What are CNAME records?

What are CNAME records?

CNAME records are aliases of, or redirect to, other DNS entries.

If domain.com points to 123.124.221.80 and you set up www.domain.com as a CNAME of domain.com - www.domain.com will now also point to 123.124.221.80

When are CNAME records used?

Most commonly, CNAME records are used to map the www. version of a domain to the root domain. For example, you would use a CNAME record to map www.domain.com to domain.com so when people visit www.domain.com they are pointed to domain.com.



In the above example, the www. and mail. entries are CNAME records of dummyaccount.co.uk.

Why use CNAME records?

It is quite common to find that everything you have related to a domain is hosted in the same place - The website, mail, localhost, webmail etc will all use the same IP.

You could set up a specific record for each of these things, but if they ever changed every single one would need updating separately. With CNAME's you would only need to update the original record as the rest would draw their information from that one record.

  • 61 Users Found This Useful
Was this answer helpful?

Related Articles

How do I point my domain to hosting I have elsewhere?

If you have registered a domain name with us but would like your site to be hosted elsewhere,...

Transferring in a domain name

For TLDs (.COM, .NET, etc.) Most domain names will fall under this category and there are...

What is a domain?

What is a domain name? The simplest explanation: A domain name is your address on the internet...

Can I have email with just a domain name?

Can I have email with just a domain name? The short answer is no, emails need to be stored...

What is the difference between an addon and parked domains?

What is the difference between an addon and parked domains? Addon and Parked domains are methods...