A record – Why is it important?

Just like the A is the first letter you learn from the alphabet, the A record will be the first DNS record you learn from the DNS. It is one of the first records that you create after creating a DNS zone, and it has a fundamental purpose. Do you want to know what it is?

What is the A record?

The A record is a DNS record that we can’t live without. Or at least the Internet won’t be possible the way we know it. 

The A comes from the word address, which in this case is an IPv4 address (32-bit address). The A record is a DNS record that point to the IP address of a domain name (hostname).

When you write a domain name into your address bar, the device will search for exactly this record, so you can access the content.

No matter the control panel for managing your DNS, when you open an A record, you will see:

Host/Domain name: The name of your domain, like yourcompany.com.

Type: Here, it will show the type of the record, in this case, A.

Points to: The IPv4 address to where the record is pointing. Example 123.123.123.123.

TTL. The period this record is valid before it needs to be revisited. It can be 3600 or another value in seconds.

You can have more than one A record for the same domain. You can use it for load balancing if you have multiple servers or if you want to direct traffic based on criteria like geolocation or another.

Why is the A record important?

Without A records, we (people) wouldn’t be able to access websites based on their names. We would need to remember all the IP addresses for each site, just like we used to remember the phone numbers in the past. And you can imagine how hard this could be because today, we use not a single site per day but hundreds.

When you are accessing any site on the web, you will need to know where they are located. Therefore, your browser or application needs to read the A record and find the IPv4 corresponding to the hostname you input.

Your device can find it out by performing a DNS query to the hostname for the A record.

When it finds it and reads it, your device will be able to open the site. It will also save the information about the domain name based on the time that the TTL inside the A records indicates. The next time you want to visit the site, the device will first check if the A record is still inside its DNS cache. You can directly access the site without a new DNS query if this is the case.

Conclusion

The A records are the essence of the DNS. They link domain names to their IPv4 addresses. Without them, the use of the Internet will be incredibly difficult and slow. Thanks to them, we can enjoy all the benefits of a fast and agile Internet.

Everything you need to know about DNS services

If you are searching for DNS services, you have heard that they can speed up your domain resolution and improve your site’s overall performance. But how do they do it? What is a DNS service exactly? Don’t worry. Now you will find out.

What is DNS?

Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet phonebook that matches domain names to their IP addresses (domain resolution). So basically, find the IP address of the domain you are looking for, and your device can load the content from the site.

What is a DNS service?

There are cloud-based DNS services, both Free DNS and Premium DNS (paid), that can help boost the speed of the domain resolution (the matching of a domain to its IP address) by offering additional servers closer to the users that can answer quicker. More servers located in different places in the world will help you answer your users’ queries faster, and there won’t be so much effort for your DNS infrastructure.

What is the difference between Free DNS and Premium DNS service?

There are two apparent differences, the price and the performance.

Free DNS service

You obviously don’t pay anything for the Free DNS, which will still improve your domain resolution.

But, and there is a big but. It will have very limited service compared to the Premium DNS option.

The typical limits are:

Fewer DNS servers that you can use.

There are often limits on the number of DNS queries towards your domain name.

Also, limits on the number of DNS records that you can have.

And, let’s not forget all the Premium features like Monitoring, DNS Failover, GeoDNS, Load balancing and more.

Premium DNS service

For a Premium DNS service, you need to pay either monthly or per resource used (number of queries, number of servers, etc.). It is best to choose monthly subscriptions because you can better organize your budget this way.

The paid service will strongly improve the speed of your domain name and its availability. When you pay, you get a quality service and experts behind it who will do everything to keep their DNS network online as close to the 100% of the time as possible.

You will still have some limits, but many times higher than the free one. For example, imagine using 30 points of presence instead of 1 and having the possibility to add thousands of DNS records instead of just under 100.

You will get all kinds of useful Premium features like Anycast DNS, Reverse DNS, DNSSEC, DNS Failover, GeoDNS, Monitoring, and more.

Should I get a free DNS service or paid one?

Your choice depends on your traffic and needs. If you are unsure, start with a Free plan or the minimum paid one and upgrade as your needs grow.

How can I get a Premium DNS service?

You can search for a Premium DNS provider that specializes in DNS hosting. Then, check the available plans and choose the one that best suits you.

Now you know more about DNS services and can make the right choice.