How to use CNAME or ALIAS records for your root domain

These instructions are for our Managed WordPress and WooCommerce clients.

If this is too confusing, please schedule a short online meeting on our calendar (https://www.37solutions.com/calendar) and we'll help you with the changes.

Your website requires two DNS records—one for the root domain (domain.tld) and one for the "www" domain (www.domain.tld).

Why should I use a CNAME record instead of my "A" records?

We recommend using CNAME, or ALIAS, records for your root domain name and a CNAME record for "www."

Using a CNAME record, we can adjust the endpoint IP address on your behalf to keep your website running during times of high traffic or attacks.

Using an IP address, we would need to contact you to make the DNS change at your provider, and your website could be down until your team could make the change.

How do I use CNAME records instead of A records for my domain?

Note: The examples below are for our conciergewebdesign.com domain name. Please substitute our domain name with yours.

First, let's look at what your DNS records probably look like:

In the screenshot above from our Cloudflare account, you'll see a typical setup with two different "A" records pointing to the same IP address. We'll need to make changes to both entries.

Change your WWW record to a CNAME

First, start by deleting the "A" record for the "www" subdomain. It's the second line in the screenshot.

Second, create a CNAME record with "www" as the name and yourdomain.tld as the content (not www.yourdomain.tld).

Some DNS providers may allow you to use an 'at symbol' (@) for the content instead of typing out your domain name.

Change your root record to a CNAME

Next, delete the DNS entry for the root domain. It's the first line in the screenshot below.

Now, add a CNAME/ALIAS entry that points to your root domain.

Help for Network Solutions customers

Network Solutions is one of the slowest providers when changing DNS entries.

For faster propagation, you should temporarily lower the TTL (Time To Live) value to 5 minutes (300 seconds) while you're editing the DNS record, not after.

After the migration is complete, you can change the TTL to 1 hour (3600 seconds).

Update your SPF record

The IP address can be added to your SPF record to improve email deliverability like this: "v=spf1 a mx ip4:{your IP address} ~all"