DNS is the internet's address book. When someone types your domain, their browser asks DNS "where does this domain live?" and DNS answers with an address. Getting your site online is really just making sure DNS gives the right answer.
The pieces
Registrar. The company you bought the domain from. They own the record of who the domain belongs to. You renew it with them.
Nameservers. The servers that hold your domain's DNS records and answer questions about them. Your registrar usually provides some by default, but you can point the domain at anyone else's, including ours.
DNS records. The actual entries. The ones that matter to you:
- A record. Points a name at an IP address. This is what sends
example.comto your website. - CNAME. Points one name at another name. Commonly used for
www. - MX record. Says where email for your domain should be delivered. Nothing to do with your website.
- TXT record. Free-form text. Used for SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which prove your email is genuinely from you, and for verifying ownership with services like Google.
What you actually change to get a site online
Either:
- Change the A record for your domain (and the record for
www) to the values shown in your 8Deploy panel, leaving everything else alone. Safest if your email is somewhere else.
Or:
- Change your nameservers to ours, and we manage all of it. Easiest long term, but you must bring your existing MX and TXT records with you, or email will break.
Time to live, and why changes are not instant
Every record has a time-to-live, which tells the rest of the internet how long it may cache the answer. If your old record had a 24-hour TTL, some people will still get the old answer for up to 24 hours after you change it. This is normal. If you know a change is coming, lower the TTL to five minutes a day beforehand and the switch will be near-instant.
What you never need to touch
You do not need to understand SOA records, NS glue, or anything else. Website plus email is A records, MX records and a few TXT records. That is it.
The assistant in your control panel can see your actual account and answer about your sites, your plan and your usage. For anything else, email [email protected] and a person will answer.