Hosting Glossary
What is A Record?
A Record in plain English — the definition, the analogy, and why it matters to anyone who runs a website.
The short answer
An A record maps a hostname directly to an IPv4 address — the DNS entry that tells browsers which server actually holds your website.
The sections below unpack it properly — how it works, why a site owner should care, and a concrete example of it in the wild.
Written by the HostingAlly team · Last revised 27 July 2026
0
Jargon left unexplained
100+
Linked definitions
Real
Platform examples
Free
To read, obviously
It's the workhorse of web DNS: example.com → 203.0.113.10. The AAAA record is its IPv6 sibling; together they're how names become routable destinations.
Multiple A records for one name round-robin between addresses — a crude load-spread, and also the classic accident when an edit adds instead of replaces.
A picture that makes A Record stick
The line in the directory that gives the actual street number — every other entry can alias or refer, but somewhere the name must land on a real address.
Analogies simplify, of course — but this one holds up well enough to reason with, and reasoning is the point of a glossary.
Why you should care
When pointing domains at hosting without full delegation, the A record is the pointer you'll set — and when a site 'randomly' alternates between old and new servers, a duplicate A record is the usual culprit.
That's the test for every technical term, incidentally — not 'do I understand it fully' but 'do I know when it's the answer to my problem'. For this one, now you do.
What it looks like in practice
Keeping DNS at a third party, an owner points just the website here with one A record to our server's IP — mail and other records staying untouched where they are.
Multiply that example across every site on the internet and you have the concept's entire job description.
How this shows up in your hosting
You'll meet it in the control panel and occasionally in a support conversation — usually already configured the right way. If this term made sense, the natural next reads are CNAME Record, DNS, IP Address and Nameserver.
Support is answered by real people around the clock — including the questions other hosts call out of scope.
Why we wrote a hundred definitions
Every confusing term in hosting eventually becomes a support ticket — so we defined the hundred most common ones properly, once, in the plain English we'd use on the phone.
NVMe storage and LiteSpeed caching are standard here, not premium-tier extras.
- 100+ terms, plain English
- Analogies and real examples
- Cross-linked related concepts
- Written by the support desk
Why HostingAlly
Every plan includes this, whatever you pay
Plain English first
Every term defined for site owners, not for other sysadmins — jargon translated, not restated.
Honest about what you can skip
Most terms are recognise-level, not operate-level — the glossary says which is which.
The practical stakes named
Not just what it is — when it's the answer to a problem you're having.
Linked, not siloed
Related terms cross-reference, so one lookup becomes a working understanding.
Analogies that stick
Each concept gets a picture you'll remember at the moment you actually need it.
Grounded in a real platform
Examples reference the hosting you'd actually use, not abstract diagrams.
Getting Started
How to get going
- 1
Spot it in your own setup
The fastest way to learn a hosting term is to find it in your own panel — five minutes of looking beats an hour of reading.
- 2
Check the defaults
Our platform ships sane defaults for this — verify rather than assume, and you'll know your setup instead of hoping about it.
- 3
Follow the related terms
Concepts travel in packs — CNAME Record, DNS and IP Address complete this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
Included
What's covered on our plans
- Per-site PHP version selection
- Free website migration handled by our team
- LiteSpeed server-level caching
- 24/7 support from real people
- 99.9% uptime commitment, monitored around the clock
- DDoS protection at the network level
- No setup fees, ever
- Free SSL certificate on every plan, renewed automatically
- Spam and virus filtering on every mailbox
- SSH, Git and Composer access on developer-friendly plans
FAQ
Your questions, answered
A record or CNAME — when does each apply?
A points to a numeric IP; CNAME aliases to another hostname (inheriting its destination). Use A for direct-to-server pointing, CNAME for services that publish a hostname precisely so their IPs can change beneath it.
My A record change isn't taking effect — why?
Either caching (the old TTL still running), the edit happened at non-delegated DNS, or a second conflicting record survives. Those three cover effectively every case; check them in that order.
Which control panel do you provide?
cPanel — the industry standard, which means every tutorial on the internet matches your screen, your backups restore anywhere cPanel runs, and skills learned here transfer for life. Plesk and DirectAdmin options exist on specific plans for those who prefer them.
Do you monitor uptime, and what do you commit to?
We commit to 99.9% uptime and monitor continuously — not a marketing number but an operational one, with alerting that usually has us fixing issues before customers notice them.
Can I choose my PHP version?
Yes — PHP versions are selectable per site from the control panel, so a legacy application and a current one can live side by side. Extensions and per-site settings are adjustable in the same place, no support ticket needed.
Is there a money-back guarantee?
Yes — try the hosting properly and if it doesn't fit, the refund process is a request, not a retention gauntlet. Domain registrations are the one standard carve-out, since registries make those non-refundable the moment they're placed.
What happens to my data if I cancel?
Your site and files remain yours — download a full backup from the panel any time, before or during cancellation. Domains stay registered to you for their paid term and can transfer to any registrar after the standard 60-day window.
Keep exploring
DNS (Domain Name System)
DNS is the internet's directory service, translating human-readable domain names into the numeric addresses and routing instructions machines require.
Nameserver
Nameservers are the servers authorised to answer DNS queries for your domain.
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