{"id":2004,"date":"2013-09-03T13:41:49","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T13:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/mail-exchange-record\/"},"modified":"2013-09-03T13:41:49","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T13:41:49","slug":"mail-exchange-record","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record","title":{"rendered":"Mail Exchange Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_mail_exchange_record_mean\">What Does Mail Exchange Record Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A mail exchange record (MX record) is a resource record or settings within the Domain Name System (DNS) that redirects email to a specified mail server that accepts email on behalf of a domain or users. Within an MX record you can set routing priorities using preference values for which mail server will be used if there are multiple servers.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_mail_exchange_record\">Techopedia Explains Mail Exchange Record<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Mail exchange records and other types of resource records are the basic information elements of the DNS and are differentiated through type identification like MX, NS, A, etc., together with a DNS class. These records have a specific validity period before the information within them must be refreshed by an authoritative name server. <\/p>\n<p>In its simplest form, a domain may have a single mail server, so when a mail transfer agent (MTA) queries the MX records for www.something.com for a mail server and the DNS replies with only one mail server, mail.something.com, even with a large preference number like 60, the MTA will select this single mail server for email delivery. In this case, it would not matter what the preference number is because there is only a single mail server.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Mail Exchange Record Mean? A mail exchange record (MX record) is a resource record or settings within the Domain Name System (DNS) that redirects email to a specified mail server that accepts email on behalf of a domain or users. Within an MX record you can set routing priorities using preference values for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[222,245,237],"class_list":["post-2004","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-database","definitioncat-internet","definitioncat-servers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Mail Exchange Record (MX record)? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Mail Exchange Record and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mail Exchange Record\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Mail Exchange Record and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Mail Exchange Record\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-03T13:41:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record\"},\"wordCount\":208,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/1685\/mail-exchange-record-mx-record\",\"name\":\"What is a Mail Exchange Record (MX record)? 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