DNS records are special settings that change how your domain works. They control what people see when they visit your domain and allow you to connect your domain to third-party services such as an email provider.
This guide will show you how to add, remove, and change your domain’s DNS records.
In this guide
You may want to edit the DNS for your domain if you are:
- Verifying your ownership of a domain for services such as Google.
- Configuring a custom email with a third-party provider.
- Pointing your domain to a different website hosted elsewhere.
- Transferring an existing domain to WordPress.com from another provider.
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As long as your domain is using WordPress.com name servers, you can manage the DNS from your WordPress.com account. If your domain is not using WordPress.com name servers, make any DNS changes at your registrar/DNS provider.
To view your DNS records:
- From your site’s dashboard, go to Upgrades → Domains to view all the domains associated with that site:
- Click on the domain and then click on DNS records:
- You’ll see a list of the current DNS records. You can then click on Manage to make changes:
You can add the following DNS records on WordPress.com:
- A (see the Setting a Custom A Record page for more info)
- AAAA
- CNAME
- MX (see Add Email Through Other Providers for more info)
- TXT
- SRV
To add a new DNS record:
- Select the Add a record button from the upper right corner:
- Select the DNS record type from the Type dropdown.
- Fill in the remaining information obtained from the service you’re adding the record for. The fields available will change depending on the type of record you are trying to add.
There is no standard set of words used for the different fields of a DNS record. Different providers may use different terminology for the various DNS fields compared to what you see on WordPress.com.
For example, you might be given this DNS record to add from your email provider:
| Type | Host | Points To: |
|---|---|---|
| CNAME | email.myemailserver.net |
What this provider calls “Host” refers to what you see as “Name” in WordPress.com. This DNS record would be added like this:
To edit or remove an existing DNS record, you can click the three dots next to an existing record, and select either Edit or Delete:
Some records are created by default and their value fields show a “Handled by WordPress.com” message. These records have special behavior, depending on their type (A, CNAME, MX):
- The default A record can’t be edited but will get replaced if you point your domain to another host by adding custom A records. If you have your domain pointed to another host, but you want it to point back to your site, you can restore these default A records by removing the custom A records or by using the “Restore default A records” from the action menu at the top of the DNS page.
- The default CNAME record can’t be removed or edited. It’s there to redirect subdomain requests like
www.yourgroovydomain.comto the site as well. - The default MX record is added If you have email forwarding from WordPress.com. If you delete this record, it will disable email forwarding for your domain.
If your domain is using WordPress.com’s name servers, you will see an option to enable a particular DNS record called “_domainconnect”.
If you enable this record, you can connect to other services such as Microsoft Office 365, without requiring you to manually edit DNS records.
You can enable this record by clicking on three dots next to it and selecting the Enable option. Likewise, you can disable it by selecting the Disable option for the active “_domainconnect” record:
Our DNS editor allows up to 255 characters for TXT records.
If you are receiving an error that your TXT record is invalid or too long (such as for a DKIM record), check if there is an option to use a 1024-bit record from the service you’re trying to connect to.
