Frequently Asked Questions

What is domain forwarding (/redirecting)? Domain forwarding is the process of making one domain name redirect all domain visitors to another domain. This is not to be confused with other redirections implemented through HTML or script, which usually redirects one specific web page to another page on that domain or to a different website. When a user attempts to visit a domain utilizing domain forwarding, the user is sent to the URL that the domain forwarding is set to, and the original domain name entered by the user does not stay in the address bar. Instead, that selected URL that the domain is forwarding users to is displayed. ============================== What are types of domain forwarding (/redirecting)? There are three common types of domain forwarding: standard domain forwarding, stealth forwarding, and email forwarding. Standard domain forwarding: Process of sending a user that arrives at a domain to a selected new domain, forwarding a use. That selected domain appears in the user's address bar. Domain forwarding has no effect on email forwarding. Stealth forwarding: The same process as regular domain forwarding applies to stealth forwarding, with the user being forwarded to a new, specified domain. The difference is that the original domain URL will remain in the user's address bar, despite the user being on a new domain. Email forwarding: The process of allowing received emails on your domain's email address to be sent to an additional, specified email address. ============================== What is forward status code? What is the difference between a 301 and a 302 redirect code? The forward status code is the response code sent to a web browser visiting your site if your domain is set to 6-1.org domain forwarding. The code tells the web browser that the domain should be forwarded to another location. ============================== Which redirect code should i use? Either code, 301 or 302, can be used to forward your web page. A typical visitor to your website will not notice a difference. The different codes are mainly used for search engine optimization (SEO). The 301 redirect code would tell a search engine that it should use the "forward to" page in its search results. For example, 6-1.org should be 301 redirected to 6-1.org, since we want 6-1.org to show up in the search engine results, not 6-1.org. The 302 redirect code would tell the search engine to check back later to see which website should be used in its results. This would be useful if you are temporarily forwarding to another site while you are creating your actual site. ============================== What is domain leasing (/renting)? Domain leasing, also known as domain rental, is a business arrangement where the owner of a domain name allows another party to use that domain name for a specified period in exchange for regular payments, much like renting physical property. ============================== What is SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization. Following SEO best practices will help Google and other search engines find and rank your website better. There are a lot of great resources online to help you learn SEO best practices and we recommend doing some research, especially since SEO, along with the search engines, is always changing. ============================== What is spam? "Spam" is email that is both unsolicited and in bulk. Unsolicited means that the recipient has not granted permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the same message has been sent to many people, usually all at once. An email that is unsolicited but not sent in bulk is fine, such as asking about a product before buying it. An email that is sent in bulk but not unsolicited is fine, such as sending a newsletter. But sending an email that is both unsolicited and in bulk is spamming. ============================== What is spoofing? Spoofing is when someone places an email address (which may be fake) they do not have access to in the "From" field to cover up their actual email address. This is often done to trick the recipient into thinking the email is from a friend, family member, or legitimate business. This commonly occurs in spam messages and is something to be aware of, especially if the email does not look like something that the person or business in the "From" field would send. ============================== What does it mean when a website is cached and How do i clear my cache? Caching is the temporary storage of web documents such as HTML pages and images. Basically, your web browser stores copies of web pages you've visited recently to reduce its bandwidth usage, server load, and lag. This could be why your website is offline, why it seems like your name servers still aren't set, or why you can't see the changes you've made to your website. If you suspect this is the case, you can first try clicking "refresh" on your browser a few times. If this still does not work, you can clear your browser's cache to see if that is the problem. Each browser is different, but here are some links to the most popular browsers cache clearing instructions: Chrome Firefox Safari Internet Explorer Opera If any of these links don't provide the information you need to clear your cache, there are many other resources online that can help ==============================

What is an internationalized domain name (IDN)? Internationalized domain names (IDNs) are domain names that either: are written in languages/scripts using Latin letters with diacritics (accents marks such as é or ü) OR do not use the Latin alphabet at all. IDNs allow native speakers of non-Latin based scripts to access the Internet in their own language. Since Internet usage is rising around the world and the world is full of many different languages and scripts, IDNs offer a great way to connect with your target market no matter what they speak. ============================== What is ASCII? ASCII, pronounced ask-ee, stands for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII was originally based on the English alphabet and consists of 128 characters including A-Z, 0-9, punctuation, spaces, and other control codes that can be found on a standard English keyboard. These 128 characters are then assigned a number from 0 to 127 to represent them in data transfer from one computer to the other. While ASCII code was originally developed for teletypewriters (a device used to send and receive messages), it found broader application with the development of personal computers. ============================== What is non-ASCII? Non-ASCII characters are those that are not part of the ASCII character set. These characters include letters, symbols, and characters from various languages and scripts around the world. As computer systems evolved to support multiple languages and internationalization, extended character encodings like UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format 8-bit) became more common. UTF-8 can represent a much larger range of characters compared to ASCII, making it suitable for a global audience. ============================== What is UTF-8? UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format 8-bit) is a character encoding that's designed to encode a wide range of characters from various languages and scripts in a standardized and efficient manner. It's part of the Unicode standard, which aims to provide a universal character encoding that covers all the world's writing systems and characters. UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, meaning that different characters can be represented using different numbers of bytes. It uses one to four bytes to represent characters. Basic ASCII characters (those in the ASCII character set) are represented using a single byte, making it backward compatible with ASCII. However, UTF-8 can also encode characters from outside the ASCII range, such as, non-Latin scripts, emojis and more. ============================== What is unicode? Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that is used to support characters in non-ASCII scripts. The Internet was originally built on ASCII, which is based on the English alphabet and consists of only 128 characters. Unicode allows for support of all the languages around the world and their unique character sets - Unicode can support over 1 million characters! The way Unicode works is by allowing more bits, short for binary digit, which are units of information on a machine. ASCII characters only require about 7 bits, while Unicode uses 16 bits. This is necessary because it takes more bits to process languages such as Chinese, Arabic, and Russian. There are different types of Unicode including UTF-8 and UTF-16, the two most common. UTF-8 has become the typical standard used on the web because it adjusts the number of bits used depending on the character. This means that ASCII characters in UTF-8 only take up the bits they need to process. ============================== What is punycode? Punycode is a way to represent International Domain Names (IDNs) with the limited character set (A-Z, 0-9) supported by the domain name system. For example, "münich" would be encoded as "mnich-kva". An IDN takes the punycode encoding, and adds a "xn--" in front of it. So "münich.com" would become "xn--mnich-kva.com" ============================== Did the rules for .COM and .NET IDNs change? Yes, there are new rules concerning .COM and .NET Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) registrations. These rules were changed on 03/21/2005. Listed below are the rules that were put into place: 1. Verisign, the central registry of .COM and .NET, is taking a more restrictive approach as to what characters are permitted within IDN registrations that contain the ENG and GER language tags. Specifically: Domains registered with the language tag of ENG will only be allowed for registrations that consist of characters a-z, 0-9, and -. The reason why we are retaining the ENG table is that in the future, we could add characters to the table which would make registrations using them in an IDN. However, in the interim, no new IDNs could be registered with a language tag containing the ENG value. Domains registered with the language tag of GER will only allow for registrations that consist of characters a-z, 0-9, -, ä, ö, and ü. The ß character will continue to be disallowed however, as is currently the case, following the IDNA RFCs. At this time, existing registrations that are tagged as ENG or GER will remain in the zone and unaffected by this change. No changes in the future are envisioned except as noted in the following. 2. With the exception of characters 0-9 and the dash, domains that commingle Latin and Cyrillic characters for any language tag will no longer be permitted. At this time Verisign will not be making any changes to existing registrations that commingle Latin and Cyrillic characters. However, there may be a need in the future to place any existing registrations on REGISTRY-HOLD, for they may no longer comply to registry specifications. ============================== What is TCP/IP? Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (currently in revision 4, known as IPv4, and sometimes called 4bone) - is a communication language that is used for transmitting data over networks. It is the main protocol for the Internet. TCP/IP is a set of instructions that describes how packets of information are sent across multiple networks. The TCP part deals with the verifying delivery of the packets. The IP part refers to the moving of data packets between nodes. ============================== What is TTL? TTL is a setting placed on all Internet Protocol packets in the form of a numerical value to limit how long the packet ‘lives’ inside the Internet transmission system. This number value is known as the hop limit. Here's how TTL works: DNS Records: When you visit a website, your computer sends a request to a DNS resolver (a server that translates domain names into IP addresses). The DNS resolver looks up the appropriate DNS records associated with the domain to find the corresponding IP address. Caching: To improve efficiency and reduce network traffic, DNS resolvers and other systems cache DNS records for a certain period. This caching helps speed up subsequent requests for the same domain. However, because IP addresses can change or records can be updated, it's important to have a mechanism to control how long cached records are considered valid. TTL Value: The TTL value is set by the domain owner in the DNS records. It indicates the time period (in seconds) that a DNS record can be cached by other systems. For example, if a DNS record has a TTL of 3600 seconds (1 hour), it means that the record can be cached by DNS resolvers and other systems for up to 1 hour before they should check for updated records. Expiration and Refresh: Once the TTL period expires, the cached record is considered stale. After expiration, DNS resolvers will query the authoritative DNS servers again to get the most up-to-date record. This process is known as "refreshing." ============================== What is A record? The ‘A’ in A Record stands for ‘address.’ This is the most popular DNS record type. Its function? Connecting your website domain or subdomain names, such as example.com or blog.example.com, to a numerical IPV4 address such as 127.0.0.1. Think of this as the home address of your website. Note that an ‘A’ record shows that server’s IP address location when you connect your website to a hosting service. Other names commonly used to describe ‘A’ records include an ‘Address Mapping Record’ and a ‘DNS host record.’ ============================== What is AAAA record? This behaves the same as the ‘A’ record but points the domain to an IPv6 address. The difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is the length of the IP address name from 32 bit to 128 bit consecutively. Because many domains use domain registrars, their name servers have an IPv4 address, so an AAAA record is not present. Note: You’d only need to change an A or AAAA record type if you switched to a new hosting provider, changed servers to a personal name server, or the IP of your hosting provider changed. ============================== What is CNAME record? To understand CNAME records, you first need to know about domain configuration - or the hierarchy of DNS records. Think of the A record as the one sitting at the top of the naming tree. When you want to add applications, a typical example of their requirements is to link www.example.com to your domain. So the CNAME record makes sure www.example.com knows example.com (the ‘A’ record name)is the true (or ‘naked’) domain. CNAME stands for “canonical name” and will always point one name used by your website to your A record. Note: If you change your hosting and therefore change your domain’s IP address, you only need to update the A/AAAA record IP address because a CNAME record will automatically change as well. ============================== What is MX record? It’s helpful to remember to view the DNS as the map to your services. Your MX or mail exchange DNS record always exists when you buy a domain, but you need to add your client-server mail name (e.g., is it Private Email, Gmail, Protonmail, or something else) to the record, so the domain knows which client to use. You need to have these records configured to receive mail to your domain. The DNS MX record needs the name of your chosen mail servers and something called a “priority value’ to work. Different mail providers have a different number of servers, and some have only one. So look to your provider to find out how to fill in your MX records and prioritize their mail servers in the correct order. Note: For anyone confused about MX records set up, representatives can help you select your mail service and get things working. You might need to delete the CNAME record to get your mail working if the CNAME record and MX records are created for the same host. ============================== What is SRV record? A service record (SRV) is a specification of data in the Domain Name System defining the location (i.e., the port number) of servers for specified services (e.g., Minecraft). Think of this as ‘plugging in’ a service to a port. ============================== What is TXT record? Provides the ability to associate other services, or sometimes your mail service, to your domain. This is to help humans using words recognize which server (or software) is using their system. You can add many TXT records to describe other numerical ideas. Some places you might see a TXT record are with an SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified E-mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) purposes. Most DNS hosting providers give clear instructions if you need to change these records, or better still, provide automatic transfer tools to help you out. ============================== What is PTR record? This ‘pointer’ record converts an IP address into a domain name. It’s known as a reverse DNS entry check to verify if a server matches the domain it claims to be from. It’s an extra check used as a security measure. ============================== What is SOA record? This record stores important information about the DNS zone for your domain, including the person responsible for the entire zone. Each zone must have an SOA record, but it’s unlikely you’ll have to create an SOA record directly—unless the responsible person is you. An interesting thing about SOA records is they are always distributed with a zero TTL to prohibit caching. This record cannot be adjusted or interfered with but is limited to traveling only to one server at a time. ============================== What is AFSDB record? This record is used for clients of the Andrew File System (AFS) developed by Carnegie Mellon. You’ll see this in your records if you add in music and video streaming plugins. ============================== What is APL record? The ‘address prefix list’ specifies lists of address ranges and is commonly used if you want a closed system of users, like at the office and across multi-sites or delivery driver devices. ============================== What is DCHID record? When a non-Windows server contacts a Windows host in a dynamic IP network (like a multi-site office where everyone uses different devices and operating systems), this record stores ‘A’ records and points ‘PTR’ records for the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). It’s a type of Resource Record to help things run smoothly in a network, ensuring all DNS records refresh and only authorized devices run with the verified domain. This prevents the crime of cybersquatting or ‘name squatting whereby someone slips into the network and borrows your domain name to make a profit, pretending to be from your organization. ============================== What is DNAME record? The ‘D’ stands for delegation and allows you to create a new tree for subdomains. If you have a domain example.com and you add cats.example.com as an ‘A’ record, but you want to have dogs in there too, you could create a subdomain using a DNAME record. This record works just like a CNAME and will send all lookups for dogs.example.com and CNAME lookups for cats.example.com to the same IP address for all parts of example.com. ============================== What is HIP record? A ‘Host identity protocol’ record separates the roles of an IP address by the device. This record is used most often in mobile computing. ============================== What is RP record? The RP-record type makes it possible to identify the responsible person for individual hostnames within a specific DNS zone. ============================== What is SSHFP record? This record stores the ‘SSH public key fingerprints’; SSH stands for Secure Shell, and it’s a cryptographic networking protocol for secure communication over an unsecured network. ============================== What is DNSSEC records? When DNSSEC protocols apply to your website’s DNS, you will see these record types: DNSKEY record: To prevent cybercrime and stop your users from being redirected to a false website, This record contains a crypto key to verify you have DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extension) signatures. NSEC record: The ‘next secure record’ is used to return approved DNS resource records listed by DNSSEC and disprove others. RRSIG record: This stands for ‘resource record signature’ and authenticates records that use digital signatures under DNSSEC. ==============================