The word “hosting” does not describe only one service, but a set of services which offer numerous functions to a domain name. Having a site and e-mails, for example, are two separate services though in the general case they come together, so most people consider them as one single service. In reality, each domain has a couple of DNS records called A and MX, which show the server that deals with each specific service - the former is a numeric IP address, that defines where the site for the domain name is loaded from, while the second one is an alphanumeric string, which shows the server that manages the emails for the domain name. For example, an A record can be 123.123.123.123 and an MX record is mx1.domain.com. Every time you open a site or send an e-mail, the global DNS servers are contacted to check the name servers that a domain address has and the traffic/message is first directed to that company. In case you have custom records on their end, the web browser request or the e-mail will 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 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 from our company and you would like to point either your website or your emails to a different company, it is going to take you literally just two clicks to do it. 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 will be able to see and modify the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you choose to use a different e-mail provider and they ask you to set up more MX records than the default two, it won't take more than a few clicks either to add them. You can also set different latency for these records and the lower the latency, the bigger the priority a given MX record will have. The propagation of any record that you modify or create won't take more than a few hours and if necessary, you'll also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, which shows how long a record will stay active after it's changed or deleted.
Custom MX and A Records in Semi-dedicated Hosting
Accessing and modifying the A or MX records for any of your domains or subdomains is really easy if you purchase a semi-dedicated server plan through our company. The accounts are managed via our in-house built Hepsia CP, which features a section dedicated to the DNS records of your domain names. The latter will be listed alphabetically and you could click on every one of them to see both the A and the MX records. Changing any record is as simple as typing in the new one in a text box and saving the change, so even when you have never dealt with such matters before, you simply won't experience any problems if you choose to point your site or emails to another service provider while keeping the second service with our company. If needed, you may also create additional MX records and set a specific priority based on the recommendations of the new provider.