What is CNAME record?
The short answer
A CNAME record is a DNS record that makes one domain name an alias of another, commonly used to point www or a subdomain at a hosting provider.
CNAME record, explained
A name with a CNAME cannot hold other records; that is why root domains usually use A records or provider-specific alternatives.
Questions people ask about CNAME record
What is CNAME record?
A CNAME record is a DNS record that makes one domain name an alias of another, commonly used to point www or a subdomain at a hosting provider.
Related terms
DNS is the internet's address book: it translates a domain name like example.com into the IP address of the server that hosts the site.
A recordAn A record is a DNS record that points a domain name to a server's IPv4 address; AAAA does the same for IPv6.
SubdomainA subdomain is a prefix on a domain, like shop.example.com, that can point to a separate site or service while sharing the main brand.
DeployTo deploy is to publish a new version of a website to its host so visitors see it; modern hosts deploy automatically when code is pushed to Git.
Part of the Web Encyclopedia by Apex Flow Digital. Definitions are general knowledge, kept current, with no invented statistics.