DNS Lookup
A DNS lookup asks the domain name system what records a domain publishes. Type example.com, leave the type on ALL and press Lookup: the tool returns six groups — A, AAAA, NS, SOA, MX and TXT — and every row shows the value with its TTL in seconds. Pick a single type, such as MX, to see only the mail servers and their priority.
DNS records for
Popular domains to try
About DNS Lookup
This DNS lookup queries the public domain name system for one hostname and prints what the authoritative servers answer. Enter a domain in the search box — the tool strips https://, a trailing path and a leading www. before querying — choose a record type in the dropdown or with the quick buttons, and press Lookup. Results arrive grouped by type, each row carrying the value and the TTL the zone published for it.
Eleven types are available: ALL, A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, SOA, SRV, CAA and PTR. A and AAAA give the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses a browser will connect to. MX lists the mail exchangers with their priority number, lowest first. NS names the authoritative servers, SOA carries the zone serial and its refresh, retry and expire timers, and TXT holds the SPF, DKIM and verification strings. CAA says which certificate authorities may issue for the name. PTR is the reverse direction and needs an IP address rather than a domain, which is why the hint appears when you select it.
Two limits matter. The query is resolved by this site's server, not by your own computer, so what you see is what a resolver on the public internet gets — it will not show a record that only exists inside your company network, and it can differ from your ISP's cached copy. And a TTL is a caching instruction, not an age: it says how long a resolver may keep the answer, so a change you just published can still be invisible for that many seconds elsewhere.
The last ten domains you queried are kept in your browser's local storage and shown as Recent buttons; Copy puts the whole answer on the clipboard as JSON and Export saves it as domain-dns.json.
Use Cases
How to use
Type the domain into the search box. A full URL is fine; https://, the path and a leading www. are removed automatically.
Choose the record type in the dropdown, or use the quick buttons for A, AAAA, MX, NS, TXT, CNAME and SOA. ALL asks for everything at once.
Press Lookup. The button shows the loading state while the query runs and the answer appears grouped by record type.
Read each group: the value on the left, the priority for MX rows, and the TTL in seconds on the right of every record.
Press Copy to put the full JSON answer on your clipboard, or Export to save it as a .json file named after the domain.
Use the Recent buttons under the search box to re-run any of your last ten lookups without retyping the name.
Pro Tips
- You can paste a full URL. The tool trims https://, anything after the first slash and a leading www., so https://www.example.com/pricing is queried as example.com.
- PTR is the one type that needs an IP address, not a domain; the hint under the search box says so as soon as you pick it. Enter 8.8.8.8 rather than google.com.
- Leave the type on ALL for a first look. It returns every group the zone answers for in one request, which is faster than pressing the A, MX and TXT buttons one after another.
- The TTL column is in seconds. A 300 means five minutes, 86400 means a day — useful for judging how long a pending change will take to spread.
- Export writes the answer to domain-dns.json exactly as received, so you can diff two exports taken before and after a migration instead of comparing screenshots.
Troubleshooting
The result panel says no records were found even though the site works.
You asked for a type this zone does not publish. A domain with no mail, for example, has no MX record, and many have no SRV or CAA. Switch the type to ALL and press Lookup again to see everything the zone actually answers for.
PTR returns nothing for a domain name.
PTR is reverse DNS: it maps an IP address back to a name, so it has to be queried with the address. Put 8.8.8.8 in the box instead of the domain. The hint below the search field appears as soon as PTR is selected for exactly this reason.
The addresses shown do not match what my computer resolves.
The lookup is performed by this site's server, so you are seeing the public answer, while your machine may still be holding a cached one or using an internal resolver. Wait for the TTL shown here to elapse, or flush your own DNS cache, before assuming the zone is wrong.
Frequently Asked Questions
A DNS lookup is a query that asks the domain name system which records a name publishes. Typing example.com here and pressing Lookup returns the A and AAAA addresses a browser would connect to, the NS servers that are authoritative for the zone, the MX mail servers, the SOA zone header and any TXT strings, each with its TTL.
A resolver walks down the hierarchy: it asks a root server which servers handle the top-level domain, asks those for the zone's authoritative name servers, then asks one of those for the record you wanted. The answer is cached for the number of seconds in the TTL column, which is why a change can take time to appear everywhere.
On Windows use nslookup example.com, adding -type=MX for a specific type; on macOS and Linux use dig example.com MX or host -t MX example.com. The output is the same data this page shows, just unformatted. The page is useful when you want the answer from a public resolver rather than from your own machine.
A reverse lookup starts from an IP address and asks which hostname the address owner published for it. That is the PTR record type in the dropdown. Because it takes an address, enter something like 8.8.8.8 instead of a domain name; a hint below the search box reminds you as soon as PTR is selected.
Eleven: ALL, A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, SOA, SRV, CAA and PTR. A and AAAA are addresses, CNAME is an alias, MX is mail routing with a priority, NS and SOA describe the zone itself, TXT carries SPF and DKIM strings, SRV points at services, CAA restricts certificate issuance and PTR is the reverse mapping.
It means the resolver got no usable answer: the name may not exist, the zone's servers may be unreachable, or the type you asked for may simply not be published. Try the same name with the type set to ALL. If ALL returns records but your chosen type returns none, the zone is fine and that record type is missing.
It is how long a resolver takes to walk the hierarchy and return an answer, and it is dominated by caching. A record already cached is answered in a millisecond or two; a cold lookup has to reach the authoritative servers. The TTL each record carries here is the number of seconds resolvers are allowed to keep it cached.
Leave the dropdown on ALL and press Lookup. The tool asks for every supported type in one request and groups the answer, so a typical zone comes back with A, AAAA, NS, SOA, MX and TXT sections at once. Press Copy for the full JSON, or Export to save it as a file.
Records do not expire on their own; they stay until the zone owner changes or deletes them. What expires is the cached copy, after the TTL in seconds shown next to each record. The SOA record also carries refresh, retry and expire timers, which govern how secondary name servers keep their copy of the zone in step.
Port 53, over UDP for ordinary queries and over TCP when an answer is too large or a zone transfer is involved. RFC 1035 assigns both. Encrypted variants use different ports — DNS over TLS on 853 and DNS over HTTPS on the normal 443 — but the records returned are the same ones this page shows.