My DNS changes aren't working

You’ve added or edited a DNS record, waited, and nothing has changed. The most common reason is that the change was made in a place your domain doesn’t use.

Step 1: Find out who runs your DNS

Your domain’s nameservers decide where its DNS records live. Only records at that provider count; records anywhere else are ignored.

Check your nameservers in Domains → My Domains → Nameservers in the client area, or with a lookup tool. See Checking a domain’s WHOIS and nameservers.

Your nameservers are…	Edit your DNS records in…
nsa.ruachost.com and nsb.ruachost.com	The client area DNS Manager (Domains → Manage DNS) or cPanel’s Zone Editor. They stay in sync, so use either.
Cloudflare (e.g. xxx.ns.cloudflare.com)	Your Cloudflare dashboard. Changes in cPanel or the DNS Manager have no effect.
Another company’s (e.g. your old host or registrar)	That company’s DNS settings, or change the nameservers to Ruachost’s and manage DNS here.

Step 2: Check the record itself

• Is the name right? In most editors, www means www.example.com. Typing www.example.com as the name can create www.example.com.example.com. Use @ for the domain itself.
• Is there a conflicting record? A name can’t have a CNAME and another record at the same time. If you’re pointing a name somewhere new, delete the old A, AAAA or CNAME record for that name.
• Is there more than one? Two A records for the same name split visitors between two servers. A domain should also have only one SPF record.
• Is the value correct? Copy and paste values from the service you’re connecting to, with no extra spaces.

Step 3: Allow time to propagate

DNS changes can take a few hours to reach everyone, and up to 24–48 hours for nameserver changes. See DNS propagation explained.

Still stuck?

Open a support ticket with your domain name, the record you added and where you added it. We’ll check it for you.

Related articles

• Managing DNS records
• DNS troubleshooting checklist