Verifying a domain name

OpenAPI   |  gRPC

If you already own a domain name (such as example.com), and you want to use this domain name as the name of your Cloud Endpoints service, you must prove that you are authorized to use the domain. If you don't have your own domain name, you can use a domain managed by Google, in which case you don't have to verify ownership.

This page describes how to verify your ownership of a domain name that you want to use for your API running on Google Cloud.

Service name requirements

Typically, you configure your Endpoints service name to be the same as your domain name. Endpoints has the following requirements for the service name:

• The maximum length of the domain name is 253 characters.
• The domain name must start with a lowercase letter.
• Each section in the domain name, which is delimited by dots, has the following requirements:
  • Must start with a lowercase letter.
  • Must not end with a dash.
  • The remaining characters can be lowercase letters, numbers, or dashes.
  • The maximum length is 63 characters.

Verifying ownership

Only the user account that has verified ownership of the domain name can deploy the Endpoints configuration initially. After that first deployment, you can grant the more restrictive Service Config Editor role to a user, group, or service account. See Granting and revoking access to the API for more information.

To verify that you own the domain name:

1. Go to Google Webmaster Central.

2. Click Add a Property.

3. Enter your domain name.

   Important: Don't include protocol identifiers such as http:// or https://. Enter only the domain name, such as example.com or a subdomain, such as api.example.com.

4. Click Continue.

5. On the Verifications methods page, click the Alternate methods tab.

6. Click Domain name provider and select your provider from the list.

   

7. Follow the directions provided on the Webmaster Central tab, and then click Verify.

Important: The domain name verification is automatically re-confirmed about every 30 days. If you remove the verification string from your DNS settings, you lose the ability to change the configuration within the Google Cloud console. However, if this happens, the serving setup for the domain doesn't change and the app continues to serve over that domain.

Delegating to developers

After you are verified as a domain owner in Web Central, you can optionally delegate access to subdomains to developers within the organization. This allows those developers to create Endpoints APIs without having to verify domain ownership themselves.

For more information on delegating, see Managing users, owners, and permissions.

Configuring your domain for SSL

You might want to configure your domain for SSL. Note that some types of authentication require SSL.

What's next

• Serving an API from your domain name