Announcing Vanity Nameservers

I’ve finally done it. I’ve setup vanity nameservers for Anchor Hosting. Effective immediately all customers can use these branded nameservers rather then the previous Constellix nameservers.

ns1.anchor.host
ns2.anchor.host
ns3.anchor.host
ns4.anchor.host

The DNS provider is still Constellix.

Constellix is an amazing DNS provider. Literally zero performance or reliable issues. I have no reason to switch to another provider. Under the hood these branded nameservers point back to Constellix, which is a good thing. The last thing I’d want to do is host my own DNS. Anchor Hosting customers can continue to manage DNS records directly from anchor.host/account which is powered by Constellix’ API.

I’ve held off branding my own nameservers for many reasons.

My opinion of vanity nameservers has been somewhat negative. I suppose I’ve seen too many bad hosting providers that force customers to use their low quality DNS services. Branding for the sake of branding is not my default. I’m not hiding anything. In fact I go out of my way to be as transparent as possible in hopes to help others who are in similar business pursuits.

However with over 1000 DNS zones under my management, it was well time to brand my nameservers.

I’ve had more than one awkward support request where folks had to contact my DNS provider in order track down Anchor Hosting for DNS access/changes. It shouldn’t be that hard to find me. Switching to vanity nameservers actually makes it less confusing for outside folks. A simple nameserver lookup will reveal who is in charge of DNS. In the following post I go into the steps it takes to setup vanity nameservers.