Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig whatcounts.com. NS
Answer
whatcounts.com. 4 NS ns4.whatcounts.com.
whatcounts.com. 4 NS ns2.whatcounts.com.
whatcounts.com. 4 NS ns1.whatcounts.com.
whatcounts.com. 4 NS ns3.whatcounts.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.whatcounts.com. 4 A 54.202.194.150
ns2.whatcounts.com. 4 A 34.217.181.251
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0