ESDomain editorial team · Reviewed 1 November 2026
The domain, zone and nameservers
The domain is the address you register. Its DNS zone holds the configuration, and nameservers identify the service answering authoritatively for it. To make an effective change, establish where the active zone is hosted, even if you have accounts with several providers and can see records in more than one dashboard.
Before editing anything, record the registrar, DNS service and website host. These can be different companies. Hosting a website on Cloudflare does not require moving every customer domain to Cloudflare nameservers. What matters is understanding the configuration for each name and updating the place that actually answers for it.
What common records do
An A record connects a name to an IPv4 address; AAAA uses IPv6. A CNAME points one name to another name. MX identifies mail servers, while TXT publishes text values used by some services for verification or authentication. Copy the values provided by the service you are connecting instead of guessing them.
Treat each record as a combination of type, name, value and TTL. Some also need a priority. A verification request may use a particular subdomain rather than the root of the zone, for example. An instruction to add one record is not a request to replace every existing entry.
Managed nameservers or an external service
When a domain uses our custom nameservers, record management connects to its corresponding ClouDNS zone. If you choose external nameservers, manage the records at that service. Editing a zone that is no longer authoritative does not change the answer visitors receive. Choose where the active configuration will be maintained.
Before switching nameservers, recreate the required records at the destination and compare the two zones. Review website, email and tool verification entries. Keep a readable copy of the previous configuration and assign someone to check the outcome, so the infrastructure decision is followed through rather than merely submitted.
Check before and after saving
TTL affects how long answers may be cached, so changes are not necessarily visible at the same moment on every network. Record when each edit was made. Avoid changing several unrelated settings together if you may later need to identify which one caused a problem or altered the service behaviour.
Test the website in a new window, check the names you changed and verify email where related records were involved. A saved message confirms the dashboard operation; subsequent checks help establish whether the complete service behaves as intended. Keep the previous values available until you are satisfied with the result.