Does Your DNS Service Support CNAME Flattening?

Overview

No. Our DNS platform does not support CNAME Flattening.

If a third-party service requires a CNAME record at the root domain (also known as the zone apex), you will need to use A and/or AAAA records instead, or use a supported subdomain such as www.

What Is CNAME Flattening?

CNAME Flattening is a DNS provider feature that allows a root domain to behave like a CNAME record, even though standard DNS rules do not permit CNAME records at the root of a domain.

For example, some services may ask you to configure:

example.com → target.provider.com

Under standard DNS rules, this configuration is not permitted when example.com is the root domain.

DNS providers that support CNAME Flattening perform additional processing behind the scenes and return the destination IP addresses instead.

Why Are CNAME Records Restricted at the Root Domain?

Every DNS zone must contain mandatory records at the root level, including:

• SOA (Start of Authority)
• NS (Nameserver)

According to DNS standards, a hostname that contains a CNAME record cannot contain other record types.

Since the root domain must always contain SOA and NS records, a traditional CNAME record cannot exist there.

Example:

example.com
├── SOA
├── NS
└── CNAME   ❌ Not permitted

This limitation is part of the DNS protocol itself and is not unique to any specific DNS provider.

Summary

Our DNS platform follows standard DNS behavior and does not support CNAME Flattening.

When configuring the root domain, use A and/or AAAA records. Standard CNAME records may be used on subdomains where appropriate.