In this article, we’ll go over how you can modify your domain’s DNS records, in order to split up your various services between multiple hosting providers.
In most cases, the average website owner will have all of their web services with one hosting provider. In some cases though, you might want to split up your services so that you have one provider actually host your website and a completely separate provider to host your email.
In order to follow any of the steps below, you’ll need to have your domain name pointed at our name servers, so that any DNS changes you make in cPanel on our server is what your domain actually uses.
Don’t have time to read our full article? Watch our walk-through video.
Website Hosted by 3rd Party With Email Hosted by InMotion
A common example of this is if you’re using a website hosting company that has a proprietary website builder but doesn’t host email. So if you looked for a new web host and found InMotion Hosting, your plan might be to slowly transition your website over to non-proprietary website software with us, and in the meantime also have us host your email.
In the steps below, we’ll walk through using an example domain PrimaryDomain.com. Where we would like to continue to have the e-mail hosted by InMotion Hosting, but we want to point our DNS A (Address) record to another website host where you might already have your site built.
- Login to your cPanel.
- Under the Domains section, click on Zone Editor

- Locate the domain you’d like to modify in the list and click on the Manage option.

- In this example, the DNS records are already set up pointing to InMotion’s servers for all of the services. The only thing we need to modify is our A (Address) record of the website. Click on Edit beside the primarydomain.com entry.

- Fill in the IP address of your remote website host in the Record field, then click on Save Record.
Anytime you make DNS changes, it can take between 24-48 hours for those DNS settings to fully propagate across the web. Your website will not start immediately pulling from this new IP address, and it will take a different amount of time depending on several factors.
- You should now see the new A record you updated. Now click on Edit beside the CNAME record for mail.primarydomain.com.

- Change the Type from CNAME to A and enter the InMotion server’s IP address in the Record field. You can always find your IP address in cPanel. Once done, click Save Record.

- Next, locate the MX record for the domain and click on the Edit link.

- Now, edit the record change the Record field by changing it from primarydomain.com to mail.primarydomain.com. Click Save Record to save the changes.

Website Hosted by InMotion With Email Hosted by 3rd Party
A common example of this is if you’d like to host your website with InMotion Hosting, but you have email services with another provider such as Google Apps for your domain.
In the steps below, we’ll walk through using an example domain PrimaryDomain.com. Where we would like to continue to have the website hosted by InMotion Hosting, but we want to point our DNS MX (Mail Exchange) record to another email host.
- Login to your cPanel.
- Under the Domains section, click on Zone Editor.
- Locate the domain you’d like to modify in the list and click on the Manage option.

- Next, locate the MX record for the domain and click on the Delete link.

- A confirmation popup will appear. Click Continue.
- At the top of the screen, click on Add Record and then click the Add MX Record option.

- In the Add New Record section, you’ll want to set the Priority and Destination for your 3rd party mail service, then click on Save Record. You may need to create more than one MX record for your email service. If you use Google, for example, would need to create five records with the following information:
Priority | Destination |
1 | ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
5 | ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
5 | ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM |
10 | ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM |
10 | ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM |
Once saved, the MX Records will appear in the records list.
- Return to your main cPanel screen, locate the Email category, and click on the Email Routing icon.

- Select your domain from the dropdown list.

- Click on the Remote Mail Exchanger option.

- Click the Change button.
Anytime you make DNS changes, it can take between 24-48 hours for those DNS settings to fully propagate. So your email will not start immediately delivering to these new remote MX servers.
You should now understand how to split up your domain’s various services by using DNS records. While this typically isn’t needed for the average user, it might be good to know that you do have this option available to you.