Launches break email when someone changes more than they need to. Change one record, leave the rest, and check both sides.
Your domain has a small set of DNS records. One or two point the website. Several others point and protect your email. They live side by side in the same panel.
Email breaks when a launch replaces the whole set instead of changing one line. Someone moves the nameservers to the new host, the new host has no email records, and mail bounces by lunch. Nobody notices until a customer calls.
The fix is a habit, not a tool. Change the smallest thing that works. Never move nameservers to launch a website.
Log into your registrar and open the DNS panel. Take a screenshot of every record. Then write them down in a plain document too. This is your undo button.
Each record has a TTL, a time to live, in seconds. Find the A record and the www CNAME. Set their TTL to 300, which is five minutes. Leave the email records untouched.
Wait at least a day. This lets the world forget the long TTL before you change the value. Then the switch takes minutes instead of hours.
Your project lead gives you two values written out in plain words. One is a new A record for the bare domain. The other, if needed, is a new CNAME for www. Change those two. Nothing else.
Do not delete any MX, SPF, DKIM or DMARC record. Do not touch nameservers. If a panel offers to import or reset records, decline it.
Save. Then send yourself an email from an outside address and reply to it. Both directions should work exactly as before.
Open the site on your phone with Wi-Fi off. Open it on a laptop. Ask someone across town to open it. During propagation some people will still see the old site for a few hours. That is normal, and we keep the old site up so nobody sees an error.
Confirm the padlock shows on your domain. Confirm a test form submission arrives in your records. Confirm email once more in the evening.
Wait until the new site has been stable for two or three days. Then raise the TTL on the two changed records back to 3600 or higher. Submit your new sitemap in Search Console if you have not already.
Keep the screenshot and the written list. If anything ever looks wrong with email, it is your first place to check.
Change the website records. Leave the email records. Check both. ThinkBright follows this list on every Think Bright Sites launch. We read your email records before and after, so you do not have to take our word for it.
Paste your URL. We rebuild it, show you the match, and measure the speed. No template. No blank page. Human review from start to finish.
