DNS Lookup
Query DNS records for any domain instantly. Powered by Cloudflare's secure DNS-over-HTTPS.
What Is DNS?
The Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet's phone book. It translates human-readable domain names like example.com into machine-readable IP addresses like 93.184.216.34.
Common DNS Record Types
Maps a domain name to an IPv4 address. The most fundamental DNS record type.
example.com → 93.184.216.34
Maps a domain to an IPv6 address. IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses for the modern internet.
example.com → 2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946
Canonical Name record — creates an alias from one domain to another.
www.example.com → example.com
Mail Exchange record — specifies mail servers responsible for accepting email.
example.com → mail.example.com (priority 10)
Text records used for domain verification, SPF anti-spam, and DKIM email signing.
v=spf1 include:example.com ~all
Name Server records — identify which DNS servers are authoritative for a domain.
example.com → ns1.exampledns.com
What a DNS lookup shows you
A lookup asks a resolver what a domain currently points to and shows the answer exactly as it was returned, including the record type and its TTL — how long the answer may be cached before it is fetched again.
That makes it the fastest way to confirm a change has propagated, to check where mail for a domain is delivered, or to verify that a domain resolves at all when a site appears to be down.
Why DNS performance matters
Every new hostname on a page needs a lookup before a single byte of content can be requested. A slow resolver therefore adds delay to the start of a page load, which is felt as sluggish browsing even on a fast connection.
DNS does not affect your bandwidth. Changing resolver can shorten the lookup step, but download and upload speeds stay the same — and in games, where traffic goes directly to a server address, DNS is not in the path at all.
When to use this tool
- A site does not load and you want to know whether the name resolves.
- You changed hosting or mail provider and need to confirm the new records are live.
- You want to compare how two resolvers answer for the same domain.
- You are checking SPF, DKIM or verification strings stored in TXT records.
- You need the authoritative name servers for a domain.
