Guides

How to Connect a GoDaddy Domain to AWS EC2

By Ravindra Bagale, AWS & DevOps trainer · LinkedIn · Published: 29 September 2026 · Last updated: 29 September 2026

To connect a GoDaddy domain to AWS EC2, attach an Elastic IP to the instance, then in GoDaddy's DNS page set the A record for @ to that Elastic IP and make sure the CNAME www points to @. Add both names to server_name in Nginx (or ServerName/ServerAlias in Apache) and reload. Check with dig example.com +short; a changed A record usually works within minutes.

dig example.com +short            # expect your Elastic IP
dig www.example.com +short        # expect example.com. then your Elastic IP
curl -I http://example.com        # expect HTTP/1.1 200 OK

What do I need before pointing a domain to EC2?

1. A working website on EC2, tested with curl -I http://localhost and http://<PUBLIC_IP> — see How to Host a Static Website on EC2 with Nginx.
2. An Elastic IP on the instance, so the address never changes after stop/start — see How to Attach an Elastic IP to an EC2 Instance. Never point DNS to the auto-assigned public IP: it may soon belong to someone else's instance.
3. Security group: inbound HTTP 80 and HTTPS 443 from 0.0.0.0/0 — see How to Open Port 80 and 443.
4. A domain in your GoDaddy account (My Products / Domain Portfolio). When you buy one, you only need the domain — hosting, email or SSL add-ons are not needed for EC2.

How does a GoDaddy domain find your EC2 server?

The browser asks a DNS resolver; the resolver follows the root and .com servers to the authoritative name servers of your domain (GoDaddy's, such as ns51.domaincontrol.com). They answer with your A record, and the browser connects to that IP and sends Host: example.com, so the web server knows which site you want.

How do I point a GoDaddy domain to EC2?

Step 1 — Open the DNS page in GoDaddy

My Products → Domains → click your domain → DNS (or Manage DNS). The GoDaddy website changes its look from time to time, so the button names may vary slightly; the flow stays the same.

Step 2 — Set the A record for @

In the DNS Records list, find the A record with name @ (a new domain usually points it to GoDaddy's "Parked" page). Click Edit (pencil icon) → Value / Points to = your Elastic IP, e.g. 13.233.10.25 → TTL = 600 seconds (or Custom → 600) → Save.

Step 3 — Point www to the root domain

Find the CNAME record www and make sure its value is @ (meaning example.com). If it is missing: Add New Record → CNAME, Name www, Value @.

Step 4 — Remove parking and forwarding

Delete any extra A records for @ that still point to parking or forwarding IPs, and turn off Forwarding if it was enabled. Leave NS, SOA and any MX/TXT records (email, verification) as they are.

Step 5 — Tell the web server your domain name

DNS brings visitors to your IP; the web server must now recognise the name. For Nginx on Amazon Linux 2023:

sudo tee /etc/nginx/conf.d/example.conf > /dev/null <<'NGINX'
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name example.com www.example.com;
    root /var/www/example;
    index index.html;
    location / { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; }
}
NGINX
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example && echo '<h1>example.com is live!</h1>' | sudo tee /var/www/example/index.html
sudo nginx -t && sudo service nginx reload

If you already have a site with the public IP in server_name (for example /etc/nginx/conf.d/mysite.conf), just replace the IP with example.com www.example.com. For Apache use ServerName example.com and ServerAlias www.example.com in the <VirtualHost *:80>, then sudo apachectl configtest && sudo service httpd reload.

Step 6 — Verify with dig and curl

dig example.com +short                  # A record → 13.233.10.25
dig www.example.com +short              # CNAME chain → example.com. → 13.233.10.25
dig @8.8.8.8 example.com +short         # ask Google's public resolver
curl -I http://example.com              # DNS + web server together

dig comes from bind-utils on Amazon Linux (sudo yum install -y bind-utils); on Windows use nslookup example.com. When http://example.com opens your site, the domain is connected! 🎉 Next step: the padlock — How to Install a Free SSL Certificate on EC2.

How long does GoDaddy DNS take to update?

A changed A record usually works within minutes. TTL (Time To Live) is how many seconds resolvers may cache a record: with TTL 600, a resolver that saw the old value may keep it for up to 10 minutes. A name server change at the registrar can take longer, sometimes a few hours. Flush the cache on your laptop if the server already shows the new IP but your browser doesn't:

Using Route 53 for DNS instead? Keep the domain at GoDaddy, create a public hosted zone in Route 53 and enter its four name servers under GoDaddy → DNS → Nameservers → Change nameservers. After that, records in GoDaddy's DNS page are ignored.

How do I fix common domain problems?

Ghabru naka 😅 — use this as a checklist: