DNS
The records behind the domain. Change the wrong line and the site, or the inbox, goes quiet.
What does DNS mean?
The phone book of the internet: records that tell the world which server should answer for your domain, including the website and, separately, your email.
Also called: Domain Name System, DNS records
What a record actually decides
DNS is not a page and not a design setting. It is a short list stored at your registrar or at a nameserver you chose. One line can send website visitors to a host. Another line can send mail to Google Workspace, Microsoft, or a mailbox you have had for years.
Because the lines are independent, a new website does not require a new inbox. The failure mode is a person replacing the whole list because a tutorial said to. Mail stops, and the owner thinks the new site broke the business.
The lines owners trip over
An address record points the bare name at a host. A www record often points the other version. Nameservers, covered under nameserver, decide which company publishes the list at all. MX lines are mail. SPF and DMARC lines tell other servers which mail is allowed to claim your domain.
You do not need to memorize the abbreviations to ask a useful question. Ask which lines the launch will edit, and which lines it will leave alone. If the answer is all of them, pause. The launch checklist puts that pause before the domain moves.
How long a change feels instant
After an edit, some networks see it in minutes and some still hold the old answer for a while. That is why you do not cancel the old host in the same breath as the edit. Keep the old pages up until the new name answers reliably and a real message still arrives in the inbox.
Our website grader can see whether the name resolves, whether www works, whether HTTPS loads, and whether MX, SPF, and DMARC records exist. It cannot read the page design, and it cannot tell you that the records are the ones you meant.
An example
An electrician's site is moving off a builder. The builder's instructions say to replace the nameservers. Those nameservers also held the MX line for the office inbox. The right edit copies the mail lines forward, then points only the website records at the new host. Estimates keep arriving while the new pages go live.
Questions we get asked
Can I break email by launching a website?
Yes, if the launch overwrites mail records. It is avoidable. Treat website records and mail records as neighbors, not as one switch. Read business email before you let a stranger click through the registrar.
Does Artol take over my DNS?
We change the website records needed to launch, and we say which ones. We do not need to become your registrar. You keep the account. We are 100% US-based, in Yardley, PA, and we reply within one business day if a record looks wrong after launch.
