Domain Name System (DNS) records are extremely important. The DNS server is what points visitors to your website by associating the information they input to their browser with your domain name. It translates your domain name to its linked IP address and retrieves the site from the server, as well as ensuring that e-mails are sent and received by the correct domain name.

A DNS name server is included in the hierarchy of a DNS sever. This type of server stores all of the DNS records for a particular domain name, including address records, name server (NS) records and mail exchanger (MX) records.

So, as you can see, if the DNS records are incorrectly modified - or input wrong originally - it can effect every aspect of your site. 

Anyone can set up a DNS server, and there are millions of them out there. Every one has a record of every domain name there is and its corresponding records - that's a lot of information to keep track of, especially when you consider how often domain names change and are updated.

Accordingly, the DNS servers themselves must also be regularly updated. Exactly how frequently they're updated is entirely up to whoever is the system administrator running the DNS server. Some choose to have theirs update every couple of hours, some daily, some even less often.

Due to these delays, there can be a discrepancy between changes made to an individual DNS record and the DNS servers it's connected to. During this transition period some DNS servers will point to the new server, while other ones that haven't yet been updated will continue to point to the old server. 

However, eventually all of the DNS servers will reflect the changes you've made, and if you've made a mistake everyone will see it. The frustrating thing is, making mistakes while modifying DNS records is scarily easy to do. A seemingly small error such as the misspelling of a domain name, or the accidental transposing of numbers in an IP address, can lead to the servers not being able to locate your site's domain name and the bouncing back of any emails sent from associated addresses. 

While these things have the potential to be fixed relatively quickly, the wait between you making the correction and the change going live on all of the DNS servers varies greatly. So even though you may notice an error immediately and rectify it straight away, the evidence will linger until all of the DNS servers have also updated their records.

If you make too many DNS changes in a short amount of time (eg. if you're frantically trying to fix a mistake) the DNS will become confused as to which server it should be pointing to and the site may just go offline completely. This will do nothing but add to your woes. You need to avoid making more than one change to your DNS records within a 12 hour period minimum in order to give the servers time to update and synchronise. If you continue to make changes things will just get messier and harder to fix later on - this is especially true if multiple parties are involved in the modification process, as is usually the case. 

While these types of mistakes are bad enough, it is entirely possible to make much larger errors than a few small typos, as one of our unfortunate clients discovered recently. This particular client doesn't have access to their own domain name management and relies on an external IT company to update their records for them. At the last update, the company modified the wrong records, to disastrous effect. Not only did they change the records to a different domain, they also managed to incorrectly modify the records for the required domain. This caused both websites to go offline and/or to point to the wrong server for approximately a weeks time - Not the best first impression for the launch of the client's new site! The erroneous modification of the DNS records also managed to break the connected sub-domain and mobile site, effectively ruining the client's online presence for that entire week, during what should have been one of their busiest times.

Regretfully, this isn't an uncommon occurrence in the world of DNS records. As the process normally involves multiple parties (the client, the website designers, the system administrator of the DNS server, etc.) there's a large potential for miscommunication. 

Modifying DNS records can be painful, but it's a necessary part of launching a website. To save everyone the time and hassle of correcting mistakes, ensure that you triple check all modifications made - and make sure that you're modifying the right records in the first place! 

If you have any questions, concerns or queries about modifying your own DNS records, or anything at all, you  can get in touch with Rhye Media on Facebook, twitter and Google+. You can also use our online help system if you need any help with your own website, or are interested in having one made for your business.