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I've a query with regards to CNAME record, can I have a CNAME as different domain name? Ex. I've a website example.com, can I create a CNAME with example.net? So, irrelevant of what end user types (either example.com or example.net) they should always reach example.com

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Two issues collide here. The first is can a CNAME point to a different domain, to which the answer is yes, that is perfectly acceptable.

The second, though, is that in the case of your example, you cannot use a CNAME at all, because you cannot use a CNAME at the apex (aka root) of a domain. foo.example.net can be a CNAME; example.net cannot.

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  • This may be dangerous to suggest to inexperienced admins, but there are ALIAS and ANAME records which can be attached to the root domain and provide similar behavior to a CNAME. With that said, make sure you know what you are doing before deploying these types of records.
    – Brennen Smith
    Aug 18, 2016 at 7:34
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    @Brennen It also needs to be mentioned that ALIAS and ANAME are not record types defined by the standards. They are custom behavior in certain server implementations.
    – Andrew B
    Aug 19, 2016 at 2:42
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If you're just trying to redirect example.net web site visitors to example.com , that's what you should do. Point example.net A DNS record to example.com's IP address. After that, you have a couple of options;

-Create a new website on your host that accepts example.net visitors and redirect them using HTML/Javascript in your index page , or using your server's redirection capabilities.

-On your single website, check to see if visitors' URL matches example.net and redirect them to example.com using Javascript in your index page.

Pick one.

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  • Or you could just use a ServerAlias and not have to worry about all the coding and redirects.
    – user9517
    Aug 18, 2016 at 6:52
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    Does it change the URL tho? If it's something like "Host headers" in IIS, URL will stay "example.net" .
    – Mer
    Aug 18, 2016 at 6:58

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