The word “hosting” doesn't describe only one service, but a number of services which offer different functions to a domain address. Having a site and emails, for instance, are two independent services though in the general case they come together, so most people think of them as one single service. In reality, every domain name has a couple of DNS records called A and MX, which show the server that manages each particular service - the first one is a numeric IP address, which defines where the website for the domain address is loaded from, while the latter is an alphanumeric string, which shows the server that handles the e-mails for the domain. For example, an A record is 123.123.123.123 and an MX record would be mx1.domain.com. Every time you open a site or send an email, the global DNS servers are contacted to check the name servers that a domain name has and the traffic/message is first directed to that company. In case you have custom records on their end, the Internet browser request or the e-mail will be sent to the correct server. The idea behind using separate records is that the two services employ different web protocols and you can have your site hosted by one provider and the e-mail messages by another.

Custom MX and A Records in Shared Website Hosting

If you have a shared website hosting account with our company and you would like to direct either your site or your emails to a different service provider, it'll take you literally just two clicks to do so. Our Hepsia Control Panel comes with an easy-to-use DNS Records tool, where all your domains and subdomains are going to be listed alphabetically and you will be able to see and edit the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you decide to use a different e-mail provider and they ask you to set up more MX records than the default 2, it is not going to take more than a couple of mouse clicks either to add them. Also you can set different latency for these records and the lower the latency, the greater the priority a certain MX record is going to have. The propagation of every record that you modify or create won't take more than a few hours and if required, you'll also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, that reveals how long a record will remain active after it's changed or deleted.

Custom MX and A Records in Semi-dedicated Servers

Accessing and changing the A or MX records for any of your domains or subdomains is really easy if you purchase a semi-dedicated server plan from us. The accounts are handled using our in-house built Hepsia Control Panel, which includes a section devoted to the DNS records of your domains. The latter will be listed alphabetically and you may click on any one of them to see both the A and the MX records. Editing any record is as simple as entering the new one in a text box and saving the change, so in case you have never dealt with such matters before, you'll not encounter any difficulties if you want to switch your website or emails to a different company while keeping the second service with our company. If necessary, you may also set up additional MX records and set a certain priority depending on the instructions of the new provider.