Free DNS Lookup Tool
See exactly what the internet sees for any domain. Pick a record type, enter a domain and get the live answer with its TTL. No account needed.
Free, with no sign-up. Fair-use limits apply. To enforce them we keep the domain you enter and a scrambled form of your IP address for 30 days, as described in our privacy policy.
What a DNS lookup shows you
DNS is the address book of the internet. When someone types your domain into a browser or sends you an email, DNS records tell their software where to go. When those records are wrong or missing, the symptoms are often confusing: a site that works for you but not for a customer, email that vanishes, a verification that will not complete. A DNS lookup removes the guesswork by showing the records that are actually published right now.
This free tool supports the record types people need most often. Address records (A and AAAA) show where a name points. CNAME records show aliases. MX records list the mail servers. NS records name the authoritative nameservers. TXT records hold text such as SPF policies and verification tokens. SOA describes the zone itself, and CAA says which certificate authorities may issue certificates.
How to use it
Enter a domain or host name, choose a record type and press Look up. To check a subdomain, type the full name, for example blog.example.com. Results appear in a table showing the name, the TTL and the value of every record, followed by the details of the query, so you can see exactly what was asked.
The queries are made independently from our servers to public resolvers, so your local network, VPN or browser cache cannot colour the answer. If you have just made a change, use this alongside the propagation checker to see whether every resolver has caught up.
Reading the results
The TTL, or time to live, is how many seconds a resolver may keep a copy of the answer before asking again. A short TTL means changes spread quickly. A long one means an old value can linger for hours after you edit a record, which is the usual reason a change appears to work for some people and not others.
For MX records, the priority number decides the order in which mail servers are tried, and the lowest number is tried first. For TXT records, look for entries beginning v=spf1 for your sender policy and any tokens that services have asked you to add. If a lookup returns nothing, that is a real answer: the record does not exist, or the name does not exist at all, and the result says which.
Tips for accurate lookups
Check the exact name you care about. The bare domain and the www address are separate names, and either can point somewhere different. A CNAME cannot sit alongside other records on the same name, so if a name is an alias the lookup will show the alias and its target rather than a list of addresses. Wildcard records can also make names you never created appear to exist, which is worth remembering when a mistyped subdomain unexpectedly resolves.
Everyday uses
- Confirm a website migration by checking that the A record points at the new server.
- Find the verification TXT record a service asked you to add, and check it was saved correctly.
- Check which mail provider a domain uses by looking at its MX records.
- Confirm the nameservers at the registrar match the ones you meant to use.
- Investigate why an address works from one location and not another.
When you need more than one record type
Working through record types one at a time gets slow. An SEO Web Data account includes a full lookup that shows every common record type on one page, plus specialised types such as DNSSEC keys, service records and the modern HTTPS record, and it lets you save and compare results over time. It also sits alongside the rest of your SEO work, so a DNS problem can be traced to the pages and rankings it affects.
Domains can also be added to a watchlist in an account, so a changed nameserver, mail record or SPF policy raises an alert instead of being discovered by a customer. Create a free trial account to try the full set of more than seventy domain tools.
Frequently asked questions
Which record types can I look up for free?
A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, SOA and CAA. An account adds more specialised types and an all-in-one lookup.
Why does a record not show up straight after I add it?
Resolvers keep copies of answers until the TTL runs out. New records usually appear quickly, but a changed record can take as long as the old TTL.
Does this use my computer’s DNS settings?
No. Lookups are made from our servers using public resolvers, so your network cannot affect the answer.
Can I look up a subdomain?
Yes. Enter the full name, such as shop.example.com, and choose the record type you want.
More free tools
See all free domain tools, or read how the DNS lookup and propagation tools work inside the dashboard.