Creating a CNAME record for any one of the domain names or subdomains that you have in the hosting account will permit you to point it to a different domain/subdomain. The forwarded domain will lose all its records - A, MX and so forth, and will take the records of the domain name it's being forwarded to. In this light, you can't set up a CNAME record to direct your domain name to a third-party provider and retain a functional e-mail service with the first hosting provider. Additionally, it is essential to know that a CNAME record is always a string of words and not a number as it is often confused with the A record of the domain being redirected. One of the primary uses of a CNAME record is to forward a domain address that you own through one provider to the servers of another company assuming you have set up an Internet site with the latter. In this way, the website will appear under your own domain address, not under some subdomain provided by the third-party company.