Address Record

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What Does Address Record Mean?

An address record (A record) is a DNS record which is used to point a domain name or subdomains to a static IP address. An A record specifies which IP is designated to a certain domain. This entry does not always have to be made; for example, a domain can be used exclusively for mail services, so an address record for this domain is not required.

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Conversely, several records can be added for every domain. In such cases, a new record is returned for every query. This is particularly necessary for large scalable systems.

Techopedia Explains Address Record

All servers that are connected to the Internet are designated a particular IP address. The address record associates a name to the server’s IP address. This lets people to make use of easy-to-remember domain names instead of hard-to-remember IP addresses while connecting to a website. For example, users could type the IP address 216.168.224.69 in the address bar to access Google’s home page, or they could effortlessly type www.google.com to access the page.

Users can set up A records using specific DNS management tools, which can differ among users.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.