Lookups
DNS Lookup
Check what a domain publishes in DNS before troubleshooting email delivery, a site outage, or DNS propagation.
| Type | Value |
|---|
Related: check SPF and DMARC records for a domain.
This lookup queries live DNS-over-HTTPS resolvers (Cloudflare, then Google, then NextDNS), with a HackerTarget fallback if none of those are reachable.
Learn about DNS lookups
What DNS actually does
DNS turns a domain name like example.com into the machine-readable data that browsers, mail servers, and other software actually need: an IP address to connect to, a mail server to deliver to, or a plain-text string used to prove ownership. When you point a domain at a DNS provider (your registrar, or a service like Cloudflare or Route 53), that provider publishes a set of records that answer queries from anyone's resolver, anywhere. This tool queries public DNS-over-HTTPS resolvers directly, so the answers you see here are generally what the rest of the internet sees too, not a cached or local view.
The record types this tool checks
| Type | What it stores |
|---|---|
| A | Points the domain to an IPv4 address. The record most sites need to load at all. |
| AAAA | Same as A, but for an IPv6 address. Optional, since plenty of domains only publish A. |
| MX | Which mail servers accept email for the domain, and in what priority order. |
| NS | Which nameservers are authoritative for the domain. This is where all its DNS records actually live. |
| TXT | Free-form text. Commonly used for domain-ownership verification, SPF anti-spam policies, and DKIM keys. |
Reading your results
Seeing several A records isn't a problem. It usually just means the site is load-balanced across multiple servers. An MX record that points to values like aspmx.l.google.com or *.mail.protection.outlook.com means the domain's email is hosted by Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, not run on its own mail server. NS records should match whatever nameservers are set at the domain's registrar. If they don't, that domain isn't actually using the DNS provider you'd expect.
Common questions
I just changed a record. Why does the old value still show up? Every record has a TTL (time-to-live), which tells other resolvers how long they're allowed to cache it before checking again. Until that TTL expires, anywhere from a few minutes to 24-48 hours depending on how it was set, some resolvers around the world will keep answering with the old value. That's normal DNS propagation, not a broken lookup.
Why does this disagree with another DNS checker? Different tools often query different resolvers, and each resolver's cache can be at a different point in the propagation window. Two correct tools can legitimately show two different answers for a few hours after a change.
Should I worry if a record type comes back empty? Not necessarily. Not every domain publishes every type. A domain that doesn't send email has no reason to set MX, for example. An empty result for one record type just means that type isn't configured, which is different from an error or timeout (this tool's status message will say so explicitly if a lookup actually fails).