A Record (Address Record) (A Record)
Why A Record Is Important
A records are the core mechanism by which domains point to servers. Without a correct A record, your domain does not resolve to any server and your website is unreachable. Misconfigured A records can point traffic to the wrong server, potentially exposing visitors to a different site or causing complete downtime.
When migrating servers, A records must be updated to point to the new IP address. Due to DNS caching, both the old and new servers should be running during the transition. If you remove the old server before DNS caches expire, visitors with cached DNS entries will see connection errors.
Multiple A records for the same domain create round-robin DNS, where different visitors are directed to different servers. This provides basic load distribution but is not true load balancing - it does not account for server health or load. For production load balancing, a dedicated load balancer behind a single A record is preferred.
How to Check
A DNS health check shows your domain's A records and the IP addresses they resolve to. Verify that the IP address matches your actual server. If you recently changed hosting, check that the A record points to the new server and that DNS propagation is complete.
Configuration Reference
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Record Type | A |
| Points to | IPv4 address (e.g., 93.184.216.34) |
| Common TTL | 300-3600 seconds |
| Multiple values | Supported (round-robin load balancing) |
| Proxied (Cloudflare) | Supported |