Redirection the apex domain to www domain in Amplify Hosting and Godaddy

Question

I have built Next.js front-end project, and bought a domain from Godaddy a few days ago. For Next.js web application deploying & hosting, I am trying to use AWS Amplify. I read AWS official documents several times. Here is the document.

I got a https certificate from AWS ACM, applied the certificate in Amplify hosting, set 302 redirection to forward https://example.com to https://www.example.com in Godaddy DNS, and Amplify Redirection Setting.

Now I can access my web app entering http://example.com, without https. But cannot access with the address https://example.com, causing ERR_CONNECTION_TIME_OUT.
I have searched why i cannot forward https://example.com to https://www.example.com. Someone instructed to transfer the domain provider, Godaddy to AWS Route53. I heard domain transfer is available 60 days later since the domain purchased.

Are there any solutions how to access Amplify front-end using apex domains such as https://example.com? I am considering to remove the domain in Godaddy, and buy same domain in AWS Amplify, because domain is Locked now.

I will attach some images.

1. Get https Certificate from AWS ACM
2. Confirm Certificate be applied
3. Domain Forwarding in GoDaddy

Answer 1

You can actually move your DNS management to Route53 to make this work and leave the domain itself at Godaddy. On a high level the process involves:

1. Creating a hosted zone in route 53
2. Copying your dns records over from godaddy to route53
3. Changing your nameserver in godaddy from the godaddy default to the one provided by AWS.

This article and the AWS docs do a good job of describing the process:

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/MigratingDNS.html
• https://www.virtuallyboring.com/migrate-godaddy-domain-and-dns-to-aws-route-53/

You can also transfer the domain itself from godaddy to AWS, but that is optional.

Alternatively, you can swap out the nameservers on godaddy to any other 3rd party DNS provider that supports ANAME/ALIAS records to be able to point the apex domain to your amplify site, but you will not be able to do this using the default godaddy dns service, because it doesn't support ANAME/ALIAS.

Hope this helps. I ran into this same thing recently and migrating dns management to route53 worked perfectly for me.