The Domain Name System (DNS) changes easily-readable URLs into IP addresses. But how do you make sure a URL is pointing to the right IP address? Before people can find your website, you have to define your site’s DNS records.

The most basic DNS record links the domain to an IP address. There are other types of DNS records that make sure your email gets delivered and allow you to set up subdomains and other services.

This article covers the basics of DNS records, whether you’re using shared hosting, VPS hosting, or a dedicated server.

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What Information Is in Each DNS Record?

Each DNS record contains four main fields: Name, TTL, Type, and Data.

Name: This field allows you to append a prefix (or more accurately, a suffix, since domain names are technically read from right to left) to the main domain name. If you’re adding a record for a subdomain, such as shop.example.com, you would enter “shop” in this field.
TTL: TTL stands for Time to Live. This is the time, in seconds, that it will take for any changes to the DNS record to go into effect. With a TTL of 3600, all changes to this example record should be refreshed every 3600 seconds (one hour). If you are expecting to make DNS changes to your website, you may want to lower the TTL ahead of time to ensure Nameservers are checking for fresh DNS records often.

Note

Some third party nameservers and resolvers may not enforce your set TTL due to time minimums/maximums that can override your set configuration.

Type: The DNS record type determines the part of your domain each record will change. The most important types to get you up and running are covered below.
Data: The data field contains different information depending on the type of record you are creating. In your Liquid Web account, selecting different record types gives you the data fields you need to fill out. This makes it easy to know what information you’ll need.

Types of DNS Records

There are many types of DNS records, but these five are what you’ll need to get started. If you are working with services that require other DNS records, like Cloudflare, the service will usually provide special instructions.

A and AAAA records link a domain to an IP address (IPv4 for A, IPv6 for AAAA). Without these records, your URL won’t point to your server’s IP address and won’t show your website. This is also called “not resolving.” In addition to the main domain name, you will likely add an A record for your hostname and any subdomains which resolve to a different server. The Data field of an A record will always be an IP address.
ALIAS records function much like CNAME records listed below. However, where CNAME records are used for sub-domains, ALIAS records are used to point the main domain name (or apex domain, like example.com) to a host name, like myapp.forinstance.com. Nameservers that support ALIAS records will then resolve the subsequent IP address of the hostname to direct traffic correctly.
CNAME records are aliases that point an entry back to the main domain. If a browser requests a page from that subdomain, the server will route the request to the proper directory. If you frequently create records for subdomains, you may wish to add a wildcard CNAME to cover any requests for subdomains without their own records. You can create a wildcard by entering an asterisk in the Name field.
MX records determine how mail is handled for your domain. When creating an MX record, Data will contain two fields: Priority and Exchange.
- Priority always will be a number. Mail will be routed to the lowest numbered (highest priority) MX entry. Use the settings recommended by your control panel or email provider.
- Exchange is the server that mail will be directed to.
NS records specify the nameservers for the domain. Remember that the authoritative nameservers are specified at the registrar — if a WHOIS search returns different nameservers than what you’ve entered here, your entries in your Liquid Web account will have no effect.