Understanding DNS Records
A clear guide to DNS and its record types — A, AAAA, MX, TXT, NS, CNAME — and how domain names get resolved to IP addresses.
The Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet's phone book. When you type example.com, DNS translates that human-friendly name into the IP address a browser needs to connect. The lookup travels from your resolver to the domain's authoritative name servers, which return the answer.
Common DNS record types
- A — maps a domain to an IPv4 address.
- AAAA — maps a domain to an IPv6 address.
- MX — mail exchange; tells senders which servers accept email for the domain (with priorities).
- TXT — arbitrary text, widely used for SPF, DKIM, and domain verification.
- NS — the authoritative name servers for the domain.
- CNAME — an alias pointing one name to another.
Why DNS changes take time
Each record has a TTL (time to live) that tells resolvers how long to cache it. After you change a record, older cached values can persist until the TTL expires — this is why DNS updates can take minutes to hours to "propagate."