Every registered domain name has a minimum of two Name Server records that show where it is hosted i.e. by using these records you direct your Internet domain to the servers of a specific web hosting company. In this way, you have both your site and your emails handled by the same provider. On the lower level of the Domain Name System (DNS), nevertheless, there are a number of other records, for example A and MX. The first one reveals which server manages the site for a given Internet domain and is always an IP address (123.123.123.123), while the latter reveals which server handles the emails and is always an alphanumeric string (mx1.domain.com). For instance, whenever you type a domain in your browser, your request is forwarded through the global DNS system to the provider whose NS records the domain uses and from there you could be directed to the servers of another provider if you have set an IP address of the latter as an A record for your Internet domain. Having independent records for the site and the e-mails suggests that you may have your website and your e-mails with 2 different providers if you would like.

Custom MX and A Records in Web Hosting

If you have a web hosting account from our company and you wish to move either your website or your e-mails to another company, it's going to take you literally just two mouse clicks to do so. Our Hepsia CP provides an easy-to-use DNS Records tool, where all your domain names and subdomains will be listed alphabetically and you'll be able to see and change the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you decide to use a different email provider and they ask you to create more MX records than the standard 2, it won't take more than a couple of mouse clicks either to add them. You may also set different latency for these records and the lower the latency, the higher the priority a particular MX record will have. The propagation of each record that you change or set up is not going to take more than a few hours and if necessary, you will also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, that reveals how long a record will stay active after it's changed or deleted.