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

Custom MX and A Records in Website Hosting

If you have a website hosting account through our company and you want to switch either your website or your emails to another company, it's going to take you literally only 2 clicks to do it. 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're going to be able to see and modify the A and/or MX records for any of them. If you want to use a different e-mail provider and they ask you to set up more MX records than the standard 2, it won't take more than a couple of clicks either to add them. You may 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 each record that you change or set up will not take more than a few hours and if required, you'll also be able to set the so-called Time-To-Live value, which reveals how long a record will remain active after it's modified or deleted.

Custom MX and A Records in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you buy a semi-dedicated server plan from our company, you will be able to see and change the A and MX records for every one of the domain names or subdomains which you host within the account. The Hepsia Control Panel, which you will get to take care of the account, offers an innovative, though easy-to-use tool where all hosts will be listed in alphabetical order and you are going to be able to change their records with no more than several mouse clicks. If you have to create a new record, it'll be just as easy - select the domain/subdomain, enter the IP address or mail server record and you are going to be all set. You will also be able to set different priority for the MX records which you create in case you want to use a third-party e-mail provider and they ask you to create additional records apart from the 2 standard ones. If you ever experience any troubles, we've got a in-depth Help section with videos in which you can see first-hand how to setup or change any record.