Advanced Link Sharing

10th March 2010

A great new feature has been added to whatsmydns.net today, it's a feature that I have been meaning to add for quite some time now but I received an email from a user a few days ago asking for more or less the exact feature I had in mind so I figured that many other people out there would benefit also so I decided it was time for it to be implemented.

whatsmydns.net now supports advanced linking so that you can more easily share links with your friends, coworkers, or people helping you out on a community forum or similar. The way it works is very simple and does not change the way that the site works in any way. There are 2 important changes to the site.

  1. Whenever you perform a search to check DNS propagation the fragment portion of the URL (the bit after the #) will be updated with your search query. This is the link that you will need to share with people.
  2. You can now access the site with the links that have been shared from the above step by simply going to the URL and when the page loads it will automatically perform the DNS propagation search specified in the link.

I hope that many people find this a great addition to the functionality of the site and that it helps out people when sharing links online to whatsmydns.net

What's My DNS Design Update

24th February 2010

whatsmydns.net has had a major design update today! Since the website started out it has more or less looked very much the same with the odd graphic change here and there along with a few different main header images.

whatsmydns.net has grown substantially since its initial release and now contains many more pages and therefore a design overhaul was needed. The changes made to the site should give the user a much nicer browsing experience both in terms of looks and navigation additions.

I hope that as the site continues to grow that I will be able to keep adding great features while maintaining a great overall look and feel.

Thanks to all those who have supported the site as its grown and I look forward to adding new features in the future.

DNS Server Database for the UK

6th December 2009

A huge update to the DNS Server Database today! We have launched into the United Kingdom with the addition of 49 UK DNS Servers. This is sure to save many people lots of time when they're trying to find the right DNS servers to use for their Internet connection.

Below is the list of the servers that have been added to the database:

DNS Propagation Check for China, France, Russia and more...

25th November 2009

Additional DNS servers have been added to the system so that when you're checking the current state of DNS propagation for your domain names you will now get instant results for the following new regions:

New DNS servers added to the DNS database

14th September 2009

A bunch of new DNS servers have been added to the DNS server database today! New DNS servers include details for the following Australian ISP's:

There have also been some additions to the USA DNS server database for the following ISP's

DNS Checks for Red-Green Color Blind

6th September 2009

Just a quick update to the status markers used to show the state of DNS propagation on the main whatsmydns.net home page, these changes have been made due to the request of users who were having trouble distinguishing which DNS servers had propagated and which had not due to color blindness.

New DNS status markers:

Old DNS status markers:

I hope this change helps where it is needed, the feedback so far has been very good.

What's My DNS New Banner Image

2nd September 2009

A little cosmetic update to the website today, as you may have noticed we have a brand new banner image across the top of each page on What's My DNS. This new banner shows at a glance what the website is about so that new visitors will quickly gain a better understanding of the service we offer - which of course is checking the current state of DNS proagation around the world. Of course on top of that it just looks much nicer than the old one so that's a bonus.

For reference purposes here is the old banner:

What's My DNS?

What's My DNS on Twitter

12th July 2009

What's My DNS is now on Twitter! For the latest news and updates make sure you follow us @whatsmydns. Feel free to tweet any ideas and suggestions that you have and we will be sure to consider them!

Twitter

http://twitter.com/whatsmydns

DNS Server Database

31st May 2009

As the site continues to grow, more features are being added into the system - in the near future there will be a database of DNS servers for a range of different ISP's around the world. This will be an excellent resource for people who are trying to find their local DNS servers in order to configure their Internet connections. Just to get things started I have added Exetel DNS Servers and aaNet DNS Servers. In the future the system will be expanded to allow user submitted data so that the database can grow much larger.

DNS Record Type Updates

27th June 2008

A bunch of new features have been added to What's My DNS today, the most important and requested is the ability to perform lookups on different record types. The following DNS record types are now suppored:

As usual, let me know if there's any problems with these new additions. It's probably worth mentioning that when doing a lookup on your MX record, make sure you're only using the part of the domain that you receive email from. For example if you receive email at username@example.com then enter example.com into the input box not www.example.com (as that would be the email address for username@www.example.com and is probably not configured to have a MX record).

I have also started writing a bit of reference material in order to hopefully help people out with various DNS tools for the operating system they are running. At the moment I have only really touched on the Flush DNS page and DNS Tools page, but there will be more to come shortly.

What's My DNS Launched

8th June 2008

What's my DNS was launched a few days ago in a public beta state, there is bound to be a few bugs here and there so don't worry too much if your DNS checks aren't totally as you expect.

So first of all, what is What's My DNS? Well quite simply, it is an online utility that allows you to instantly check the current DNS propagation of a domain name on a range of randomly selected name servers located in different locations around the world.

Now why would anybody find this useful? The people who will benefit the most from this service is basically anybody who has anything to do with web hosting, email hosting, or just web development in general. The way that the Internet and the Domain Name System works means that there is a delay for changes to take effect from the time that they are comitted to the time that all end users around the world will see them. This propagation can take up to 72 hours in some cases.

What's My DNS allows you to monitor this delay as it propagates around the Internet and around the world so you no longer need to wonder if changes you've made to your DNS zones are visible elsewhere.

There is also a section called What's My IP Address which is a simple utility that simply shows your IP address as many people find this useful.

If anybody has any feedback, bug reports, or ideas that would make the utility better then then make sure you let me know and I will try my best to implement them. I have a bunch of my own ideas too so expect to see some new features in the near future.