The word “hosting” does not describe a particular service, but several services that provide a variety of functions to a domain. Having a site and emails, as an illustration, are two independent services although in the general case they come together, so a lot of people see them as one single service. In reality, each domain has a number of DNS records called A and MX, which show the server that handles each specific service - the first one is a numeric IP address, that defines where the website for the domain is loaded from, while the latter is an alphanumeric string, which shows the server that handles the emails for the domain address. For instance, an A record would be 123.123.123.123 and an MX record would be mx1.domain.com. Whenever you open a site or send an e-mail, the global DNS servers are contacted to check the name servers that a domain has and the traffic/message is first forwarded to that company. When you have custom records on their end, the web browser request or the email will then be sent to the correct server. The concept behind employing separate records is that the two services work with different web protocols and you can have your site hosted by one provider and the emails by another.

Custom MX and A Records in Web Hosting

If you have a web hosting account from our company and you would like to switch either your site or your e-mails to a different provider, it will take you literally only two clicks to do this. Our Hepsia Control Panel offers an easy-to-use DNS Records tool, where all your domains and subdomains are going to be listed alphabetically and you'll be able to see and change the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you choose to use a different e-mail provider and they ask you to create more MX records than the default two, it won't take more than a couple of clicks either to add them. Also you can set different latency for these records and the lower the latency, the greater the priority a given MX record is going to have. The propagation of every record that you change or set up will not take more than several hours and if needed, you'll also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, that shows how long a record will remain active after it's modified or deleted.

Custom MX and A Records in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you buy a semi-dedicated server plan from our company, you'll be able to view and update the A and MX records for every one of the domains or subdomains you host inside the account. The Hepsia CP, which you will get to take care of the account, offers an sophisticated, though easy-to-use tool where all hosts will be listed in alphabetical order and you'll be able to change their records with no more than several mouse clicks. If you have to set up a new record, it'll be just as simple - pick the domain/subdomain, enter the IP address or mail server record and you are going to be ready. You'll also be able to set different priority for the MX records that you create in case you decide to use a third-party e-mail provider and they ask you to create additional records aside from the two default ones. If you ever experience any issues, you will find a comprehensive Help section with videos where you can see first-hand how to create or edit any record.