Understand protected records and resolve DNS record conflicts

• Provider-managed SOA: contains authority and zone timing information controlled by the DNS backend.
• Protected record: a policy or supplied setup prevents direct customer changes.
• Owned by a forwarder: the website or email forwarding service created the record and keeps it in sync with that rule.
• Locked zone: the whole zone is temporarily or deliberately protected.

For a forwarding record, open its forwarding screen and edit or remove the underlying rule. Deleting a related entry through another tool can leave the feature inconsistent or cause the record to return. If a protected entry genuinely needs changing, ask support to review its purpose.

A conventional CNAME aliases a name to another hostname. It cannot share that same owner name with ordinary A, AAAA, MX or TXT records. For example, changing www from A to CNAME normally requires replacing the old address record at www, after checking the intended final state.

The root domain also has authority records, so an ordinary apex CNAME is generally unsuitable. Some providers supply special flattening or alias features, but those are provider-specific. Follow the destination platform's supported apex instructions rather than forcing a CNAME into an unsupported arrangement.

Several records are sometimes intentional, such as multiple MX priorities or several TXT values at a verification name. Do not remove rows based only on repeated names. For SPF, however, separate competing v=spf1 policies at the same name are not a valid way to combine mail senders. Review the complete service configuration.

Export the zone, identify the service behind each affected entry and prepare the intended final record set. Use the editor or preview workflow to make one clear change. Refresh the completed records and test the associated service. If validation refuses a value, preserve the error and record details for support; repeated retries with the same conflicting arrangement will not resolve it.

• Add, edit and remove DNS records in the client area
• Create and apply reusable DNS record sets
• Create a website redirect with Domain Forwarders
• Fix missing DNS controls, read-only zones and limit messages