Office 365 email with SquareSpace website
I currently have my website and email services managed by Office 365. Name servers for my domain are currently pointing at ns1.bdm.microsoftonline.com and ns2.bdm.microsoftonline.com to let Office 365 manage DNS records.
I would like to now move my website off of Office 365 and into Squarespace, but keep all other Office 365 services (such as email) running. I would also like to conduct this migration with as little downtime as possible (preferably 0). What is the best way to do this?
Microsoft has two help pages for this:
- https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Update-DNS-records-to-keep-your-website-with-your-current-hosting-provider-2c4cf347-b897-45c1-a71f-210bdc8f1061
- https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-DNS-records-at-any-DNS-hosting-provider-for-Office-365-7b7b075d-79f9-4e37-8a9e-fb60c1d95166?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
SquareSpace has one help page:
- https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206541867-Using-Office-365-with-your-Squarespace-Domain
SquareSpace's documentation points to the Microsoft's second link above, which has instructions to change the DNS settings. From the limited experience I have, changing DNS settings will incur some downtime, which is something I would like to avoid. Therefore, the first link looks promising, but I have not tried it yet.
Questions:
- Is the first link the best approach?
- Is there a better way?
- Or is there no way around changing DNS settings and incurring downtime?
Solution 1:
Just configure all the Office 365 (email services) related records (listed in tutorials) to the new DNS servers before changing your name servers at the registrar. There won't be any downtime if all the related records are same before and after the change, as all the records are identical whenever they are cached.
Solution 2:
This is fairly simple, and if you do it in the right order you won't have any downtime.
If you'd told us your domain name and/or what DNS provider you're using I could've given you better instructions. If you reply and tell me who runs DNS for your domain I'll try to edit to clarify. That would help determine which of your links is best.
The key is to ensure that your MX records remain pointing at Office365, and change your A/CNAME records to point at SquareSpace.
If you're changing DNS providers just set it up correctly in the new registrar before you do the change. If you're staying with your existing DNS provider that's even easier, it's just a change to an A/CNAME record.