DNS records explained: A, CNAME, MX, TXT and TTL

If nameservers say who is in charge, DNS records say what. They are simple lines, each pointing part of the domain somewhere. These are the ones you will meet in the panel.

Record	What it does
A	Points a name at an IP address. This is what puts the site online.
AAAA	The same, for IPv6 addresses.
CNAME	Makes one name an alias of another. Common on www and with external services that ask you to "point at our name".
MX	Says which server receives the domain's e-mail. Get it wrong and the site works while e-mail vanishes.
TXT	Free text. This is where SPF, DKIM and DMARC live, along with the ownership checks Google and others ask for.
NS	Delegates part of the domain to other nameservers.
SRV	Points to specific services with a port - used by voice and chat systems.

TTL: how long the world keeps the answer

Every record has a TTL, in seconds. It is how long other servers may keep the answer before asking again. A TTL of 14400 means four hours - and it also means a change of yours can take four hours to reach anyone who had already asked.

1	About to change something important? Lower that record's TTL to 300 seconds in advance - hours before, not at the moment of the change.

2	Make the change. With the TTL already low, the world picks it up in minutes.

3	Once it settles, raise the TTL again. A permanently low TTL means more lookups and slightly slower resolution.

Mistakes that keep happening

1	Creating a CNAME where another record with the same name exists. You cannot: a CNAME does not coexist with anything else on the same name.

2	Having two SPF records. A domain may only have one - two cancel each other out and mail starts landing in spam.

3	Touching MX "just to test". Mail arriving in that window can be lost for good.

4	Expecting instant results. If you just changed it and still see the old value, it is probably right - you are seeing a cached answer.

The right panel is the one holding the nameservers. Editing records in the wrong place is wasted work, and it feels like "DNS is broken". Check first which nameservers the domain uses .

Not sure which record you need? Tell us what you are trying to make work - a website, an external mail service, a Google verification - and we will give you the exact line to create.

Send us what you need to point and we will hand you the record.

Open a support ticket

Records this article does not cover

The zone editor also creates SRV, CAA and AAAA records, and each has a page of its own.

More DNS records in depth

Categories

Categories