If you wish to redirect a domain to a new hosting provider, there are essentially two ways to do so: you can either modify the domain’s A record or change its name servers. The two are not the same, and it makes sense to use one or the other depending on the situation.

What is an A record modification?

An A record is a DNS entry that maps a domain (or subdomain) to an IPv4 address; its IPv6 equivalent is the AAAA record. If you only modify the A record, the domain’s DNS zone – and with it the other records (such as the MX mail records) – will remain with your current DNS provider; only the record pointing to the website will be assigned a new IP address.

This is useful if you are only moving your website but wish to keep your DNS management and, where applicable, your email service at their current locations – for example, because your domain’s DNS is managed by Cloudflare, or your email runs on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.

In practice, two records usually need to be amended:

Name	Type	Value
pelda.hu (or @)	A	the IP address of the new hosting account
www	A or CNAME	the same IP address, or as a CNAME pointing to pelda.hu

You can find the IP address of your new hosting account in the hosting control panel or in the email you received when the hosting account was set up.

What is a name server change?

When changing name servers, you transfer the DNS management itself to another provider: the domain is assigned new name servers, which from then on are responsible for all DNS records (A, MX, TXT, CNAME, etc.). This involves the complete migration of the DNS zone. The name servers must be changed via the domain registrar.

This is the right choice if you are moving the entire service (website and, typically, email as well) to the new provider in one go, and wish to manage the DNS settings there from then on. If you order your hosting from aWh and your domain points to our name servers, we will create the zone with the necessary records.

Which one should I choose?

• A-record modification: if you are only changing your website’s server, DNS management and/or email services will remain at their current location.
• Name server change: this occurs when you move the entire management of your domain (DNS, website and, often, email) to a single provider, the new service provider.

What should you bear in mind before switching?

• Email: when changing name servers, the email records (MX, SPF, DKIM) will also come from the new zone. If your email service remains elsewhere, these records must also be added to the new zone; otherwise, emails will not be delivered.
• Other records: make a note of all the records in the old zone (subdomains, verification TXT records, for example for Google Search Console) so that you can add them to the new location as well.
• DNSSEC: if it was enabled with your previous provider, please disable it before changing your name servers, otherwise the domain may become inaccessible (read more about errors caused by DNSSEC).
• TTL: one day before the change, reduce the TTL value of the records (for example, to 300 seconds) so that the change propagates more quickly.

With both methods, you need to allow for DNS propagation: the change does not take effect immediately, but gradually, over a period of up to 24–72 hours. If the site still does not load after the change, read our guide on why a website might not load after an NS change.