Whether you are implementing Stacks for the first time, or if you are making changes to your domain for other reasons, you may want to consider changing the default TTL (time to live) setting in your domain registrar.

What is TTL

The time to live setting helps determine approximately how long it will take complete DNS changes. By default, this is typically set to 3600 seconds (1 hour). Changes are received by root DNS servers around the world and eventually propagate down to local ISPs, so this process can take time, time in which your site will be unavailable. 

For faster changes, consider changing the TTL setting to 300 seconds (5 minutes). 

Validating Your Changes

If you have made a DNS change, and it has not yet updated, you can use a tool called 'Dig' to validate your DNS changes. 

Google has a tool that can be used to validate if DNS changes have been made. Enter your domain name (example: www.yourstackssite.com) to run the tool.