What is an A record?

An A record is the DNS record that points a domain name at the IPv4 address of the server hosting your website, so a browser knows where to connect. It is the most fundamental record a website needs:

• What it maps - a name such as yourbusiness.com.au to a numeric address like 203.0.113.10, the actual machine your site runs on.
• The AAAA cousin - does the same job for newer IPv6 addresses; many sites publish both so visitors can reach them either way.
• When you touch it - you change the A record when you move your site to a new host, which is why the move takes time to propagate.

If your domain loads the wrong site or nothing at all, the A record is the first place to look.