Frequently Asked Questions

The NearlyFreeSpeech.NET FAQ (*)

Domain Name Service (DNS) (*)

How come www.example.com works but example.com does not?

Why are my active and authoritative name servers different?

How should I configure my third-party DNS to point to my site?

What name servers should I use with my domain?

How do I add NearlyFreeSpeech.NET DNS for a new domain name to my existing website?

I already have NearlyFreeSpeech.NET DNS for www.example.com. Will it cost more to add another.example.com (or example.com)?

How do I use a domain I registered elsewhere with NearlyFreeSpeech.NET DNS?

I have NearlyFreeSpeech.NET DNS set up. How do I add a new site using a subdomain?

What is the "SPF Email Protection" option for DNS?

How do I configure NearlyFreeSpeech.NET DNS to work with my third-party email service?

What are the IP address(es) listed for my site used for? Are they name servers?

How do I add / remove DNS records for my domain?

How do I change the name servers for a domain registered with NearlyFreeSpeech.NET?

Should my website use www in its name?

Do you support wildcard site aliases?

How come I can't remove that DNS record?

How do I point a NearlyFreeSpeech.NET DNS record at my dynamic home IP address?

There are a couple of ways to do this.

First, it can be done through our API, which does allow the dynamic modification of DNS records. This approach can be a bit convoluted, but many smart people have written and released scripts and libraries to help streamline the process. Searching the web for "NearlyFreeSpeech.NET dynamic dns" should produce a variety of options.

The second approach is to set up a name for your home machine with a dynamic DNS provider like No-IP.com (which offers a free service), or Dyn. In the case of No-IP.com, they will give you a name like your-name.noip.com and you can load a widget on your home computer or Internet router to keep the address up to date. Then, from our end, add a DNS record for the name you want that is a CNAME to the name they gave you; i.e. if you want www.example.com to point to your home machine, and they gave you example.no-ip.com, you would add a CNAME DNS record here in your example.com domain with a name of "www" and a data value of "example.no-ip.com." including the trailing dot.

If I set up DNS for more than one domain, will they all use the same name servers?

Can I get secondary DNS in another location?

How do I remove DNS service?

Why did my domain stop working after I transferred the DNS here?