DNS Checker

It queries the domain's authoritative nameservers directly using the standard DNS protocol, the same lookup process a browser or mail server performs before it can connect to a site or deliver an email. This tool sends a separate query for each record type — A, AAAA, MX, TXT, NS, CNAME, and SOA — and returns exactly what those nameservers publicly report, with no caching beyond what's normal for DNS itself.

DNS misconfigurations are one of the most common causes of a site being unreachable, email silently failing to deliver, or domain-verification steps for third-party tools not completing. Checking the records directly lets you confirm a change has actually propagated, diagnose exactly which record is missing or wrong, and verify a new server or mail provider is correctly pointed to before you rely on it in production.

An A record points a domain directly to an IPv4 address, while a CNAME record points a domain to another domain name instead of an address, letting that target domain's own records resolve the rest. CNAMEs are commonly used for subdomains like www or app that should always follow whatever the main domain or a third-party service currently points to, without needing to update the IP manually every time it changes.

TXT records are a general-purpose field, so a single domain commonly stacks several at once for different purposes — an SPF record authorizing which servers can send email, a DKIM key for email signing, and one or more verification codes for services like Google Search Console or Microsoft 365. Seeing several TXT entries together is completely normal and expected for any actively used domain.

Every DNS record has a TTL (time to live) value that tells other nameservers how long they're allowed to cache the previous answer before checking again, and that cached copy is what gets served until it expires. Depending on the old record's TTL, a change can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24-48 hours to be visible everywhere, which is why patience — not repeatedly re-checking — is usually the right move after updating DNS.