There are several ways to redirect a domain name to an alternative domain or subdomain and one of them is by creating a CNAME record. If you own a domain name and you have set up a website using some online service that provides you with a service subdomain, you could easily link the two by setting up a CNAME record for your-domain.com that directs to subdomain.provider.com. What you are going to achieve as a result is that www.your-domain.com is going to be in the browser address bar while it opens the already mentioned website from the servers of the third-party provider. It is very important to know that if you create a CNAME record, any other records your domain name may have will stop functioning, so you cannot have both a CNAME record directing to one provider and working e-mail address with another one. The CNAME record is always an alpha string, not a number, and often more configuration may be required with the other provider.
CNAME Records in Cloud Website Hosting
Setting up a CNAME record using our Linux cloud website hosting is extremely easy. Our in-house built Hepsia Control Panel includes a section dedicated to the DNS records of your domain addresses, so you can set up a new CNAME record for any domain or subdomain hosted inside your account in just a few basic steps. There is also a video tutorial within the same section in which you can see the process first-hand. This feature will give you many opportunities - if you build a company site on our end, for example, the employees can use their e-mails with the company domain, not with the address of our mail server. If you want to set up an Internet site by using a different provider which offers online web design services, you can easily forward a domain hosted here and use it for the site. Last, but not least, if you have an on-line store and you have a billing system for http://your-domain.com and/or an SSL certificate, you may create a CNAME record for the www subdomain and point it to the main domain name, so all your clients are going to be forwarded to a secure URL.
CNAME Records in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you have a semi-dedicated server through our company and you want to set up a CNAME record, it will require only a few clicks to complete this task. The plans are handled using our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP where you will see a section committed to the DNS records of the domain names and subdomains hosted in the account. To set up a CNAME record, you'll simply have to select the record type and the hostname (domain or subdomain), type in where the latter is going to be redirected to and save the modification. The new record will be active almost immediately in our system and will propagate worldwide within several hours. Editing or deleting an existing CNAME record in the account is equally simple and easy and takes a click. In case you experience any problems, you can go through our in-depth help article, see the short video on the subject that we have added in the Control Panel, or you can simply contact us for assistance.