Setting up a CNAME record for any of the domain names or subdomains you've got in the hosting account will allow you to forward it to a different domain/subdomain. The forwarded domain address will lose all of its records - A, MX etc, and will take the records of the Internet domain it is being redirected to. In this light, you cannot create a CNAME record to direct your domain name to a third-party company and retain a working email service with the first hosting provider. Also, it is very important to know that a CNAME record is always a string of words rather than a number because it is regularly mistaken for the A record of the domain name being forwarded. One of the primary uses of a CNAME record is to point a domain name you own through one provider to the servers of some other provider in case you have set up an Internet site with the latter. That way, the site will appear under your own domain, not under some subdomain provided by the third-party company.