DNS Lookup
Look up DNS records for any domain. View A, AAAA, MX, CNAME, TXT, NS, and SOA records with their TTL values.
About DNS lookups
The Domain Name System is the address book of the internet. When you type a hostname, your resolver asks a chain of servers to translate that name into an IP address — or a mail server, a text record, or another piece of metadata. This tool queries DNS in real time and returns the answer that public resolvers see for the record types you care about.
A standard lookup covers A and AAAA (IPv4 and IPv6 addresses), CNAME aliases, MX mail routes, NS authoritative servers, SOA zone metadata, and TXT records used for SPF, DKIM, DMARC, domain ownership verification, and similar configuration. Each record carries a TTL — the cache lifetime that resolvers respect before re-fetching it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a DNS lookup?
A DNS lookup is the process of asking the DNS hierarchy to return the records (IP address, mail server, etc.) associated with a hostname.
What's the difference between an A and a CNAME record?
An A record points a hostname directly to an IPv4 address. A CNAME points one hostname to another hostname, which is then resolved separately. AAAA records work like A records but for IPv6 addresses.
What does TTL mean in DNS?
Time To Live: how many seconds resolvers and browsers may cache the record before re-querying authoritative DNS servers. Lower TTLs make changes propagate faster but generate more queries.
How long does DNS propagation take?
As long as the highest TTL on the previous record. If a record's TTL was 3600 seconds, every cache holding the old value can keep serving it for up to one hour after a change.