in today's video I want to talk about
everything that you need to know about
DNS records for managing websites and
domains this is going to be a purely
practical look at DNS records so whether
you are a web designer or IT person or
anyone who has anything to do with
managing a website or domains this video
is for you since it's a purely practical
approach I don't want to talk about any
of the technical minutia or details
about that I just want to talk
specifically about what you need to know
the important things about managing DNS
records so you can better manage your
domains and your website's I ran a web
design agency for many years and in that
time I built and launched over 200
websites for my clients now with each of
those 200 websites
means 200 different domains with 200
different configurations and so I've
seen most anything that you could expect
to see when it comes to DNS record
configurations and so today I want to
help you navigate DNS records knowing
everything that you need to know from a
practical standpoint so you can better
manage your websites and your clients
websites Oh before I forget there is a
really informative companion piece
article to this video that you should
check out link I'm sharing here and also
in the description it's at AFRICOM slash
blog it's an article all about
everything you need to know about DNS
records so check that out also so today
what are we going to talk about well
we're gonna be talking about name
servers which are the records that
control everything we're also gonna be
talking specifically about different
types of DNS records from the records
that affect your website to email
related records and all the other
important ones in between we're gonna
talk about what records you need to know
about what the most and what they're
most common settings are so you can have
an idea of if someone's telling you
their email is set up with Gmail or
Google suite
we're office 365 you'll know what the
typical setup is for those we're also
going to be talking about big issues
that you may run into and how you can
avoid them so like for example how you
can avoid taking down someone's email or
their website yeah I want to help you
avoid all of that we're going to talk
about different DNS providers as well as
different tools to help you manage all
of this some that you may not be
familiar with but they're they're a
bunch of free tools that can really help
you and make your life a lot easier and
we're going to cover that all coming up
shortly so starting out what is DNS what
are DNS records well put simply for
every website domain you own there are
different DNS records that help people
navigate knowing where a website is
knowing where the email is hosted
basically everything related to that
domain is that information is contained
in the DNS records and it basically
points people in the right direction you
know put put simply DNS records point
emails to the right email servers it
points people looking for the website
for the domain to the right web servers
and so on there are different categories
of DNS records and we're going to touch
upon the important ones here but they
range from mail records to website
records to other records informational
records and we're gonna touch on kind of
all the important ones coming up shortly
typically there are a few components to
each record and now I just want to show
you real quick just an example of a DNS
record and this is using one of my
favorite tools it is called MX toolbox
com
it is a lookup tool that helps you find
different DNS records related to a
domain so if I didn't know for example
what my or clients mail records were I
could look them up and this way I can
ensure that if I'm bringing a site live
of theirs I know what their records are
and I in case I don't want to change
anything or lose anything I can make
sure to note all of this so the first
record that I want to talk about today
is the NS record which is short for a
name server when you're thinking about
DNS records it all starts with the name
server record because this is where all
your DNS records will live the name
server is where DNS records are all
stored if you want to change any
specific entries like your website
related records or your email server
related records you have to do it at the
website where your name servers are
pointing to and where you have an
account there so for example typically
if you buy a domain wherever you buy the
domain they will usually host the name
servers at their website for you and you
can keep it there
you can keep your name service there so
like if you buy a domain with GoDaddy
you will typically see that your name
servers are pointing to GoDaddy and in
your GoDaddy admin console you'll be
able to change your different DNS
records your website records your mail
records and all that but if you don't
want GoDaddy or whoever you registered
your domain with hosting your name
server records you can change those and
there are typically the name server
records are two lines it's like usually
NS one or NS two dot your website that's
the name server com typically like for
example GoDaddy's common set up is named
NS something dot domain control.com name
server records for cloud player which is
my preferred DNS provider is like a name
dot NS CloudFlare com
there are a bunch of different ones
there are always a minimum of
to name server records sometimes rarely
there are more than two name server
records rarely I don't think I've ever
seen actually less than two name server
records so typically you'll see two name
server records and it'll look something
like what I've shown you on this screen
here by the way just quick shout out to
this tool MX toolbox com if you are ever
trying to look up different domain
related records for your domain if you
don't know for example where your name
servers are pointing to or what your
email related records are or website or
later records are you can look them up
using this tool it's so helpful I have
this bookmark I use this constantly and
if you are managing one or a thousand
websites I recommend checking this out
so if you've never touched your name
server records
chances are it's wherever you registered
your domain originally from and so you
can log in where you registered your
website and you can change your name
servers there if you want to change them
to something else now let's talk about a
records a records are basically simply
related to your website you have your
website name and then you have your IP
address associated with that so when
someone types in google.com for example
the Internet is looking up the a record
for that domain for Google com
it's seeing that the Associated IP
address where the web server is for that
is what you see below starting with 1 7
2 . so on but thankfully and so we don't
have to type into the internet that IP
address we just type in google.com and
the internet looks up the a record and
sends us to that particular
corresponding IP address awesome now the
two fields that you'll see when looking
at a records you have your domain and
your IP address commonly when you are
having a website and you have just a
simple site your domain a record will be
like the act symbol and that
just means that it's your root domain
when you're managing your DNS and
editing your records you can actually
have multiple different a records but
you can only have an a record related to
one IP address for your domain so you're
gonna have so like in this example the a
record for google.com is this IP address
below but you can also have different IP
addresses associated with websites that
are subdomains of this so like if you
have like as a good example
docs.google.com there can be a different
IP address for that so when someone goes
to Google Docs they can go to
potentially a different IP address or
they'll go to the same one and they can
just get routed to a different web page
but you could conceivably have different
web hosts hosting different websites
related to different subdomains on your
site if you wanted to and with your DNS
records and editing them you can send
people to different locations for that
there are two fields with your a records
you have your name and then you have the
IP address the name is your either your
root level domain which is usually
signified by an @ symbol if it's just
your plain domain it could be any sub
domain whatever you want like in our
example here docs for google it would be
Doc's
would be the name Menma corresponding IP
address where our web server is located
now the IP address field will point to
wherever your website hosting servers
are and they can be anywhere you can
have website servers on like WP engine
or GoDaddy or Squarespace wherever you
want and they don't even have to be
related to where domain is registered or
where DNS records live it can be
completely separate it doesn't matter
but you have to have a website hosting
set up somewhere else that you're going
to be pointing the IP address to related
to your
one important thing is if you are just
launching a website you need to at the
website level launch the website first
so like take it out of staging and bring
it to this live stage before you change
your a record so if I'm launching a
website and I want to do it simply where
I just want to change the a record from
what it's whatever it's currently
pointing to it whether it's an
under-construction page or an old
website and I want to change the IP
address to my new site that is built on
a different web server I'm gonna wait
until I launch the website on the web
server and then once that's launched
then I'll change the a record for the
main website and I'll change the IP
address to wherever my web server is
this is very important because if you
just set your IP address as some host
like WP engine for example if your site
isn't live and set up as launched on
that server then people are just going
to end up getting to a 404 page because
your hosting provider whether it's WP
engine or whoever else they're not going
to know that people coming to this
domain for this I decide coming to this
IP address for this domain they're not
going to know where to send people
because if they don't have a website
with that name that's launched anywhere
on their directory I just it's just not
how its set up so make sure you launch
your website first at your web host
level wherever it is before you change
the a record and change that IP address
to wherever your hosting is that's an
important tip to remember next I want to
talk about MX records MX records R
stands for mail exchange it's related to
email so MX records are related to your
email hosting provider and you for your
email hosting you'll typically see that
you have a mare from two to potentially
five MX records in your DNS
for managing your email and pointing
people to where your email server is if
you're using services like Gmail or
office 365 or Soho for hosting your
email you're going to be using basically
the same MX records as everyone else at
those services so most people who have
their email hosted with G suite all have
the same MX records people who are using
Zoho for their email hosting have the
same records and people who are using
exchange typically have similar MX
records although they can have unique
configurations so with your different MX
records there are a few different fields
to be mindful of there's the name field
there's mail server
there's priority and there's TTL the
name is typically just your website
domain your mail server this is this
will be different for each particular
entry that you have for Zoho as an
example there are gonna have three
entries it's gonna be MX dot Zoho com MX
- Joe calm and MX 3.0 calm entries for
things like G sweet are like they're
like usually five of them like alt one
dot L dot ASP MX google.com doesn't
matter the thing is with all of these
you can look up the MX records pretty
easily if you just go and search for G
sweet MX records you will find that
entire list after a mail server there's
priority this number can range from zero
to sixty six thousand or something like
that but typically I've seen mostly you
have priority of one ten twenty or fifty
occasionally you'll see a priority level
of zero
I think that's typically I've seen that
with exchange and then there's TTL which
stands for time-to-live usually I just
got that as automatic and it's fine next
let's talk about cname records so cname
record
basically are what we use related to
redirect so you'll have a name and a
destination those are the two fields for
C names now typically I'll set up a
cname for www and point that to the @
symbol which is for the root domain so
if someone wants to go to WWE my site
com they'll get redirected to my main
website because I don't want there to be
a separate or any confusion between the
WWN on WWE version of the site you may
also see that if you are setting up
email with like exchange for example
you're gonna end up adding a bunch of
cname records for things like mail dot
your domain and that's going to be
directed to a particular place mobile s
IP and a couple other cname records for
these particular names pointing to
places related to your domain that's
pretty common for exchange email in
particular and that's really C names in
a nutshell C names are redirects and
tell people where to go related to a
domain or particular subdomains that you
have Oh lastly one also useful common
record to have as a cname is an asterisk
symbol which is a catch-all so if
someone goes to one two three four five
dot yourwebsite.com
whatever you can get them redirected to
the main page of your website and that
for that value you would just set it as
the @ symbol last tip is I keep saying
the @ symbol which is a signifies the
root domain some dns providers for
whatever reason don't recognize the @
symbol and you just have to type out
your root domain your website com
whatever it is the last record type that
I want to talk about real quick is the
txt record type now txt records are used
for a wide range of things
a very wide range of functions but they
typically just associate arbitrary text
with your domain they're used for things
ranging from like verifying your domain
with Google that you own your domain or
any other third-party service
txt records can be used for related to
verifying your domain with an email
automation service to help
deliverability so it can be a wide range
there are two fields for txt records
there's name and content the name can be
anything related to your domain it can
be blank it could just be your domain
and then there is content and the
content varies widely it can be
something like MS verify google verify
one two three four five a bunch of
string of numbers whatever or if it's
for email authentication of verification
it could be something like V equals SPF
include : domain something like that and
that's txt records in a nutshell next up
I want to talk about some pitfalls to
avoid and some recommendations I have on
tools
so for pitfalls to avoid first when
you're launching your website with a new
TNS make sure that you have all your
existing websites DNS records set up in
that new DNS provider so if you are
going to change your name servers to
have them point to your particular
service of choice like if your client
had named servers and GoDaddy and you
want to be managing the clients name
server records in your cloud flower
account as an example you can do that
but first you need to ensure that your
clients domain is in your DNS and set up
and has all of their existing entries
there so that when you change the name
server records on their end to point to
your name server that they don't lose
anything because if you point someone's
name servers to you or anywhere else
that destination has to already have
the DNS records setup otherwise your
client is going to lose everything
because when you change the name servers
to your provider your and people are
going to try and email your client if
you don't have those MX records set up
in your DNS provider then the emails are
gonna get bounced when people go to the
website the it's they're gonna see a 404
or does not exist and your client is
going to be freaking out
one pro tip I love CloudFlare so if you
are going to manage your DNS and Dinos
for your clients if you have a bunch of
them I recommend having everything
together in the ecosystem within
CloudFlare it is free for particular
uses they have a free tier if you're
just doing simple DNS management which
for this case we are and that's all you
need you can have an account with all of
your domains all your client domains
just make sure that your those domains
are pointing to your CloudFlare dns and
then you can manage everything in
CloudFlare one nice thing about
CloudFlare is once you add a new domain
to CloudFlare CloudFlare where will
automatically suck from the internet all
the DNS records all of that website and
populate them in the CloudFlare account
so if i were to add a add google.com or
whatever into my CloudFlare account
CloudFlare will suck out from the
internet every DNS record for google and
throw it into that CloudFlare account
and then once I were to change
Google's name servers why not and point
to my CloudFlare account then everything
would be set up and I won't lose
anything if you're not using CloudFlare
the best thing you can do and it's not
foolproof is using MX toolbox to look up
different DNS records now with MX
toolbox you can look up different name
server records you can look up a records
you can look up MX records and see where
all of that is but you
can't get everything so if you you can't
get for example different cname records
without knowing exactly what the cname
records are you can't get and things
like that and so that games up being a
pain and so if you're trying to change
the name servers from wherever they're
existing to another name server I
recommend having an account with
CloudFlare and doing it because it's
free and just so much easier so if I
were in CloudFlare and I were just to
add in a domain of product dies com
I see all I'll get all of the records
automatically pulled up into CloudFlare
and then I would change the name servers
to point to my CloudFlare account in
this case they are something NSTIC
CloudFlare com
there are two of them and that's how
that would be set up if you are
launching a website and all you want to
do is launch a website and you want to
keep it incredibly simple all you have
to do all you have to do is change the a
record to point to the new site and
nothing will be lost if you just change
in a record you're not gonna lose email
just the website is gonna point from the
old IP address to the new IP address
just make sure though that you first
launch the website as I was mentioning
before on the web server and so that it
points to the right place when the IP
address changes last thing I want to do
is talk about my workflow for launching
a new website for a client can be for a
client it could be for yourself you
could be launching your own brand new
website and want to make sure that
everything goes off without a hitch and
there are no problems or interruptions
this is for you so there are two real
ways that you can do this you can either
do the name server change like I
mentioned before or you can just do the
a record change so I'm going to walk you
through each of them now so if I'm going
to do the name server
that we're let's say my client has or I
have my name servers and my domain all
in GoDaddy but I want to manage them all
in CloudFlare the first thing I would do
is I would log in to my cloud floor
account I will add the domain that I
want to have in CloudFlare then
automatically all of the related name
server records are going to be populated
into my CloudFlare account from the
cname so the a records the MX txt and so
on great now I have that all and cloud
player next what I'm going to do I am
going to want to launch the website I'll
go into my web server where my hosting
account wherever my website is I'll take
it from staging to live and now the
website is launched but no one can see
it because the a records are not
pointing to it then what I'll do in I'll
go back to my cloud flower account where
my name server where I want my name
service to eventually point and then
I'll change the a record and have that a
record point to the IP address of my
website server wherever that is and so
if it's like WP engine I'll have it
point to my WP engine IP address if it's
a Hostgator or GoDaddy I'll have it
point to that it's all fine then the
last step that I'll do is I will change
the name servers I'll need my clients
access to this or if I it's my domain
I'll just log into my GoDaddy account if
you have clients who kind of may be
reluctant to give you their user name
and password for their GoDaddy account
as an example they have what's called
delegate access and so they can give you
access to a specific domain if they want
to and that can be great because they
can give you access to their one domain
you can then go in and change the name
servers from GoDaddy's domain control
name servers then point them to your
specific CloudFlare name servers and
then once you do that wait a few minutes
a couple hours could be up to a day some
and then you will see a magical change
where the nameservers and everything is
going to be pointing to your specific
CloudFlare account in your dns including
the a record and now your new website is
live victory and that's all great
that's method one but if you want to
keep it incredibly simple and just to
keep it a two-step process for launching
a website you launch the website on the
web server end you know launch your
website take it out of staging and
production and make it live great then
you get access to your clients
DNS wherever that is its GoDaddy you can
get delegate access or wherever else
just ask them for their credentials and
get that and then login and then change
the a record to your web host and then
wait and wait and then the website is
live and that's all that there is to it
as a best practice I like to launch a
website typically at the end of the day
at night or on the weekend kind of when
it's a less risky time from a business
perspective to be launching the website
and potentially having issues not that
if you follow all these steps you
shouldn't have any issues but just in
case I want to make sure that there's
nothing going wrong or nothing that we
overlooked so I especially with like
sites where they're very financially
important like an e-commerce site I'll
try and launch those websites overnight
like 10:00 p.m. local time just as an
example no matter what when I'm
launching a website I need to coordinate
this with the client make sure that they
know that we're launching the website
and get them confirmation that they know
this is happening and once the site is
live I get them to confirm that they can
see it live and then it works for
and let them know hey the websites live
check it out let me know what you think
sometimes though if you launch a website
you may see it live before or after your
client does this is just because of
caching and propagation it can take a
while for the website related changes to
hit back to the servers that you're
pinging and you just don't end up seeing
them as soon as other people do so it
can take so like for example I I've had
situations where I can see a website is
live but it would take the clients a
couple more hours up to a day sometimes
longer for them to actually see the
website is live and this has been a real
purely practical look at everything you
need to know about DNS records from web
website records to mail records tools
you should use please check out MX
toolbox com book market and if you're
looking for a better way to bring sites
live and manage your and TNS Iraq
definitely recommend CloudFlare as a
product they're free tear is great
there's nothing to lose I'd give that a
try as well lastly if you haven't yet
please like this video subscribe to our
channel we have a lot of other great
videos related to web design marketing
link building and everything kind of in
between and if you have any questions at
all please feel free to comment below or
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thanks
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