DNS Service FAQ
  1. What services do you provide?
  2. How do I get started? What nameservers do I use?
  3. What are your DNS policies?
  4. What are your terms of service?
  5. How reliable are your servers?
  6. Where can I get unlimited free DNS?
  7. Are there any limits to what you provide?

    DNS:

  8. What is DNS?
  9. Where can I learn more about DNS?

    Domain Management:

  10. What can I control via the DNS Domain Manager?
  11. What is an "A" record?
  12. What is an "MX" record?
  13. What is a "CNAME" record?
  14. What is a WebForward™?
  15. What is a MailForward™?
  16. How do I create a default MailForward™ for my domain?
  17. How do I MailForward™ the same mailbox to multiple recipients?
  18. Do you support round-robin DNS?
  19. Why can't I have the same domain name in multiple record types?
  20. Why can't I delete the "A" record for the root name of my domain?
  21. How many records can I create for my domain name?
What services do you provide?

We host reliable DNS servers, e-mail servers for email forwarding, and web servers for URL forwarding and parked domains. We provide a convenient single-location, integrated, web-based domain manager for configuring all of the services provided.

How do I get started? What nameservers do I use?

Here's a simple step by step set of instructions on how to get started:
   - you must buy or already own a domain name from a registrar.
   - sign up for the service when checking out at our site.
   - you will get your password via email
   - log in to your account
   - a pair of nameservers will be assigned to you
   - contact your registrar and tell them to change the nameservers for your domain
   - wait 3 days for the change to take place

What are your policies?

Check out our policies page.

What are your terms of service?

Check out our terms page.

How reliable are your servers?

We have never experienced a DNS, web or e-mail outage in its history. Even still, we are planning improvements to our network that should make us the most robust DNS provider on the internet.

Where can I get unlimited free DNS?

Granite Canyon is the most well known free DNS provider. They will provide DNS, free of cost, for as many domains as you have. They are a little harder to use, and their servers aren't quite as reliable, but they are a great, completely free DNS solution.

Are there any limits to what you provide?

The retail pricing is:

* There is a bandwidth limitation per domain per year of 200 megabytes of total data transferred through our servers. Usage that counts towards your quota includes bytes transferred during DNS queries, delivery of parked home pages, delivery of URL forwarding information, and delivery of forwarded e-mails. If you do not use WebPark, WebForward and MailForward, then only DNS queries will count towards your total usage.

If a single domain goes over 200 MB of transfer during a year, then it counts as TWO domains, if it goes over 400MB, then it counts as three, etc. Usually DNS hits are cached, so even the busiest sites won't go over the 200 MB limit. 200 MB should get you about 1,000,000 DNS queries. A typical site uses 5 MB per year of DNS bandwidth.

There is no limit to the number of subdomains or records that your zone may contain.

What is DNS?

DNS is the technology that ties text-based domain names to the numeric IP Addresses that are necessary to locate the domain's server on the net.

Where can I learn more about DNS?

The DNS Resources Directory is an excellent place to start, containing a good list of DNS information.

ISC BIND is the standard in DNS server software and is distributed for free at isc.org.

Nominum offers courses in DNS fundamentals, configuration and management.

What can I control via the Domain Manager?

If you have an ISP that will serve your domain, you can assign "A" records so that visitors to your web site will connect to the web server that your ISP has assigned to you, and "MX" records so people who send you e-mail will connect to your ISP's mail server.

If you aren't using an ISP for your domain, you can tell our servers to park your domain on the web with a "Coming Soon!" introductory web page. Also, you can redirect visitors at your domain's web page to any other web page of your choosing, using a WebForward™. You can additionally create MailForwards™ that will allow you to receive any e-mail directed at your domain in the mailbox at your ISP, or any free mailbox, like hotmail, yahoo, etc.

What is an "A" record?

An "A" record, also called an "address" record, ties a domain name to an IP address. If there is a server on the internet that is configured to handle traffic for this domain, you can enter the name of the domain (like "www.yourdomain.com") and the IP address of the server (like "209.81.71.236"), and almost immediately, anyone surfing to that domain connects to the correct server.

What is an "MX" record?

"MX" ("Mail eXchanger") records are used to specify what server on the internet is running e-mail software that is configured to handle e-mail for your domain. If you want your ISP to handle routing the e-mail for your domain to you, you need to specify the domain name or IP address of your ISP's mail server. In addition, you can specify the rank of each mail server when you have more than one. Make sure your ISP knows that you're using their servers to route your domain's email, or all your e-mail will "return to sender"!

If you want to use our servers instead of your ISP's, don't specify any "MX" records, just configure our simple MailForward service!

What is a "CNAME" record?

"CNAME" records, short for "Canonical Name", create an alias from a domain name to another. You could create an alias from "yahoo.mydomain.com" to "www.yahoo.com", and every reference to "yahoo.mydomain.com" would go to the other location, regardless how yahoo changed their IP addresses! Be careful, however; CNAMEs won't work everywhere. If you create an MX record, and the name used for the mail server was defined using a CNAME, you might lose e-mail!

What is a WebForward™?

A WebForward™ creates a hidden "A" record pointing to our web server. When our web server gets a request for your site from a visitor, our web server is designed to forward the visitor to the URL of your choosing.

What is a MailForward™?

A MailForward™ creates a hidden "MX" record pointing to our email server. When we receive an email on your behalf, our email server is designed to forward the email to the address of your choosing.

Expert tip: If you use "*" for the new email address (or just leave it blank), then all email going to your domain will get sent to the destination address, if it doesn't match another email address you've explicitly specified. Also, specifying the same new email address twice with different destinations will cause a copy of the email to get sent to both destinations!

How do I create a default MailForward™ for my domain?

If you use "*" for the new email address (or just leave it blank), then all email going to your domain will get sent to the destination address, if it doesn't match another email address you've explicitly specified.

How do I MailForward™ the same mailbox to multiple recipients?

Specifying the same new email address twice with different destinations will cause a copy of the email to get sent to both destinations.

Does your service support round-robin DNS?

We sure do! Simply create 2 "A" records with the same domain name and different IP addresses, and your visitors will be load balanced between the two servers.

Why can't I have the same domain name in multiple record types?

Because WebForward™ needs a special "A" record to function correctly. Also, CNAMEs are mutually exclusive of "A" records, since a domain name can't be both an IP address AND an alias simultaneously.

Why can't I delete the "A" record for the root name of my domain?

All domains must have an "A" record for the root of the domain. Believe it or not, omitting this "A" record may prevent some mail servers from delivering your email correctly. WebParking or WebForwarding the root of your domain is sufficient, because both of these create hidden "A" records pointing to our servers.

If you're really looking to delete this record, try changing the IP address to "0.0.0.0" instead, it's functionally equivalent.

How many records can I create for my domain name?

As many as you want!