What is an A Record?

DNS records are used to manage the location of an Internet resource. A record uses a computer's domain name to find its Internet Protocol (IP) address.

"A record" stands for "Address". When you go to a website, send an email, connect to Twitter or Facebook, or do almost anything else on the Internet, the address you enter is a string of words connected by dots.

For example, www.google.com is what you type to get to the google search bar. The IP address 74.125.224.147 is pointed to by an A record on google's nameserver. When you go to www.google.com in your browser, the request goes to the server with the IP address 74.125.224.147. This means that people can connect to a website using easy-to-remember domain names instead of hard-to-remember IP addresses.

A Records are the most basic type of DNS record and one of the most common records that DNS servers use.

Updating an A Record

To learn more about updating an A Record, please see How to Update A Records - DNS Management

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