A response to Do You Know Where Your DNS Is? (April 2024)
Most of the articles I am revisiting in this series describe a trade off that the agentic revolution has erased. This one is different. In April 2024 I asked a simple question, and it is exactly as important today as it was then.
Do you know where your DNS is?
My point was that launching a site depends on accounts most organizations rarely think about. The domain registrar. The DNS records. Sometimes email. And if nobody can log into those accounts, the launch stalls:
“But if you can’t get into your domain account, or access these records”
the site is stuck on the launch pad. That is still true, word for word.
Agents can’t log in for you
AI agents can now write a custom WordPress theme, rebuild templates, and migrate content far faster than any team could a few years ago. That compresses the build. What it doesn’t compress is the moment when someone has to change a DNS record, and the only person who knew the registrar password left the company in 2015.
In fact, a faster build makes this problem more visible. When development took months, there was plenty of slack for someone to track down a lost login or wait on notarized paperwork. When the site is ready sooner, the account nobody can access becomes the single thing holding up the launch.
So the advice I gave agencies in 2024 still stands. Ask early. Ask during the sales process. Find out who owns the domain, where the DNS is hosted, and whether anyone can actually log in.
Ownership still matters most
The worst case I described was a client whose web company registered the domain on their behalf:
“That’s always bad news, because the domain name itself, in such a case, is owned by that web development company.”
Nothing about AI changes that. Your domain is one of your most important business assets. It should be registered in your name, and you should hold the keys. I still recommend a DNS specialist like Cloudflare for hosting the records themselves, for the added security and control.
I also warned about letting one company control everything, the hosting, the DNS, and the domain registration, because it makes leaving very hard. I want to be careful here, since we include hosting in our support plans. Including hosting is a convenience, not a lock. Your domain should stay in your account, and if you prefer to host somewhere else, that is possible.
Email, still the hidden part
I closed that video with a reminder that DNS doesn’t just control where your website lives. It also controls where your email goes. Change the wrong record during a launch and the website works fine while the email stops arriving.
That warning still applies, and it has grown teeth. Email providers have become much stricter about authentication records for anyone who sends marketing or bulk email. Those records live in DNS too. Anyone touching your DNS during a launch needs to understand all of it, not just the line that points to the web server.
What changes around it
So what does the agentic revolution change about DNS? Mostly what surrounds it. The build that leads up to launch costs far less than it used to and moves faster. That leaves more of the project’s attention for the things that still need a person: planning, content, review, testing, and the unglamorous checklist of accounts and access that makes launch day boring in the best way.
We used to accept that development would eat most of the budget and most of the schedule. We don’t have to anymore. But we still have to find the registrar login.
¡Viva la Revolución!