Last week’etup Tech Tip covered the basic functionality of the DNS system and introduced us to the most common DNS records: NS, MX and A records. This week’s Tech Tip covers my DNS management tips to avoid common pitfalls and problems. Many businesses use one company for the following services:
registering their domain name
hosting their DNS records
hosting their email accounts and web site
I don’t recommend doing this. Instead, I recommend using at least two different companies, sometimes more. At a minimum, I think every business should use one company to register their domain name and to host DNS records. Then use a second company to host email accounts and the web site.
One-stop Shopping Is Appealing, But Limiting
I completely understand why small business owners typically use just one company for all of these services. Everybody likes the convenience of one-stop shopping. Doing this alleviates the business owner from needing to understand the DNS system and how it works. However, I believe by using this approach, business owners are doing themselves a disservice. When I start working with a new small business client, I always ask if they are satisfied with the reliability and customer service they get from their current web site and email hosting company. It’s not uncommon for me to hear that they are far from satisfied. Thus, I’m often asked to help them switch to another company for email and/or web hosting.
Switching email and web hosting companies is easier to do if the DNS records are not kept by the same company that provides the inadequate email and web hosting. To change hosting companies we need to edit DNS records. While most hosting companies allow their customers to edit their own DNS records, not all permit this. Thus, it can be awkward to have to ask the inadequate web and email hosting company to edit your DNS records so you can start to use the email and web hosting services of another hosting company.
Companies often get into this pickle because either the business owner, an employee or the web designer that has been hired, contacts a web hosting company and signs-up for a hosting package that includes email and web hosting, typically at a rock-bottom price. Then the hosting company registers the domain name on the client’s behalf and sets up the DNS records. This is easy but, in my opinion, short-sighted.
Below are some tips to help you implement my recommendation of using one company for domain registration and DNS record hosting and another company for email and web hosting. Before I go further, I should mention that while some business owners will keep their email and web hosting at the same company others will prefer to split them.
Here are two common scenarios that lead business owners to use two different companies for their email and web site hosting.
Scenario 1 – In my experience, many solo-business owners like the affordable, professional looking web sites built using the Do-It-Yourself approach provided by Weebly, Wix, SquareSpace and other similar companies. These company typically don’t offer email hosting so the business owner is then shopping for a reliable robust email hosting, like that provided by Rackspace.
Scenario 2 – Another situation that leads to using two different companies for email and web hosting is that a business is happy with the reliable email hosting that they have but they decide its time to overhaul their web site. They hire a web designer who has a preferred web hosting company. Thus, the owner wants to move only their web hosting but not modify their email hosting.
Now, back to my tips to avoid DNS snafus.
Tip 1 – I recommend that small business owners register their domain name themselves. My Tech Tip titled Registering Your Domain Name explains how to do this easily yourself. Once a domain name has been registered through Hover or some other registrar, it’s easy to set up DNS records. Thus, the domain registrar is used for both registering the domain name and for hosting DNS records.
Tip 2 – All domain registrations will expire at some point. If your domain name is not renewed before it expires, your business’ web site will no longer be visible to the world and your ability to send and receive emails will cease. So it’s essential that you set a reminder or alarm to renew your domain registration a few months before it’s scheduled to expire.
To set up email hosting one needs to modify the DNS records by creating an MX record. It’s actually customary to set up two MX records since this provides some redundancy. For example, I frequently recommend using Rackspace as an email hosting company. Rackspace has a tech note about setting up MX records.
To set up web hosting one needs to modify the DNS records by creating an A record that points to the IP number of the web server. For example, some of my small business clients use Weebly’s affordable, template-based system to build a basic web site. Weebly has a tech note about the DNS record that needs to be set up.
Tip 3 – If you do decide to modify your DNS records yourself, it is extremely important to fully record your existing DNS records before you make any changes. By doing this, then you can always reset things to the way they were before your started. To record existing DNS records, I like to do a DNS query at UltraTools. Then you can print out the result or take a screen snapshot of the current DNS records.
Tip 4 – If you’re not yet comfortable setting up your own DNS records ask somebody else, but get reassurances from that person that they understand how to make the DNS changes that you’re requesting. In my experience some web site designers have a good understanding of DNS record management and others do not. So please double-check with your web designer to assess their knowledge and confidence levels.
Tip 5 – If you want to ask somebody else to edit your DNS records, I recommend your domain registrar or a consultant like myself. Support staff at your domain registrar are probably accustomed to editing DNS records and do it on nearly a daily basis. If you have instructions or a tech note from your email or web hosting company, like the ones I list above from Rackspace or Weebly, just send these instructions to your registrar’s support staff. They’ll know how to follow the instructions.
I hope you’ve had some fun learning some of the basics of the DNS system and why you should be involved in registering your domain names and involved in determining who edits your DNS records.