, you only need basic Simple routing with standard A and CNAME records. Route 53 charges $0.50/month per hosted zone plus $0.40 per million queries.
Before You Start
- Confirm you have admin/owner access to your domain registrar account.
- Get the target IP address (for A records) or CNAME hostname (for CNAME records) from your Orchid implementation consultant.
- Note your current DNS records before making changes — screenshot or write them down as a backup.
- If you use email on this domain (e.g., you@yourdomain.com), do not change MX records — only modify A and/or CNAME records as instructed.
- DNS changes can take 15 minutes to 48 hours to fully propagate worldwide.
Additional prerequisite: You must already have a Hosted Zone for your domain in Route 53. If your domain was registered through Route 53, this was created automatically. If you registered elsewhere and changed nameservers to Route 53, you created it manually.
Step-by-Step: Update A Record (Root Domain)
- Sign in to the AWS Management Console.
- Navigate to Route 53 (search for it in the services bar).
- Click Hosted zones in the left sidebar.
- Click on your domain's hosted zone.
- Click Create record (or select an existing A record and click Edit).
- Leave the Record name blank for the root domain.
- Set Record type to A.
- Under Routing policy, select Simple routing.
- Enter the IP address provided by Orchid in the Value field.
- Set TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes).
- Click Create records.
Step-by-Step: Update CNAME Record (www subdomain)
- In the same hosted zone, click Create record.
- Enter www in the Record name field.
- Set Record type to CNAME.
- Enter the Orchid hostname in the Value field.
- Set TTL to 300 seconds.
- Click Create records.
Important Route 53 Notes
- CNAME at zone apex is forbidden. Route 53 does not allow CNAME on the bare domain. Use a standard A record for the root domain.
- Alias vs. standard records: Alias records are Route 53-specific and point to AWS resources (ELB, CloudFront, S3). For Orchid (non-AWS IP), use a standard A record.
- NS delegation must be correct. If your domain is registered elsewhere, the registrar's NS records must point to Route 53's nameservers, or nothing works.
- Costs: $0.50/month per hosted zone + $0.40 per million queries.
TTL and Propagation
Default TTL is 300 seconds (5 minutes). Route 53 propagates changes to its own nameservers within 60 seconds. External resolver caching depends on the previous TTL value.
Verifying Your DNS Changes
After saving your records, verify propagation:
- Open a terminal or command prompt.
- Run:
nslookup yourdomain.com(replace with your actual domain). - Confirm the returned IP address matches the one provided by Orchid.
- Alternatively, use an online tool like whatsmydns.net to check global propagation.
If your domain still shows the old site after 48 hours, clear your browser cache, try an incognito window, or contact your Orchid consultant.