The Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet's address book. It translates
human-friendly names like example.com into the numeric IP
addresses computers actually use to find each other, and it carries a
handful of other record types that control mail delivery, ownership
verification, and security.
Every time you visit a website, send an email, or check if a domain belongs to who it claims to, DNS is doing the work behind the scenes. Getting DNS records wrong is one of the most common causes of "my email is going to spam," "my site won't load," or "our domain verification keeps failing" — usually because a record is missing, pointed at the wrong place, or formatted incorrectly.
| Type | Purpose |
|---|---|
| A | Points a domain or subdomain to an IPv4 address. |
| AAAA | Same as A, but for IPv6 addresses. |
| CNAME | Aliases one hostname to another (e.g. www → the root domain). |
| MX | Tells the internet which mail servers accept email for a domain, with a priority order. |
| TXT | Free-form text - used for ownership verification and as the container for SPF/DMARC/DKIM values. |
| SPF | A TXT record listing which servers/IPs are authorized to send mail for a domain, to reduce spoofing. |
| DKIM | A TXT record holding a public key, used to cryptographically sign outgoing mail so receivers can verify it wasn't tampered with. |
| DMARC | A TXT record (at _dmarc.domain) that tells receiving mail servers what to do if SPF/DKIM checks fail, and where to send reports. |
| PTR | Reverse DNS - maps an IP address back to a hostname (the opposite direction of an A record). |
| NS | Delegates a domain (or subdomain) to a set of authoritative name servers. |
| SOA | Start of Authority - metadata about a DNS zone (primary name server, admin contact, refresh timers). |
| CAA | Restricts which Certificate Authorities are allowed to issue SSL/TLS certificates for a domain. |
DNS Records Generator — build FDNS, rDNS, SPF, MX, DMARC, and real DKIM key pairs for many domains at once, exportable to Excel. WHOIS Lookup — check who owns a domain or IP, when it was registered, and when it expires. DNS Verification — pick a record type and see exactly what's currently published for any domain, live, straight from DNS.