The word “hosting” does not describe just one service, but a set of services that provide a variety of functions to a domain address. Having a site and e-mails, as an example, are two independent services even though in the general case they come together, so most of the people think of them as one single service. Actually, every domain has a several DNS records called A and MX, which show the server that handles each particular service - the first one is a numeric IP address, that specifies where the website for the domain is loaded from, while the second one is an alphanumeric string, which shows the server that manages the emails for the domain name. As an illustration, an A record would be 123.123.123.123 and an MX record is mx1.domain.com. Every time you open a website or send an email, the global DNS servers are contacted to check the name servers that a domain has and the traffic/message is first directed to that company. When you have custom records on their end, the browser request or the email will then be sent to the correct server. The reasoning behind working with separate records is that the two services work with different web protocols and you may have your website hosted by one provider and the e-mail messages by another.
Custom MX and A Records in Web Hosting
If you have a web hosting account from our company and you want to point either your website or your e-mails to another service provider, it will take you literally simply two clicks to do this. Our Hepsia Control Panel offers an easy-to-use DNS Records tool, where all your domain names and subdomains will be listed alphabetically and you'll be able to see and modify the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you wish to use a different e-mail provider and they ask you to set up more MX records than the default two, it is not going to take more than a couple of clicks either to add them. You can even set different latency for these records and the lower the latency, the bigger the priority a certain MX record will have. The propagation of each record that you modify or create is not going to take more than several hours and if required, you'll also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, which indicates how long a record will stay active after it's modified or deleted.
Custom MX and A Records in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you buy a semi-dedicated server plan through our company, you are going to be able to view and edit the A and MX records for every one of the domain addresses or subdomains which you host within the account. The Hepsia CP, which you will get to manage the account, comes with an state-of-the-art, although easy-to-use tool in which all hosts will be listed in alphabetical order and you are going to be able to edit their records with no more than a couple of mouse clicks. If you have to set up a new record, it'll be just as simple - select the domain/subdomain, enter the IP address or mail server record and you will be all set. You will also be able to set different priority for the MX records which you create in case that you want to use a third-party e-mail provider and they ask you to set up additional records other than the two default ones. In case you encounter any difficulties, you will find a in-depth Help section with videos in which you can see first-hand how to create or modify any record.