Playbook · 5 min read
DNS without the panic
DNS is a switchboard for your domain. Once you know what the five records actually do, every support article on the internet suddenly makes sense.
DNS is just a phone book
When someone types your domain, their browser asks DNS: "what's the actual address?" DNS hands back an IP. That's the whole job. Everything else is just different lookups for different purposes (web, mail, verification).
DNS isn't fragile. It's just unfamiliar. Once you know what each record does, the panic stops.
The five records you'll actually touch
A record. Points your domain at a web server's IP address. The classic "make my website appear at yourbusiness.com" record.
CNAME. Points one name at another name instead of an IP. Common for www pointing at the bare domain, or for builder URLs like yoursite.somebuilder.com.
MX. Tells the world where your email lives. Mail providers give you the exact values to paste.
TXT. A note attached to your domain. Used for ownership verification (Google, Microsoft, analytics) and for email security (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
TTL. Not really a record, more a setting on each one. It tells the world how long they can cache an answer before asking again. Higher = stable. Lower = faster to change.
Lower the TTL before you change anything important
If you know you're about to migrate mail or move hosting next weekend, drop the TTL on the affected records to 300 seconds (5 minutes) a day or two beforehand. When the cut-over happens, the world picks up the new values almost immediately instead of being stuck on the old ones for hours.
The two changes that scare people, and how to do them calmly
Pointing your domain at a new website. Update the A record (and the www CNAME if you have one). Wait. That's it. Old visitors might see the old site for a few minutes; new visitors hit the new one.
Switching email providers. Add the new MX records before removing the old ones, set them to a higher priority number (lower priority numbers win), then flip the priorities once the new inbox is receiving mail. Less downtime, less drama.
Mail at the same place as the domain
No copy-pasting MX records. The provider wires it up for you.
When something looks broken, check propagation before you change anything else
DNS changes don't always reach everyone at the same time. Before you assume something's wrong, paste your domain into a propagation checker and see if the new value is showing up around the world. If half the planet sees the new record and half doesn't, it's just propagation; wait an hour.
What to do next
Keep domain and DNS in one place
It's a lot calmer when the registrar, the DNS, and the mail all live together.
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