August 25, 2025 • 27 mins
I just launched a new DNS Course for Web Designers, specifically to help you get a 101, foundational understanding of all things domains, DNS records, email, security, performance, etc.
It replaced what was formerly my cPanel course. It’s a short, snappy, “what you need to know” DNS course without getting too technical or overwhelming. In this podcast episode, I’m giving you a little teaser!
Included in the episode:
- A few personal DNS horror stories (to illustrate how important it is to know this stuff as a web designer)
- The most popular lesson so far on ‘Domain Types’
- And I’m even including the DNS Checklist from the course FOR FREE! Think of it as your DNS SOP for you and your team.
Again, be sure to download the DNS Checklist I’ve made available to you for free. It also includes a special offer if you’d like to dive into the full course!
Show notes at joshhall.co/393
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Josh (00:00):
Hello, my web designer friend, it's great to have you
here Now.
As a web designer, whether youlike it or not, you are dealing
with DNS and if you've been inthis game for any amount of time
, you know that there can beabsolute nightmare horror
stories that happen when you dothings like take a site down or
(00:20):
break your client's email, and alot of these things can be
avoided if you just know thevery basics of things like
domain types, name servers, dnsrecords, imap versus POP setup,
mx records, onsite security, ssl, et cetera.
So I'm very excited to announcethat I just released a new
version of what was formerly mycPanel course and it is now my
(00:44):
new DNS course for web designers, and in this podcast episode
I'm going to give you a coupleof freebies.
I'm going to give you a teaserof a couple of lessons in the
course.
I've got actually three thingsfor you.
Number one here it's allwrapped up in this episode.
Number one, I'm going to sharethe lesson on a few of my
personal DNS horror stories tojust illustrate how important it
(01:05):
is to know, again, just thebasics of DNS.
You don't need to be an expert,but for you and your team, this
is going to be absolutely keyto avoiding the nightmare
situations that you'll hear hereshortly.
And then I'm also going toshare what is my most popular
lesson of the course so far,because all of my community
members in Web Designer Pro gotearly access to the course.
So far, because all of mycommunity members in Web
(01:26):
Designer Pro got early access tothe course, and so far, the
domains lesson is one of themost popular lessons in there.
It covers the different typesof domain extensions and types,
which is really important tounderstand, especially for you
and your clients.
So I'm going to let you in onthat lesson.
And then I'm also going toshare, completely for free, the
DNS checklist.
This is the checklist that isbasically an overview of the
(01:48):
highlights of the main aspectsof the course.
I'm going to make thatavailable completely for free
for you.
You don't even need to give meyour email.
All you need to do is go tojoshhallco slash 393.
That will be the show notes forthis episode, and I made a
Google Doc version of thechecklist that you can just
check out and download in anyformat that you please.
So, completely free, joshhallcoslash 393 is where to pick that
(02:10):
up For now.
Enjoy a little bit of a teaserto the new DNS course for web
designers and, as it goeswithout saying, if you'd like,
the full course link will bebelow to jump in and get access,
with a special offer to checkout my brand new DNS course to
help save you so much stresslike what I experienced and that
you'll hear now.
Now, before we dive into thenitty gritty of DNS and take a
(02:33):
look at all this stuff, I wantedto start off by sharing some
DNS stories, more specifically,some horror stories stories, aka
nightmares that I experiencedin my journey as a web designer,
to illustrate the importance ofknowing at least the basics of
DNS.
So I'm going to share threestories that's all I felt like
(02:54):
digging into the past for thatare going to help illustrate
some of the most importantthings here to help you avoid
these types of scenarios.
So let's dig in to Josh's DNShorror stories.
All right, we're going to startoff with.
I'm telling you I had some PTSDgoing back into some of these
(03:15):
stories, but we'll start offwith number one, which is when I
broke a client's email.
Now, what happened in thisscenario?
We went live with a new websitethat I created for Capital City
Staffing Great client was in mynetworking group and everything
.
What I did not realize was,when we moved him over to his
new hosting, that I hadneglected what will come into
(03:38):
play here in the course the MXrecord which controls email.
And when I changed the nameservers which we'll cover as
well to point his website overto the new hosting I had set up
for him, I did not set up hisemail correctly and all of his
email broke and he lostvirtually all of his email.
(03:59):
Now we'll cover this as well.
He had two there's twodifferent types of email setups.
He had pop email, which meant,in short, that his email was
downloaded directly on hisin-office computers and machines
.
So when he went into the officeon a Saturday morning we
launched on a Friday night, Iget a call first thing Saturday
(04:20):
morning frantic, saying Josh,our email's down, what happened?
And I'm freaking out trying tofigure out what the heck went
wrong.
And only then did I realizewhen we moved the site over to
the new hosting, I did nottransfer for the email settings
correctly and essentially hewent into his office Saturday
(04:42):
morning, logged on the computerand had no email at all.
Now what we did, moving forwardto rectify.
This was, thank goodness, atthat time I had met Amr, my
email colleague and guru who wasin Web Designer Pro, and I
contacted him and he was able towork with them to get some of
(05:03):
the backups of those emails andcontact lists.
But we didn't get all of it andmy client lost some contacts,
lost a lot of email and becausehe did not have native backups
of the email, essentially whenwe changed the site over to the
new hosting it broke everything.
So again, it wasn't even a fullsolution.
(05:25):
It was a very, very costlysituation for my client.
It was a nightmare for me spentthe entire weekend talking to
the new hosts and the old hostsand trying to figure it out and
then they were like well, theiremail was downloaded on the
machines via pop, so there'snothing we can do.
And then Joe didn't know whatto do.
My client thankfully, amberstepped in and got on a call
with him and helped get some ofthe stuff back with some like I
(05:48):
think, urgent type of backupstuff that was in place, but
they did not recover all of itand it was a nightmare situation
.
That was number one me breakingmy client's email.
Horror story number two, and Idon't even know which one's
worse.
This may take the cake, but thefirst one was bad as well.
We went live again on a Fridaynight as most websites do often
(06:08):
on a Friday night for my clientlocation.
They were formerly called KeikoRealty and they had a site for
their agents and it was a brandnew thing.
They had hyped it up.
They were all excited aboutgetting their real estate agents
onto their own platform, ontothe site.
We went live and what I did wasI went into their hosting and I
(06:29):
deleted the old databases tothe websites, because generally,
after I go live with a newWordPress website, we go into
what was a staging site or atest site and we delete the
databases.
Well, I didn't know that Ideleted the wrong database.
I deleted the live sitedatabase We'll get into this in
the course for those of you whoare WordPress designers but in
(06:52):
short, the database houses allthe content and all the pages
and the post types andeverything.
So the site just looked wacky.
And then, uh, I got a franticcall from the client saying
there's, it says there's anerror with the database.
I go in there thinking I hadcleared out our old test sites
and I had deleted the actuallive site that had just went
(07:15):
live, that they were pushingtraffic to and marketing and
spending money marketing to it.
Now here's the bigger problem.
I didn't take a backup.
Let me say that again becauseyou're like Josh, isn't it like
a one-on-one that you wouldthink you would think it would
be a one-on-one thing, but I wasearly in my journey and then I
did not realize that as soon asyou get your WordPress website
(07:38):
design, you take a backup.
You take a backup of all thesite files, the database,
everything in there which youcould do with a bunch of
different tools via your hostingor ManageWP, umbrellawp, et
cetera.
So when I deleted the database,I had no backup.
No backup to just restore.
This was before I used ManageWP, by the way.
(07:59):
And then the first thing I didwas talk to the host and they
said they didn't have a backup.
We were experimenting with ahosting company that was
recommended to me.
That was not a notable company.
Most hosting companies,especially now, have some sort
of backup, especially withinlike a 24-hour period.
They did not.
They were not able to restorethat database.
(08:19):
So the client's freaking out,they've got traffic going there.
So guess what?
I had to spend my entireweekend doing Rebuilding the
site.
It was, I want to say, 15 pagesat least and, yes, I had the
design and code saved.
That I had done and I had alltheir assets.
But I had to recreate anentirely new WordPress.
(08:42):
Remember the styling, rememberhow the page layouts went.
I had to redo everything and Ispent an entire weekend.
I remember being so stressedout, so burned out, because you
have to think too.
This was after a probably agood six week period of
designing that site.
It was a big project.
It was one of two projects forthem Finally got it launched.
(09:03):
So I'm thinking like it'svacation time.
I'm going to chill out thisweekend and spend a lot of work.
The opposite happened and it wasterrible.
Thankfully, my client somewhatunderstood, although I did take
the ownership of it.
But I said I thought for surewe'd get a backup from the host.
That was not the case.
They paid me a little bit ofextra money for the extra work,
(09:23):
but I essentially worked forpennies hustling to get that
site back on and this hairlinewas down here until both of
those horror stories kept onmoving it up.
This is a DNS problem.
This receding hairline righthere, it's DNS.
This would have been right herehad just those two horror
stories not happened.
So back up your WordPress siteimmediately before launch of
(09:46):
your WordPress user.
Then, finally, my third andfinal horror story so I can get
out of this nightmare and getout of the past was my own
website and transitstudioscomwas hacked.
And guess when it got hacked?
When I was on my honeymoon.
So got married to my beautifulwife, emily.
We're on our honeymoon.
(10:07):
We did really good at not beingonline at all on the honeymoon,
so didn't even log on oranything.
It waited until we got home andmy first day back to work I
opened my email and I see anemail from a colleague of mine
who went to send me a referraland he said hey, josh, just want
to let you know your site isdown.
It's just showing a blank whitescreen.
(10:27):
And I was like, oh God, whathave?
I'm all excited to get backinto work and everything site
was not just down or broken, itwas hacked and we'll get into a
little bit of security and hackprevention and measures in this.
But what I did not realize wasoften when sites get hacked,
they will get blacklisted fromGoogle.
(10:49):
So not only was I hacked tofigure out how to restore the
files, either with a backup orwith another solution, but I had
to submit to Google all mystuff and get it un-blacklisted
de-blacklisted, whatever thecorrect terminology is.
This is when I found out aboutthe company Securi and I ended
up hiring Securi.
It was the best thing I did.
(11:09):
They got my site back up andrunning, protected stuff.
I changed all the passwords, wedid some other security
precautions that we'll cover inthe course, and then they
actually reached out on mybehalf to Google and got the
site reinstated and notblacklisted the other thing that
can happen.
Thankfully, I had my emailseparated, but when your email
is on the same server, as we'lltalk about, as your website, if
(11:32):
your website gets hacked, youremail can get hacked too.
Thankfully, I avoided one leveldeeper of a nightmare by not
having my email on the sameserver, but nonetheless trying
to enjoy my honeymoon.
What does a web designer haveto do to enjoy a vacation?
Right, come back home.
My website is hacked.
Had I known in all three ofthese horror stories, had I
(11:52):
known number one about nameservers and MX records, I
wouldn't have broke my client'semail.
Number two had I known that thedatabase of a WordPress website
is where all the pages andcontent and posts are.
I wouldn't have broke a sitethat just went live and number
three had I known better basicsecurity members or measures and
not had bad hosting on Bluehost.
(12:13):
Sorry, bluehost, but you gethacked all the time.
I wouldn't have had a hackduring my honeymoon and I could
have enjoyed the post honeymoonphase even more.
So I hope you enjoyed this.
Again.
Three real world stories,horror stories that I
experienced, and all I had toknow was just some of the basics
that we're going to get intohere in this course to help you
(12:34):
avoid those and a lot more.
So, without further ado, let'sget into it Now.
Here is the lesson on domaintypes, which is the first lesson
in the entire domains module ofthe course.
I hope you enjoy it and again,check below for all the details
to go to the show notes page toget the free DNS checklist that
I've made available for you anda special offer to jump into the
(12:55):
course.
And just a reminder when youget access to this course,
you'll also get access to myentire collection of courses in
Web Designer Pro, so you canjump into this one, have some
fun and then jump into someother courses to see what's a
good fit for you to help yougrow your web design business
ASAP as possible.
So we're going to kick off withdomains, which are really the
most important things when itcomes to DNS, and this is going
(13:18):
to be the media section of thecourse, because a lot goes into
the different aspects of domains.
What this is going to be is avery one-on-one overview.
We're going to cover a fewthings.
We're going to get into what adomain is, where to purchase
those, what types of domains arecommon, which is going to be
really important, so do not skipthis.
And then I'm also going to giveyou a bit of a bonus, which is
(13:38):
kind of just some best practiceprinciples for your domain setup
.
So what is a domain?
It is just like a DNS.
A domain name system, like wejust talked about, is a
humanized version of theinternet.
A domain name is the humanfriendly address of a website.
So when you type in my currentwebsites, joshhallco or
webdesignaprocom, what isactually behind that is
(14:01):
something like this like youwould see in the matrix, it's a
bunch of numbers and thosenumbers are called the IP
address, which, if you'refeeling wild and want to know
what that means.
It is the Internet Protocoladdress, so it looks like this.
The human way to think aboutthis is it's like a mailing
address for a house in the realworld, but it's a website.
So this would be like theaddress of a house basically.
(14:24):
But as a human, thank goodnesswe don't need to type this in,
we can just type in this.
But I remember one time I wasgetting a ton of site traffic in
Russia and what we did is Iactually just blocked IP
(14:45):
addresses in that region.
So if you were to haveliterally like one IP address
that is like a bot or somethingthat's trying to hack your
website, you can actually go inand block an IP address or you
can block a certain region.
I have a local colleague whomanages a lot of websites and
they were getting a lot oftraffic from outside of China
and they're just a localbusiness in Columbus Ohio, so
there was no reason for them toget a ton of traffic.
(15:07):
So they found out they weretrying to get hacked, so they
just blocked an entire regionand you can do that with the IP
address.
So that's kind of what's goingon behind a domain name.
Again, it looks a lot like thisThank goodness we don't have to
deal with that Now.
Where to purchase?
You can purchase domain nameswith whatever hosting company
you choose or we'll get intothis in best practices but you
(15:28):
can also use a separate domainregistrar and then point your
domain to your preferred hostingand I'll explain why that's
best practice at the end here.
So gonna keep you on edge onthat.
Explain why that's bestpractice at the end here.
So going to keep you on edge onthat.
But very common domain nameregistrars or GoDaddy or
Namecheap.
I still use GoDaddy forpurchasing a lot of different
domain names, especially becauseI do have SiteGround, and
(15:50):
you'll notice here in my domainsand SiteGround I have some that
are purchased here, but then Ihave some that are just hosted
here but actually purchased atGoDaddy.
Now if you have a host that youreally trust and you've been
with for years, there'sabsolutely nothing wrong with
purchasing domains in yourpreferred hosting.
But if, for any reason, you'rejust not sure you're going to
stick with a host, it's actuallybest just to purchase on
(16:12):
GoDaddy or Namecheap or adifferent one.
There's a ton, by the way, aton of great domain registrars.
You can Google it or you can.
Whatever web design groupyou're a part of Hopefully it's
Web Designer Pro you can figureout what's common.
But you can purchase these andthen we'll get into how to
actually point these to apreferred hosting company.
This is also really commonpractice, especially if you're
(16:34):
working with clients who like tobuy a lot of domain names.
I was working with a client onetime who had like it was over a
hundred domain names that hebought, and sometimes you know,
like you'll see, I bought lawnweeniecom.
I don't know if I'm going touse it, but it was available.
I have an interest in being alawn weenie and have a nice
green grass, so I got it just incase.
I did that, and go daddy justso I could manage it.
(16:55):
And let's say, one day I don'teven want to use a WordPress
website, I use a differentbuilder or something, or maybe
it's a community that's not onWordPress.
Then I have the ability inGoDaddy to say, hey, point this
over here.
But again, I do have domainspurchased through SiteGround as
well, and we'll get into thedifferent types of domains.
Next, when it comes to domains,there's about seven primary
(17:17):
types of domains and we'll covereach one of these here real
quick.
When you set up your hostingaccount, you will start off with
what's called a primary domain,like WebDesignerProcom, or
actually I set up my SiteGroundhosting with JoshHallco, so
that's my primary domain.
Okay, web designer procom isanother domain that I had
(17:38):
purchased on GoDaddy, but I havepointed and hosted over at
SiteGround.
The next few lessons will sharemore on detail on how I did
this, but the reason I mentionedthis is Josh Hallco is
technically the primary domainname in SiteGround, but you'll
see web designer procom ishosted here but it's actually
what's known as an externaldomain.
So this is just kind of acaveat because technically you
(18:00):
could have a domain that'sprimary on your hosting but it's
maybe purchased.
The actual domain name ispurchased elsewhere.
So this is actually a reallygood case study and example of
how to have this set up.
Because joshhallco waspurchased at SiteGround, the
domain name was purchased andregistered at SiteGround was
purchased at SiteGround.
The domain name was purchasedand registered at SiteGround.
(18:21):
Webdesignerprocom was purchasedand registered at GoDaddy, but
I have it hosted underSiteGround, which is why it's
called an external domain.
If I were to transferWebdesignerProcom the domain and
register at SiteGround, thiswould drop.
This would not say externaldomain, it would be an internal
domain.
So big note there when it comesto primary and external domains
, but they're very similar.
I'm keeping this under 0.1 and1A.
(18:44):
Now you can have differentdomains on your hosting account
and those are called add-ondomains.
So what you see here I have acouple add-on domains, one which
is just kind of testing andthen one which is a domain I've
owned for years, which are foundhere under my websites, but
(19:04):
they are add-on.
But because they are an add-ondomain, they are different URLs
but they're on my same hostingand my same server, unless I
would separate these.
But just know that when youhave an add-on domain, basically
you don't need to sign up for anew hosting account for every
domain.
Thank goodness you can have onehosting account, depending on
(19:25):
your setup, and have differentadd-on domains that are
different URLs.
But if I wanted to do somethingunder the same URLs that you
see here, those are calledsubdomains.
So for and actually you seethis with my agency site.
It's called in transit studios,that's in transit studioscom.
But I have a version of myagency that was the me version
(19:50):
of it before I sold that andthat's it, josh dot in transit
studioscom.
So that is not hosted with me.
That's actually actually hostedwith my CEO, eric, and that is
what's called a subdomain, so itresides under that.
You'll see this often withstaging sites, so that's kind of
.
The next option is you cancreate a subdomain which, by the
(20:13):
way, a staging site isbasically a subdomain.
It just means that this issomething that's going to be
only live for a little while, orit could be a testing site
that's not live.
So the reason I separated thisis a subdomain may be live, like
I have here, and a lot of timesthese will be live sites that
folks will drive traffic to, forexample, my friend Jay Klaus,
(20:35):
who runs Creator Science.
He has a very popular podcastand when we click over to the
podcast, look at the URL, itchanges to
podcastcreatorsciencecom.
So it's a whole differentwebsite but it is a subdomain
here.
But the reason this is differentis that this is a live,
searchable, indexed domain name.
So I wouldn't consider this astaging site because it's live.
(20:58):
It is a subdomain which can becompletely live and searchable.
That's different than a stagingsite, which would be something
like dev or testing somewherewhere you may want to have a
site live on a browser but it'snot indexed by Google and other
search engines.
For example, under myjoshhallco domain I actually
have a tutorial site that only Isee.
(21:19):
You could I mean technicallyyou can go to this URL and
access it, but I don't have thisindexed because I wanted a live
site to play around with.
But, as you can tell, thisshould not be seen by the public
.
But if somebody goes on there,it's fine, no problem.
But that's the difference.
But you can create staging sites, either live on a browser or
(21:40):
hidden, because sometimes youmay want to create a staging
site that a client could accessand then, when you're ready to
go live, then you move it totheir real domain.
This is a solid way to do it.
But then there are alsotemporary domains and these are
generally host generated butthey do have different levels of
access and limits andconstraints on who can view them
(22:00):
.
For example, in my SiteGroundhosting account we look at the
websites that I have here thisone here I was actually playing
around with SiteGround's websitebuilder and you can tell this
is not a live domain name thatsomebody's going to type in.
This is actually a temporarydomain.
It's kind of a mix of a stagingdomain, but temporary, because,
(22:21):
again, staging may be somethingthat you want to reference,
either live or hidden.
Temporary is going to be purelydomain hosted and you can spin
these up pretty quickly usually.
So in the case of SiteGround,if I wanted to add a new domain,
I can add a domain that isregistered here in SiteGround,
or I can add a domain that isregistered elsewhere, or I could
(22:43):
use a temporary domain and evenif I just wanted to start
testing out a new design orsomething, this is where I would
do that and it's going to giveme a wacky string of numbers
that generally only I am goingto see, and the last couple here
.
A parked domain means that youhave a domain name registered
but it's an inactive website andyou can actually park domains
(23:04):
under your websites here.
So if I go into Web DesignerPro dot com under my site tools
that we looked at in the DNSoverview, under domains, here
you can see I have an option tolook at subdomains, which I have
some subdomains.
I have an option to look atsubdomains which I have some
subdomains.
I'm actually currently buildinga model site for you and other
students to be able to referenceto under webdesignaprocom, and
(23:27):
memberwebdesignaprocom is wherethis course is, which we'll get
into next.
There's also options forredirecting domains entirely,
and then parked domains.
I could add a parked domainthat I own, but that doesn't
mean it's going to be a live URL.
It just means that I canactually like have a registered
domain that is parked under thisdomain.
This is a little more intricateand not super often you're
(23:48):
going to do a park domain, butjust know.
That's kind of the differencein the way I understand it.
It's an active domain but it isin an active website.
And then, finally, a customdomain, which means inside of
Web Designer Pro.
Here, the back, the behind thescenes of what runs Web Designer
Pro, is Circle, which is aself-hosted platform, and I
connect that to the subdomainmemberwebdesignerprocom.
(24:13):
So where you're viewing thiscourse is
memberwebdesignerprocom.
This is a custom domain andyou'll see this with Webflow and
Squarespace and a lot of otherself-hosted platforms where you
could go in and it'll say, righthere, in the case of Circle,
where do you want your domainpointed to?
Because technically, the domainyou're looking at inside of Web
(24:36):
Designer Pro is this.
The domain is actuallywebdesignerprocircleso, but this
redirects to the custom domainwe set up, which is
memberwebdesignerpro, which isright here.
I set up a subdomain,memberwebdesignerprocom, and
then, inside of Circle this iswhere I point this to that.
How do you do that?
(24:57):
Well, that's in the DNS zoneeditor, which we're gonna cover
shortly.
So those are the differenttypes of domains, really really
important Primary, and you mayhave external domains that are
connected or not connected toyour primary domain.
Add-on domains, which aredifferent URLs.
Subdomains like this, which areoften gonna be live, staging
domains, which are basicallyfancy subdomains that are just
(25:18):
going to be for testing ordevelopment purposes.
Temporary domains, once they'rehost generated, that clients
are not going to view.
Park domains which are activebut not active.
Websites.
And then custom domains.
And lastly, really quick when itcomes to best practices, to put
this all together, common bestpractices, especially for
clients, is to purchase a domainname from a registrar, like
(25:41):
Namecheap or GoDaddy, and thenhost it elsewhere, like
SiteGround, wp Engine etc.
And what you'll do.
We'll get into this next withthe records, but you can buy a
domain name and then you canpoint it, like you saw here in
my setup, to your preferredhosting.
Again, if you know, you'regoing to stick with a hosting
company for a long time.
There's no shame in the game ofjust hosting there and
(26:04):
purchasing your domains there.
But if, for any reason, you needto leave a host, or they get
bought out or they get purchased, or things turn into a
nightmare, it's double thehassle, because not only do you
want to move your sites toanother host, but then you also
have to move the domain namesand the authority which we're
going to cover next, and it'sjust a huge nightmare if you
(26:25):
should need to leave a host.
So that is why, in most cases,best practices are to buy a
domain name and have itregistered in a certain place
and then point it to a differenthost.
This also comes into play withemail, which we're going to
cover soon as well.
So things like a record C nameson how to point these.
What the heck does that mean?
Don't worry, we're going tocover that shortly.
Hello, my web designer friend, it's great to have you
here Now.
As a web designer, whether youlike it or not, you are dealing
with DNS and if you've been inthis game for any amount of time
, you know that there can beabsolute nightmare horror
stories that happen when you dothings like take a site down or
(00:20):
break your client's email, and alot of these things can be
avoided if you just know thevery basics of things like
domain types, name servers, dnsrecords, imap versus POP setup,
mx records, onsite security, ssl, et cetera.
So I'm very excited to announcethat I just released a new
version of what was formerly mycPanel course and it is now my
(00:44):
new DNS course for web designers, and in this podcast episode
I'm going to give you a coupleof freebies.
I'm going to give you a teaserof a couple of lessons in the
course.
I've got actually three thingsfor you.
Number one here it's allwrapped up in this episode.
Number one, I'm going to sharethe lesson on a few of my
personal DNS horror stories tojust illustrate how important it
(01:05):
is to know, again, just thebasics of DNS.
You don't need to be an expert,but for you and your team, this
is going to be absolutely keyto avoiding the nightmare
situations that you'll hear hereshortly.
And then I'm also going toshare what is my most popular
lesson of the course so far,because all of my community
members in Web Designer Pro gotearly access to the course.
So far, because all of mycommunity members in Web
(01:26):
Designer Pro got early access tothe course, and so far, the
domains lesson is one of themost popular lessons in there.
It covers the different typesof domain extensions and types,
which is really important tounderstand, especially for you
and your clients.
So I'm going to let you in onthat lesson.
And then I'm also going toshare, completely for free, the
DNS checklist.
This is the checklist that isbasically an overview of the
(01:48):
highlights of the main aspectsof the course.
I'm going to make thatavailable completely for free
for you.
You don't even need to give meyour email.
All you need to do is go tojoshhallco slash 393.
That will be the show notes forthis episode, and I made a
Google Doc version of thechecklist that you can just
check out and download in anyformat that you please.
So, completely free, joshhallcoslash 393 is where to pick that
(02:10):
up For now.
Enjoy a little bit of a teaserto the new DNS course for web
designers and, as it goeswithout saying, if you'd like,
the full course link will bebelow to jump in and get access,
with a special offer to checkout my brand new DNS course to
help save you so much stresslike what I experienced and that
you'll hear now.
Now, before we dive into thenitty gritty of DNS and take a
(02:33):
look at all this stuff, I wantedto start off by sharing some
DNS stories, more specifically,some horror stories stories, aka
nightmares that I experiencedin my journey as a web designer,
to illustrate the importance ofknowing at least the basics of
DNS.
So I'm going to share threestories that's all I felt like
(02:54):
digging into the past for thatare going to help illustrate
some of the most importantthings here to help you avoid
these types of scenarios.
So let's dig in to Josh's DNShorror stories.
All right, we're going to startoff with.
I'm telling you I had some PTSDgoing back into some of these
(03:15):
stories, but we'll start offwith number one, which is when I
broke a client's email.
Now, what happened in thisscenario?
We went live with a new websitethat I created for Capital City
Staffing Great client was in mynetworking group and everything
.
What I did not realize was,when we moved him over to his
new hosting, that I hadneglected what will come into
(03:38):
play here in the course the MXrecord which controls email.
And when I changed the nameservers which we'll cover as
well to point his website overto the new hosting I had set up
for him, I did not set up hisemail correctly and all of his
email broke and he lostvirtually all of his email.
(03:59):
Now we'll cover this as well.
He had two there's twodifferent types of email setups.
He had pop email, which meant,in short, that his email was
downloaded directly on hisin-office computers and machines
.
So when he went into the officeon a Saturday morning we
launched on a Friday night, Iget a call first thing Saturday
(04:20):
morning frantic, saying Josh,our email's down, what happened?
And I'm freaking out trying tofigure out what the heck went
wrong.
And only then did I realizewhen we moved the site over to
the new hosting, I did nottransfer for the email settings
correctly and essentially hewent into his office Saturday
(04:42):
morning, logged on the computerand had no email at all.
Now what we did, moving forwardto rectify.
This was, thank goodness, atthat time I had met Amr, my
email colleague and guru who wasin Web Designer Pro, and I
contacted him and he was able towork with them to get some of
(05:03):
the backups of those emails andcontact lists.
But we didn't get all of it andmy client lost some contacts,
lost a lot of email and becausehe did not have native backups
of the email, essentially whenwe changed the site over to the
new hosting it broke everything.
So again, it wasn't even a fullsolution.
(05:25):
It was a very, very costlysituation for my client.
It was a nightmare for me spentthe entire weekend talking to
the new hosts and the old hostsand trying to figure it out and
then they were like well, theiremail was downloaded on the
machines via pop, so there'snothing we can do.
And then Joe didn't know whatto do.
My client thankfully, amberstepped in and got on a call
with him and helped get some ofthe stuff back with some like I
(05:48):
think, urgent type of backupstuff that was in place, but
they did not recover all of itand it was a nightmare situation
.
That was number one me breakingmy client's email.
Horror story number two, and Idon't even know which one's
worse.
This may take the cake, but thefirst one was bad as well.
We went live again on a Fridaynight as most websites do often
(06:08):
on a Friday night for my clientlocation.
They were formerly called KeikoRealty and they had a site for
their agents and it was a brandnew thing.
They had hyped it up.
They were all excited aboutgetting their real estate agents
onto their own platform, ontothe site.
We went live and what I did wasI went into their hosting and I
(06:29):
deleted the old databases tothe websites, because generally,
after I go live with a newWordPress website, we go into
what was a staging site or atest site and we delete the
databases.
Well, I didn't know that Ideleted the wrong database.
I deleted the live sitedatabase We'll get into this in
the course for those of you whoare WordPress designers but in
(06:52):
short, the database houses allthe content and all the pages
and the post types andeverything.
So the site just looked wacky.
And then, uh, I got a franticcall from the client saying
there's, it says there's anerror with the database.
I go in there thinking I hadcleared out our old test sites
and I had deleted the actuallive site that had just went
(07:15):
live, that they were pushingtraffic to and marketing and
spending money marketing to it.
Now here's the bigger problem.
I didn't take a backup.
Let me say that again becauseyou're like Josh, isn't it like
a one-on-one that you wouldthink you would think it would
be a one-on-one thing, but I wasearly in my journey and then I
did not realize that as soon asyou get your WordPress website
(07:38):
design, you take a backup.
You take a backup of all thesite files, the database,
everything in there which youcould do with a bunch of
different tools via your hostingor ManageWP, umbrellawp, et
cetera.
So when I deleted the database,I had no backup.
No backup to just restore.
This was before I used ManageWP, by the way.
(07:59):
And then the first thing I didwas talk to the host and they
said they didn't have a backup.
We were experimenting with ahosting company that was
recommended to me.
That was not a notable company.
Most hosting companies,especially now, have some sort
of backup, especially withinlike a 24-hour period.
They did not.
They were not able to restorethat database.
(08:19):
So the client's freaking out,they've got traffic going there.
So guess what?
I had to spend my entireweekend doing Rebuilding the
site.
It was, I want to say, 15 pagesat least and, yes, I had the
design and code saved.
That I had done and I had alltheir assets.
But I had to recreate anentirely new WordPress.
(08:42):
Remember the styling, rememberhow the page layouts went.
I had to redo everything and Ispent an entire weekend.
I remember being so stressedout, so burned out, because you
have to think too.
This was after a probably agood six week period of
designing that site.
It was a big project.
It was one of two projects forthem Finally got it launched.
(09:03):
So I'm thinking like it'svacation time.
I'm going to chill out thisweekend and spend a lot of work.
The opposite happened and it wasterrible.
Thankfully, my client somewhatunderstood, although I did take
the ownership of it.
But I said I thought for surewe'd get a backup from the host.
That was not the case.
They paid me a little bit ofextra money for the extra work,
(09:23):
but I essentially worked forpennies hustling to get that
site back on and this hairlinewas down here until both of
those horror stories kept onmoving it up.
This is a DNS problem.
This receding hairline righthere, it's DNS.
This would have been right herehad just those two horror
stories not happened.
So back up your WordPress siteimmediately before launch of
(09:46):
your WordPress user.
Then, finally, my third andfinal horror story so I can get
out of this nightmare and getout of the past was my own
website and transitstudioscomwas hacked.
And guess when it got hacked?
When I was on my honeymoon.
So got married to my beautifulwife, emily.
We're on our honeymoon.
(10:07):
We did really good at not beingonline at all on the honeymoon,
so didn't even log on oranything.
It waited until we got home andmy first day back to work I
opened my email and I see anemail from a colleague of mine
who went to send me a referraland he said hey, josh, just want
to let you know your site isdown.
It's just showing a blank whitescreen.
(10:27):
And I was like, oh God, whathave?
I'm all excited to get backinto work and everything site
was not just down or broken, itwas hacked and we'll get into a
little bit of security and hackprevention and measures in this.
But what I did not realize wasoften when sites get hacked,
they will get blacklisted fromGoogle.
(10:49):
So not only was I hacked tofigure out how to restore the
files, either with a backup orwith another solution, but I had
to submit to Google all mystuff and get it un-blacklisted
de-blacklisted, whatever thecorrect terminology is.
This is when I found out aboutthe company Securi and I ended
up hiring Securi.
It was the best thing I did.
(11:09):
They got my site back up andrunning, protected stuff.
I changed all the passwords, wedid some other security
precautions that we'll cover inthe course, and then they
actually reached out on mybehalf to Google and got the
site reinstated and notblacklisted the other thing that
can happen.
Thankfully, I had my emailseparated, but when your email
is on the same server, as we'lltalk about, as your website, if
(11:32):
your website gets hacked, youremail can get hacked too.
Thankfully, I avoided one leveldeeper of a nightmare by not
having my email on the sameserver, but nonetheless trying
to enjoy my honeymoon.
What does a web designer haveto do to enjoy a vacation?
Right, come back home.
My website is hacked.
Had I known in all three ofthese horror stories, had I
(11:52):
known number one about nameservers and MX records, I
wouldn't have broke my client'semail.
Number two had I known that thedatabase of a WordPress website
is where all the pages andcontent and posts are.
I wouldn't have broke a sitethat just went live and number
three had I known better basicsecurity members or measures and
not had bad hosting on Bluehost.
(12:13):
Sorry, bluehost, but you gethacked all the time.
I wouldn't have had a hackduring my honeymoon and I could
have enjoyed the post honeymoonphase even more.
So I hope you enjoyed this.
Again.
Three real world stories,horror stories that I
experienced, and all I had toknow was just some of the basics
that we're going to get intohere in this course to help you
(12:34):
avoid those and a lot more.
So, without further ado, let'sget into it Now.
Here is the lesson on domaintypes, which is the first lesson
in the entire domains module ofthe course.
I hope you enjoy it and again,check below for all the details
to go to the show notes page toget the free DNS checklist that
I've made available for you anda special offer to jump into the
(12:55):
course.
And just a reminder when youget access to this course,
you'll also get access to myentire collection of courses in
Web Designer Pro, so you canjump into this one, have some
fun and then jump into someother courses to see what's a
good fit for you to help yougrow your web design business
ASAP as possible.
So we're going to kick off withdomains, which are really the
most important things when itcomes to DNS, and this is going
(13:18):
to be the media section of thecourse, because a lot goes into
the different aspects of domains.
What this is going to be is avery one-on-one overview.
We're going to cover a fewthings.
We're going to get into what adomain is, where to purchase
those, what types of domains arecommon, which is going to be
really important, so do not skipthis.
And then I'm also going to giveyou a bit of a bonus, which is
(13:38):
kind of just some best practiceprinciples for your domain setup
.
So what is a domain?
It is just like a DNS.
A domain name system, like wejust talked about, is a
humanized version of theinternet.
A domain name is the humanfriendly address of a website.
So when you type in my currentwebsites, joshhallco or
webdesignaprocom, what isactually behind that is
(14:01):
something like this like youwould see in the matrix, it's a
bunch of numbers and thosenumbers are called the IP
address, which, if you'refeeling wild and want to know
what that means.
It is the Internet Protocoladdress, so it looks like this.
The human way to think aboutthis is it's like a mailing
address for a house in the realworld, but it's a website.
So this would be like theaddress of a house basically.
(14:24):
But as a human, thank goodnesswe don't need to type this in,
we can just type in this.
But I remember one time I wasgetting a ton of site traffic in
Russia and what we did is Iactually just blocked IP
(14:45):
addresses in that region.
So if you were to haveliterally like one IP address
that is like a bot or somethingthat's trying to hack your
website, you can actually go inand block an IP address or you
can block a certain region.
I have a local colleague whomanages a lot of websites and
they were getting a lot oftraffic from outside of China
and they're just a localbusiness in Columbus Ohio, so
there was no reason for them toget a ton of traffic.
(15:07):
So they found out they weretrying to get hacked, so they
just blocked an entire regionand you can do that with the IP
address.
So that's kind of what's goingon behind a domain name.
Again, it looks a lot like thisThank goodness we don't have to
deal with that Now.
Where to purchase?
You can purchase domain nameswith whatever hosting company
you choose or we'll get intothis in best practices but you
(15:28):
can also use a separate domainregistrar and then point your
domain to your preferred hostingand I'll explain why that's
best practice at the end here.
So gonna keep you on edge onthat.
Explain why that's bestpractice at the end here.
So going to keep you on edge onthat.
But very common domain nameregistrars or GoDaddy or
Namecheap.
I still use GoDaddy forpurchasing a lot of different
domain names, especially becauseI do have SiteGround, and
(15:50):
you'll notice here in my domainsand SiteGround I have some that
are purchased here, but then Ihave some that are just hosted
here but actually purchased atGoDaddy.
Now if you have a host that youreally trust and you've been
with for years, there'sabsolutely nothing wrong with
purchasing domains in yourpreferred hosting.
But if, for any reason, you'rejust not sure you're going to
stick with a host, it's actuallybest just to purchase on
(16:12):
GoDaddy or Namecheap or adifferent one.
There's a ton, by the way, aton of great domain registrars.
You can Google it or you can.
Whatever web design groupyou're a part of Hopefully it's
Web Designer Pro you can figureout what's common.
But you can purchase these andthen we'll get into how to
actually point these to apreferred hosting company.
This is also really commonpractice, especially if you're
(16:34):
working with clients who like tobuy a lot of domain names.
I was working with a client onetime who had like it was over a
hundred domain names that hebought, and sometimes you know,
like you'll see, I bought lawnweeniecom.
I don't know if I'm going touse it, but it was available.
I have an interest in being alawn weenie and have a nice
green grass, so I got it just incase.
I did that, and go daddy justso I could manage it.
(16:55):
And let's say, one day I don'teven want to use a WordPress
website, I use a differentbuilder or something, or maybe
it's a community that's not onWordPress.
Then I have the ability inGoDaddy to say, hey, point this
over here.
But again, I do have domainspurchased through SiteGround as
well, and we'll get into thedifferent types of domains.
Next, when it comes to domains,there's about seven primary
(17:17):
types of domains and we'll covereach one of these here real
quick.
When you set up your hostingaccount, you will start off with
what's called a primary domain,like WebDesignerProcom, or
actually I set up my SiteGroundhosting with JoshHallco, so
that's my primary domain.
Okay, web designer procom isanother domain that I had
(17:38):
purchased on GoDaddy, but I havepointed and hosted over at
SiteGround.
The next few lessons will sharemore on detail on how I did
this, but the reason I mentionedthis is Josh Hallco is
technically the primary domainname in SiteGround, but you'll
see web designer procom ishosted here but it's actually
what's known as an externaldomain.
So this is just kind of acaveat because technically you
(18:00):
could have a domain that'sprimary on your hosting but it's
maybe purchased.
The actual domain name ispurchased elsewhere.
So this is actually a reallygood case study and example of
how to have this set up.
Because joshhallco waspurchased at SiteGround, the
domain name was purchased andregistered at SiteGround was
purchased at SiteGround.
The domain name was purchasedand registered at SiteGround.
(18:21):
Webdesignerprocom was purchasedand registered at GoDaddy, but
I have it hosted underSiteGround, which is why it's
called an external domain.
If I were to transferWebdesignerProcom the domain and
register at SiteGround, thiswould drop.
This would not say externaldomain, it would be an internal
domain.
So big note there when it comesto primary and external domains
, but they're very similar.
I'm keeping this under 0.1 and1A.
(18:44):
Now you can have differentdomains on your hosting account
and those are called add-ondomains.
So what you see here I have acouple add-on domains, one which
is just kind of testing andthen one which is a domain I've
owned for years, which are foundhere under my websites, but
(19:04):
they are add-on.
But because they are an add-ondomain, they are different URLs
but they're on my same hostingand my same server, unless I
would separate these.
But just know that when youhave an add-on domain, basically
you don't need to sign up for anew hosting account for every
domain.
Thank goodness you can have onehosting account, depending on
(19:25):
your setup, and have differentadd-on domains that are
different URLs.
But if I wanted to do somethingunder the same URLs that you
see here, those are calledsubdomains.
So for and actually you seethis with my agency site.
It's called in transit studios,that's in transit studioscom.
But I have a version of myagency that was the me version
(19:50):
of it before I sold that andthat's it, josh dot in transit
studioscom.
So that is not hosted with me.
That's actually actually hostedwith my CEO, eric, and that is
what's called a subdomain, so itresides under that.
You'll see this often withstaging sites, so that's kind of
.
The next option is you cancreate a subdomain which, by the
(20:13):
way, a staging site isbasically a subdomain.
It just means that this issomething that's going to be
only live for a little while, orit could be a testing site
that's not live.
So the reason I separated thisis a subdomain may be live, like
I have here, and a lot of timesthese will be live sites that
folks will drive traffic to, forexample, my friend Jay Klaus,
(20:35):
who runs Creator Science.
He has a very popular podcastand when we click over to the
podcast, look at the URL, itchanges to
podcastcreatorsciencecom.
So it's a whole differentwebsite but it is a subdomain
here.
But the reason this is differentis that this is a live,
searchable, indexed domain name.
So I wouldn't consider this astaging site because it's live.
(20:58):
It is a subdomain which can becompletely live and searchable.
That's different than a stagingsite, which would be something
like dev or testing somewherewhere you may want to have a
site live on a browser but it'snot indexed by Google and other
search engines.
For example, under myjoshhallco domain I actually
have a tutorial site that only Isee.
(21:19):
You could I mean technicallyyou can go to this URL and
access it, but I don't have thisindexed because I wanted a live
site to play around with.
But, as you can tell, thisshould not be seen by the public
.
But if somebody goes on there,it's fine, no problem.
But that's the difference.
But you can create staging sites, either live on a browser or
(21:40):
hidden, because sometimes youmay want to create a staging
site that a client could accessand then, when you're ready to
go live, then you move it totheir real domain.
This is a solid way to do it.
But then there are alsotemporary domains and these are
generally host generated butthey do have different levels of
access and limits andconstraints on who can view them
(22:00):
.
For example, in my SiteGroundhosting account we look at the
websites that I have here thisone here I was actually playing
around with SiteGround's websitebuilder and you can tell this
is not a live domain name thatsomebody's going to type in.
This is actually a temporarydomain.
It's kind of a mix of a stagingdomain, but temporary, because,
(22:21):
again, staging may be somethingthat you want to reference,
either live or hidden.
Temporary is going to be purelydomain hosted and you can spin
these up pretty quickly usually.
So in the case of SiteGround,if I wanted to add a new domain,
I can add a domain that isregistered here in SiteGround,
or I can add a domain that isregistered elsewhere, or I could
(22:43):
use a temporary domain and evenif I just wanted to start
testing out a new design orsomething, this is where I would
do that and it's going to giveme a wacky string of numbers
that generally only I am goingto see, and the last couple here
.
A parked domain means that youhave a domain name registered
but it's an inactive website andyou can actually park domains
(23:04):
under your websites here.
So if I go into Web DesignerPro dot com under my site tools
that we looked at in the DNSoverview, under domains, here
you can see I have an option tolook at subdomains, which I have
some subdomains.
I have an option to look atsubdomains which I have some
subdomains.
I'm actually currently buildinga model site for you and other
students to be able to referenceto under webdesignaprocom, and
(23:27):
memberwebdesignaprocom is wherethis course is, which we'll get
into next.
There's also options forredirecting domains entirely,
and then parked domains.
I could add a parked domainthat I own, but that doesn't
mean it's going to be a live URL.
It just means that I canactually like have a registered
domain that is parked under thisdomain.
This is a little more intricateand not super often you're
(23:48):
going to do a park domain, butjust know.
That's kind of the differencein the way I understand it.
It's an active domain but it isin an active website.
And then, finally, a customdomain, which means inside of
Web Designer Pro.
Here, the back, the behind thescenes of what runs Web Designer
Pro, is Circle, which is aself-hosted platform, and I
connect that to the subdomainmemberwebdesignerprocom.
(24:13):
So where you're viewing thiscourse is
memberwebdesignerprocom.
This is a custom domain andyou'll see this with Webflow and
Squarespace and a lot of otherself-hosted platforms where you
could go in and it'll say, righthere, in the case of Circle,
where do you want your domainpointed to?
Because technically, the domainyou're looking at inside of Web
(24:36):
Designer Pro is this.
The domain is actuallywebdesignerprocircleso, but this
redirects to the custom domainwe set up, which is
memberwebdesignerpro, which isright here.
I set up a subdomain,memberwebdesignerprocom, and
then, inside of Circle this iswhere I point this to that.
How do you do that?
(24:57):
Well, that's in the DNS zoneeditor, which we're gonna cover
shortly.
So those are the differenttypes of domains, really really
important Primary, and you mayhave external domains that are
connected or not connected toyour primary domain.
Add-on domains, which aredifferent URLs.
Subdomains like this, which areoften gonna be live, staging
domains, which are basicallyfancy subdomains that are just
(25:18):
going to be for testing ordevelopment purposes.
Temporary domains, once they'rehost generated, that clients
are not going to view.
Park domains which are activebut not active.
Websites.
And then custom domains.
And lastly, really quick when itcomes to best practices, to put
this all together, common bestpractices, especially for
clients, is to purchase a domainname from a registrar, like
(25:41):
Namecheap or GoDaddy, and thenhost it elsewhere, like
SiteGround, wp Engine etc.
And what you'll do.
We'll get into this next withthe records, but you can buy a
domain name and then you canpoint it, like you saw here in
my setup, to your preferredhosting.
Again, if you know, you'regoing to stick with a hosting
company for a long time.
There's no shame in the game ofjust hosting there and
(26:04):
purchasing your domains there.
But if, for any reason, you needto leave a host, or they get
bought out or they get purchased, or things turn into a
nightmare, it's double thehassle, because not only do you
want to move your sites toanother host, but then you also
have to move the domain namesand the authority which we're
going to cover next, and it'sjust a huge nightmare if you
(26:25):
should need to leave a host.
So that is why, in most cases,best practices are to buy a
domain name and have itregistered in a certain place
and then point it to a differenthost.
This also comes into play withemail, which we're going to
cover soon as well.
So things like a record C nameson how to point these.
What the heck does that mean?
Don't worry, we're going tocover that shortly.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.