Running a DNS Lookup on your Domain

Welcome to the GetDotted Help and Support pages. This Guide is provided to give instruction on using the GetDotted DNS Lookup Tool. For more help topics, please visit our main Support Page.

DNS (Domain Name System) define where the website and email services for your Domain Name are stored. This 'easy address' system shows which company provides services to any given domain name.

As the DNS Records of a domain name are publicly viewable, it is possible to use a DNS Lookup Tool to check this information, and provide feedback from these servers. This can be useful for diagnostic purposes if your website or email services aren't working correctly, or could be used to ascertain exactly who provides services on your domain name!

The GetDotted DNS Lookup Tool will allow you to run several checks against a domain name, providing the results quickly on-screen. This powerful tool doesn't require a GetDotted domain name to work; any registered domain name can be used through this page.

To run a DNS check on your Domain Name, open the GetDotted DNS Lookup page and enter the domain name you would like to lookup in the provided field.

After a few moments, the results of the DNS Lookup will the shown on-screen.

The DNS Lookup Results page will have six tabs, each providing different results from the Lookup.

Each of these tabs will show the results for one aspect of the DNS Lookup, which will be explained below.

The results on each page will be presented with an icon signifying the result of each part of the test, the meaning of each symbol is displayed at the top of each page.

Parent nameservers are the 'top level' of DNS and are generally managed and cached by your ISP. As such, these results are of little use to a typical user.

The DNS are those that appear on any RDAP/WHOIS Lookup anybody runs on your domain name. These are typically generic to your hosting provider but your own domain name can be used through the use of Glue Records.

DNS typically come as a pair, although more can be added to a domain name if so desired (although not required).

If your GetDotted domain name uses Freeola DNS, you can manage your DNS Records online through your MyFreeola Control Panel.

Mail Records (or MX Records) control where your email service for the domain name is held. When a message is sent to an address on your domain name, these records will be checked by the sending mail server to ensure it reaches your Inbox.

If your domain name is registered through GetDotted, you can add or manage your MX Records from your MyFreeola Control Panel.

The Web DNS Checks will display information on the website records for your domain name. These records are looked up when visiting a website on your domain name, for example https://freeola.com.

As with other custom DNS Records, if your domain name is managed through GetDotted you can add or update Web DNS Records from within your MyFreeola Control Panel.

The penultimate tab on this page allows you to run a custom DNS query for something that may not have been covered by the previous tests. Simply select your desired check from the drop-down menu then click Run Query.

Your results will be displayed further down the page.

Full explanations of each of these records can be found at the bottom of the page.

The final tab opens a 'pop-up window' that will show the RDAP/WHOIS Record for your chosen domain. This is the public record of your domain name and provides information on the expiration and registration date of the domain, the registrar and the NS.

Unless specifically requested, all personal information relating to the domain name registrant will be hidden on this record by default.

If your domain name is registered through GetDotted you can easily manage your DNS and DNS Records through your MyFreeola Control Panel.