Cloudflare
Cloudflare is our content delivery network of choice, also providing additional security measures as well.
When we log in to the Domain Registrar and change the nameservers to point to Cloudflare, the site’s DNS records are hosted and maintained at Cloudflare.
Learn more here: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/what-is-cloudflare/
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) increases network performance and uptime by caching frequently-accessed content on local servers.
For example, if someone on the other side of the world wants to access globerunner.com, without a CDN in place they would only be able to view it on the one server that it is hosted on. With a CDN, a cached version can be served up from a CDN server that is closer to them and reduce how long it takes the website to load.
A great example of this in practice is 3Headed Monster, who went from a 7.9s load time of their homepage to 4.4s by switching to Cloudflare — almost half the time to load!
To learn more, check out this great graphic on the right here: https://www.imperva.com/learn/performance/what-is-cdn-how-it-works/
DNS (Domain Name System)
Often called “the phonebook of the Internet,” DNS records contain directions for how to serve up content. The primary way we interact with a DNS is that it connects domain names to IP addresses to serve up a website using a URL, but it can also handle email, ftp, and more.
Here are some of the different kinds of DNS records that are used, and what they do. This may be helpful if it comes up to know what it is referring to and its particular usage.
You can learn more here: https://ns1.com/resources/dns-records-explained
A Record
The Address Record (more commonly called the A Record) simply points a domain to its IP address.
Technically, the IP address used for A records is called an IPv4. There’s also an AAAA record, which uses IPv6 addresses, but those aren’t used nearly as much as A records.
A records look like this: 110.22.33.44
AAAA records look like this: FE80::0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329
CNAME
A Canonical Name (CNAME) basically operate as aliases for a domain. For example, sites we create and host on WP Engine typically have a CNAME of sitename.wpengine.com. And you could type that into your browser to access the site, but we instead map it to the domain (sitename.com) instead. These can also be used with subdomains (ie blog.sitename.com).
DKIM
Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an email authentication technique that allows the receiver to check that an email was indeed sent and authorized by the owner of that domain. This is done by giving the email a digital signature. This DKIM signature is a header that is added to the message and is secured with encryption.
MX
Mail Exchange records handle how and where to direct emails
NS
These records relate (and typically specify) the nameservers tied to a website.
SPF
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records are used for email verification, to prevent your domain name from being used by spammers or malicious users. SPF itself is actually antiquated and are usually entered in as TXT records these days (see TXT below).
TXT
These records allow for text-based information, usually used to verify and/or check information related to the site. These are also commonly used for SPF and/or DKIM records, for example.
Domain Registrar
This refers to where the domain is registered. Nameservers are located here, as are DNS records, by default. If nameservers are changed, then where the DNS records are located also change. More on that in a moment.
Examples include: GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Namecheap, GKG.net, and more
Host
This is where the website files are located. The hosting company owns servers that serve up the website when it is called up.
Examples include: GoDaddy, WP Engine, Dreamhost, Hostgator, and more
Nameservers
Nameservers tell a machine where to find DNS records. By default, this will almost always be the same as where the domain is registered. However, you can change this for reasons we’ll explore shortly.
When a website is ready to launch, I will usually request login access to the Domain Registrar. The reason for this is that I will change the nameservers to point to Cloudflare instead, which is a content delivery network (CDN).