Is Hover your DNS host?
If you bought the domain at Hover and have not changed its nameservers, yes: they read ns1.hover.com and ns2.hover.com, listed under Nameservers on the domain's Overview. Hover manages records only while those are the nameservers. If they name another company — ns.cloudflare.com, vercel-dns.com — the records go there instead, and that host's guide is the one to follow.
Where the records go
- Sign in at hover.com. Your domains are listed.
- Choose the domain to open its Overview, then open DNS.
- Every record on the domain is listed. Add a record opens the form for a new one.
What Hover calls each field
Hover names the value field after the record type, so the form for each of the three types used here looks different. It is one field.
| On imado | On Hover | What to put |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Type | Choose it first: the fields under it change with the type. |
| Host | Hostname | Only the part before your domain — Hover adds .example.com itself. For the MX record it is @, which means the domain itself. |
| Value | Content / Target Name / Mail Server | One field under three names: Content on a TXT record, Target Name on a CNAME, Mail Server on the MX. Paste the value bare, without quotes. |
| Priority | Priority | On the MX record, beside Mail Server. 10. |
| — | TTL | Leave it at the default Hover offers. |
What to put for the domain itself
One record — the MX record, the one that makes mail arrive — belongs to the domain itself rather than to anything in front of it. Every DNS panel has its own way of saying that, and instructions written for a different one are the usual reason a correct-looking MX record receives nothing.
On Hover, type @. Hover's own guide gives @ as the hostname for a record on the root domain. A guide written for a panel that wants the field left blank will tell you to leave it empty; on Hover, fill it in with @.
Do not type the domain in full. Hover appends your domain to the hostname, so the answer it wants is the short one.
The other five records all have something in front of the domain — _imado-challenge, _dmarc, the three _domainkey names — and those go in Hostname exactly as shown, with no domain after them.
Add the six records
First the ownership record; then, once imado shows it as Added, the other five. Each is Add a record, the fields, and the button that saves it.
| Type | Hostname | Content / Target Name / Mail Server | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| TXT | _imado-challenge | imado-verification=… | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| CNAME | …._domainkey | ….dkim.amazonses.com | — |
| MX | @ | inbound-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com | 10 |
| TXT | _dmarc | v=DMARC1; p=none; | — |
What gets in the way
- Hover's own MX record. Hover adds an MX record to every domain it registers, pointing at
mx.hover.com.cust.hostedemail.comwith priority 10 — the same priority as imado's — so with both in place, some mail goes each way. A domain that came to Hover from Vistaprint has one endingcust.b.hostedemail.cominstead. Hover's own advice is one mail provider per domain: delete Hover's with the X beside it. If you have a Hover mailbox or forward on this domain, it stops receiving; the same addresses can be created on imado. - A CNAME on the bare domain. A CNAME whose hostname is
@hides every other record on the domain, MX included, and Hover's own guide warns about it. If there is one, point the domain at its website another way before adding imado's records. - The records Hover keeps for its parking page. A new domain has records for
@and*pointing at Hover's parking page. Leave them: they are for a website, and imado's records do not touch them.
Then, on imado
Back on your domain's page, press Check again. A new record is usually seen within the hour, though Hover's own guidance allows up to two days. When the ownership record is Added, the other records appear; when those are, create the mailbox and send yourself a message — steps 5 and 6 of the setup.
Hover's own guides cover managing DNS records and the email it sets up on a new domain.
