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?

SPF is the Sender Policy Framework, a way to use DNS to tell the world about the servers that can legitimately send email for your domain. It is an anti-spam tool that makes it a little easier to identify spam, and a little harder for spammers to hide.

We've noticed that many of our members register more domains than they need for email purposes. For example, someone whose domain is example.com may also register example.net or other similar domain names to prevent competitors from creating similarly-named sites. But they only use their primary domain for email.

Our "SPF Email Protection" feature is an easy, automatic SPF record that will tell the world that your domain isn't used for email. That will help foil spammers who might otherwise forge email from that domain, as described in this FAQ entry. That means that spammers have one less place to hide, and also that you won't get their bounce messages.

Our standard offering is designed to be easy to use for this common case. If you need more specific settings for SPF, you can create your own custom TXT record for your domain containing any SPF code you want. The specific code you need depends on the server you use to send (not receive) email, which is usually your ISP's mail server.

To find out what SPF code you should use, or to learn more about SPF and how it can help you, check out the SPF home page.

SPF isn't suitable for all cases. For example, it doesn't work well if your domain sends email from a number of different or frequently changing places. But where it is suitable, it both helps you a little bit, and it's a way to be a "good netizen" to your Internet neighbors by making spamming just a little bit harder.

Anyone who wants to send mail from their domain from our servers and wants an SPF record for it should refer to this FAQ entry instead.

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?

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?