What is DNS?
DNS is the internet's address book. When someone types your domain, their computer asks DNS "where does this live?" and gets back the address of the server that should answer.
Connecting a domain means putting our address in that book under your name.
The three places a domain lives
People assume these are one company. They often are not, and that is the cause of most domain confusion.
- The registrar — who you bought the domain from and who you renew with.
- The DNS provider — who answers the "where does this live?" question. This is the registrar by default, but changes the moment you point the nameservers somewhere else, such as Cloudflare.
- The host — us. Where the site's files and database actually are.
Records go at the DNS provider, not necessarily at the registrar. If you have ever put a domain behind Cloudflare, the registrar's DNS panel is being ignored and edits there do nothing at all.
The records you will meet
| Record | What it does |
|---|---|
| A | Points a name at an IPv4 address |
| AAAA | Points a name at an IPv6 address |
| CNAME | Points one name at another name |
| ALIAS / ANAME | Like CNAME, but works on the bare domain |
| MX | Where email for the domain goes |
| TXT | Free text, used for verification, SPF and DKIM |
| CAA | Which authorities may issue certificates |
MX is worth knowing about because it is separate from your website.
Moving your site to us does not move your email, and it does not break it,
as long as you leave the MX records alone.
Why changes are not instant
Every record carries a TTL — how long other computers may keep a copy before asking again. If the old record had a TTL of 24 hours, some resolvers keep the old answer for up to 24 hours after you change it.
That is why during a move some visitors see the new site and some see the old one. Neither host can shorten it once it has started.
Lower the TTL to 300 before you move, wait for the old TTL to pass, then make the change. That reduces the window from hours to minutes.
Why your browser can disagree with our dashboard
We report what public DNS says. Your own computer keeps its own cache, and
a VPN or a hosts file entry can override everything.
Check from somewhere neutral — dnschecker.org — if the two disagree.
Next: connect your domain.
Didn’t solve it?
Write to us with your Pressy’s address and what you were doing when it went wrong. Answered by the people who built it.
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