Adding or changing a DNS record
Most external services — a shop platform, a mail provider, a Google verification — ask you to add a single record to your domain. This is what you need for that.
Which record for which purpose
- A — points your domain or a subdomain at the IP address of a server.
- CNAME — points one name at another name. Use it for subdomains that an external service manages itself. On the bare domain (without www) this is usually not possible.
- MX — decides where your email arrives. Entirely separate from where your website runs.
- TXT — free text. In practice for SPF, DKIM, DMARC and to prove a domain is yours.
How to add one
- Go to wherever your DNS is managed: the party running your nameservers, not necessarily your registrar or your host.
- Pick the record type the service tells you. Take it literally — a CNAME where an A is asked for does not work.
- Fill in the name. For the domain itself that is usually an at sign or an empty field; for a subdomain only the part in front, so mail and not mail.yourdomain.be.
- Paste the value exactly as you received it, without adding quotes and without spaces before or after.
- Leave the TTL as it is, unless you know you will change it again soon.
- Save and wait. A new record is usually visible within the hour; a changed record takes as long as the old TTL.
Where it usually goes wrong
- The name is entered too long. Most panels already append the domain; type it again and you end up with mail.yourdomain.be.yourdomain.be.
- Two SPF records. There may only be one. To allow a second service, add it to the existing record instead of putting a new one next to it — with two records the check fails for both.
- Checking too soon. Your own computer remembers the old answer. Test through an external DNS check rather than through your browser.
