DNS Records, Plainly Explained

What Each Record Type Does

An A record maps your domain name to an IPv4 address, the numerical address of the server where your site lives. When someone types your domain into a browser, the DNS system looks up the A record to find that server. An AAAA record does the same job for IPv6, the newer and longer address format. Most domains carry both. A CNAME record points one hostname to another hostname rather than to an IP address directly. It is commonly used for subdomains: you might point shop.example.com to the hostname provided by your e-commerce platform. A CNAME cannot coexist with other record types on the same hostname, which is why it is not used on the root domain in standard DNS. An MX record tells email servers where to deliver mail for your domain. Without a correctly configured MX record, email sent to your domain will not arrive. You can set multiple MX records with priority values so that if one mail server is unavailable, delivery falls back to the next. A TXT record holds arbitrary text and serves several purposes. Its most common uses are domain verification, proving to a service that you control the domain, and email authentication. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are all stored as TXT entries. A restaurant owner setting up a new domain for the first time will typically add TXT records when connecting email or verifying ownership with analytics and search tools. An NS record declares which nameservers are authoritative for your domain. Changing NS records is how you delegate DNS to a different provider, one of the two methods for connecting a domain to hosting covered on the NS vs A Record page.

When You Need Each Record

Situation	Record type
Point your domain to a web server	A (IPv4) and AAAA (IPv6)
Point a subdomain to another service	CNAME
Receive email on your domain	MX
Verify domain ownership or set up email security	TXT
Delegate your domain to a hosting provider's nameservers	NS

If you are unsure which records your setup requires, the wizard on this page asks what services you are connecting and generates the record list for your specific situation.

DNS changes take time to propagate. Most updates take effect within a few hours, but full global propagation can take up to 48 hours depending on TTL settings and resolver caches.