Does Google Domains support CNAME-like functionality at the zone apex?

Solution 1:

No.

The full list of records supported by Google Domains can be found at:

https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3290350

There is no 'ALIAS' or 'ANAME' or any other similar pseudo-CNAME supported.

Please note that the type of record mentioned by the Heroku documentation is not an actual CNAME, but rather an A record that is auto-updated to match some arbitrary external A record. Amazon Route 53, as well as several other DNS providers offer this, and call it various things - some call it ALIAS or ANAME etc - but it is not an actual RR type.

Google domains does support a thing called "synthetic records", however AFAIK it would not help you with Heroku.

https://support.google.com/domains/answer/6069273

Solution 2:

No, but you can have Google Domains forward your root domain to your www CNAME.

First create a CNAME in the Custom Records section pointing www to yourapp.herokuapp.com.

Then in the Synthetic Records section, choose Subdomain forward, enter @ in the subdomain field and www.yourdomain.com in the Destination URL field.

Save those and you're done.

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Solution 3:

Cloudflare ended up working for me (free plan), check out http://www.higherorderheroku.com/articles/cloudflare-dns-heroku/. Their onboarding is great, they walk you through changing your nameserver and automatically apply some magic ("CNAME flattening") when you set a CNAME record for the root domain.