DNS Lookup
Look up A, AAAA, MX, TXT, CNAME, NS, or SOA records for any domain.
How DNS lookups work
Every time a browser or mail server needs to reach a domain, it queries DNS to translate that domain name into the actual information it needs — an IP address to connect to, a mail server to deliver to, or verification text to check. This tool queries the requested record type directly and returns whatever the domain's authoritative nameservers currently publish, which is useful for debugging misconfigured email, verifying a DNS change has taken effect, or simply inspecting how a domain is set up.
DNS is only one part of verifying a domain's setup — see the Domain Age & WHOIS Lookup for registration details like who owns a domain and when it expires, and the SSL Checker to confirm the domain's HTTPS certificate is valid and correctly configured.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is ttl null for some record types?
- Node's DNS module only exposes a per-record TTL for A and AAAA lookups. For MX, TXT, CNAME and NS, the underlying resolver doesn't surface it through the same API.
- How fresh are these results?
- Cached for 5 minutes — short, since DNS TTLs themselves are typically short and records can change without much notice.
- What does an empty records array mean?
- The domain exists but has no records of the type you requested — e.g. most domains have no CNAME record at their root.
- What is a DNS record?
- A DNS record is an entry in the Domain Name System that maps a domain name to some piece of information — most commonly an IP address, but also mail server details, text data, or aliases to other domain names. Together, a domain's records tell the internet how to reach it and how to handle traffic like email.
- What is the difference between an A record and AAAA record?
- An A record maps a domain to an IPv4 address (e.g. 192.0.2.1). An AAAA record maps it to an IPv6 address (a longer, colon-separated format). Many domains publish both so they're reachable over either version of the internet protocol.
- What is an MX record and what is it used for?
- MX (Mail Exchange) records specify which mail servers are responsible for receiving email on behalf of a domain, along with a priority value — lower-priority-number servers are tried first. Without a correctly configured MX record, a domain can't receive email.
- What is a TXT record used for?
- TXT records hold arbitrary text data attached to a domain — commonly used for email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), domain ownership verification for third-party services, and other machine-readable metadata that doesn't fit another record type.
- What is DNS propagation and how long does it take?
- DNS propagation is the time it takes for a DNS change to be visible everywhere, as caches around the internet expire and refresh according to each record's TTL. It typically takes anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours, depending on the TTL set before the change and how aggressively various resolvers cache records.