Point master zone name to remote website

I've had trouble getting a master zone to load in Bind9 lately. I snagged a copy of the named-checkzone.exe to test my zone. After commenting out different sections I discovered that the problem was an alias that pointed the zone back out to another web server. Now that I think about it, I can see how this might cause a problem since I'm giving data that conflicts with what higher up DNS servers had given. Is there a way that I can point browsers back out to our primary webserver (hosted elsewhere) if they leave the "www" off the front of the address? FWIW, I host other servers (low traffic) onsite and also host the DNS master zone. The company that hosts my primary website maintains two secondary DNS servers that pull their data from my server here.

This is how part of my zone looks...

;samplesite.com (not really mine, just an example)

www IN A 123.456.789.012 ;A different server somewhere else

samplesite.com. IN CNAME www

;Wouldn't the following be the same???
IN CNAME www

{DOM}. IN A 00.000.100.01
www.{DOM}. IN A 00.000.200.02

If you want http://samplesite.com and http://www.samplesite.com to go to two different IP's, try using A records.

I want both {DOM} and URL{DOM} to point to the same site. I currently have an A record for the www and was attempting to use an alias for {DOM} pointing to URL That is apparently not allowed. I just created a second A record for {DOM} pointing to the same ip address as the URL That seems to work. Is this the right way to do it? Are you allowed to point the "domain's root" (?) back out to somewhere else?

I'm not sure I understand the question, but here's a shot.

If your hosting DNS for a domain that's on a remote server, you must point the domain somewhere else.

You can have the domain point to any IP as long as it's hosted at the IP you point it to. The www is just a subdomain and you can point it to the same place or somewhere different, but again it must be hosted at the IP you point it to. Typically the www and the domain are the same website, because some people use www in the address and others don't.

You can even point a subdomain to another domain if you like.

{DOM}. IN A 00.000.100.01
www.{DOM}. IN A 00.000.100.01
webmail.{DOM}. IN A 00.300.100.03
ftp.{DOM}. IN A 00.000.200.02
another.{DOM}. IN A anotherdomain.com

I think I get it. Stuff like this is illegal:

$ORIGIN blah.com.
@ SOA ns1 email ....
@ NS ns1
@ NS ns2
@ CNAME www
www A 127.0.0.1

You cannot CNAME the root domain to a host. Why? Cause you are not allowed to have a CNAME record combined with other types of records for the same domain. The root domain has 1 SOA record 2 NS records and 1 CNAME record. You may only have 1 CNAME record for a domain.

Another caution, using CNAME is highly discouraged. But if you refuse to believe me, then you must CNAME www to point to the root domain.