When a web designer or a platform asks you to "point your domain" at them, they usually offer two options: change your nameservers, or add some DNS records. Both work, but they have very different effects.
Nameservers: handing over the whole zone
Nameservers decide who answers all DNS questions for your domain. Changing them moves every record, website, email and verification, to the new provider at once. Any record that is not recreated there simply stops existing.
Use this when one provider will manage everything, for example when you move your hosting and email to the same company.
DNS records: changing one piece
Adding or editing individual records leaves everything else untouched. Point the website with an A or CNAME record and your email keeps working, because the MX records stay where they are.
Use this when only one service moves, for example connecting a store platform while email stays with your current provider.
The classic mistake
A business launches a new website and is told to switch nameservers to the web designer's provider. The website appears, but the next morning nobody receives email: the MX records were never copied. If you must change nameservers, copy every existing record to the new zone first.
A simple rule
- Changing everything: nameservers, after copying all records.
- Changing one service: records only.
Check before and after
Our DNS checker shows the nameservers and records your domain publishes, so you can compare before and after any change. The knowledge base also has a step-by-step guide to changing nameservers.
At IDX
With IDX hosting, your domain, DNS, website and business email can live in one place, so a change to one does not quietly break another.
IDX on digital infrastructure
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