Creating a CNAME record for any one of the domain names or subdomains you have in the hosting account will permit you to direct it to a different domain/subdomain. The forwarded Internet domain will lose all of its records - A, MX etc, and will take the records of the Internet domain it's being directed to. In this light, you can't set up a CNAME record to point your domain name to a third-party company and retain a functional e-mail service with the first hosting company. Additionally, it is essential to know that a CNAME record is always a string of words and never a number because it is commonly confused with the A record of the domain being redirected. One of the primary uses of a CNAME record is to direct a domain address you own through one provider to the servers of some other company if you have created an Internet site with the latter. This way, the website will appear under your own domain, not under some subdomain provided by the third-party provider.