You’ve updated your nameservers or changed your website's IP address, but you still see the old site. Your friend in another country sees the new one. Why? Welcome to DNS propagation.
What is DNS Propagation?
DNS propagation is the time it takes for DNS changes to update across the entire internet. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours.
The internet relies on a distributed network of DNS servers (resolvers). When you update a record, not every server knows about it instantly. They "cache" (remember) the old result for a specific period of time.
The Role of TTL (Time to Live)
Every DNS record has a TTL value, usually measured in seconds. This tells servers how long to cache the information.
- High TTL (e.g., 86400s = 24 hours): Good for stability, but updates take longer to reflect.
- Low TTL (e.g., 300s = 5 minutes): Updates happen quickly, but it puts more load on your nameservers.
Why Isn't My Site Updating?
- ISP Cache: Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) might be caching the old records aggressively.
- Browser Cache: Your Chrome or Firefox browser also caches DNS responses.
- Local OS Cache: Windows and macOS store DNS data locally.
How to Check Propagation?
You can't force the internet to update faster, but you can check who sees what. Our tool queries multiple DNS servers around the world (Google, Cloudflare, OpenDNS, Level3) to show you the current state of your domain.