How to speed up DNS update?

I have recently been running off both shared and VPS packages. I could create the dns1 and dns2 nameservers on my VPS. and updated my domain nameservers to point to dns1 and dns2.

I know it takes awhile to let it update throughout the internet but is there anything I can do to make it update quicker? My domain is at Godaddy. If I move to name or namecheap or other domain registrars will it update faster? Or is there anything I can do?

If you want to ensure DNS updates happen as quickly as possible, change the TTL on the domain to 3600 (1 hour). This will then need to propagate so I recommend you make the TTL change 24 hours day before making your desired changes.

Some servers will cache a DNS entry for a minimum of 30 minutes so TTLs less than this might not be respected
Some caching name servers ignore the published TTL and will apply their own minimum (this is out of RFC and can be annoying)

In regard to name servers on whois records this can be almost instant to a few days depending on the registrar.

Hope this helps.

If you want very fast DNS propagation, go with Cloudflare. It take few minutes only when you change or create a record.
Other provider take always around 24h to 48hours for propagation

You have to wait for 24h to 48h for full propagation. But some times you can reach your server /website in couple minutes.
Be patient and wait 24h.
Or try google Flush cache for a domain https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/cache

hope this work

According to Godaddy, factors that affect DNS propagation time include:

Your TTL (Time to Live) settings — You can set the TTL for each DNS record in your domain name's zone file. TTL is the time period for which servers cache the information for your DNS records. For example, if you set the TTL for a particular record to one hour, servers store the information for that record locally for an hour before retrieving updated information from your authoritative nameserver. Shorter TTL settings make can increase propagation speed. However, shorter settings also increase the number of queries to your authoritative nameserver, and that increased load slows your server's processing time.

Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) — Your ISP caches DNS records (stores the data locally rather than retrieving fresh data from your DNS server) to speed up Web browsing and reduce traffic, which slows your propagation time. Some ISPs ignore TTL settings and only update their cached records every two to three days.

Your domain name's registry — If you change your domain name's nameservers, we relay your change request to the registry within minutes, and they publish your authoritative NS (nameserver) records to their root zone. Most registries update their zones promptly. For example, VeriSign refreshes zones for .com domain names every three minutes. However, not all registries make updates that quickly. Registries often protect their root nameservers from overuse by setting a high TTL of up to 48 hours or more for those NS records. In addition, even though recursive nameservers should not cache the root NS records, some ISPs cache the information anyway, which can result in a longer nameserver propagation time.

So with 3 factors above, the easiest way you can do is changing the TTL that can help you to speed up your DNS propagation time.

Good luck to you!

VirtuBox gave the best answer i could think of, use cloud flare or other CDN, that way you not only taking advantage of the CDN features but also have fast name server updates (or in a CDN case, IP updates)

Godaddy is very fast with DNS update. You may need to wait 1-2 hours. Remove the browser cache on your system.

I used Godaddy, Namecheap, cloudflare, Namesilo, ResellerClub, and some other companies as well. I will give following rankings

1. Namesilo
2. Cloudflare / Godaddy
3. Namecheap (sorry for their recently introduced countdown)
4. Reseller Club (waste , it may took 72 hours sometimes).

Switch to Hurricane Electric , if you hate cloudflare. They have best dns resoultions in the free tier and they have free IPV6 routing as well. Thanks

I say use cloudfare they move a lot faster from what I experienced with them

Just use ClouadFlare free DNS service. It is almost real time. You change it and you see the results right away.

bknights said:

I have recently been running off both shared and VPS packages. I could create the dns1 and dns2 nameservers on my VPS. and updated my domain nameservers to point to dns1 and dns2.

I know it takes awhile to let it update throughout the internet but is there anything I can do to make it update quicker? My domain is at Godaddy. If I move to name or namecheap or other domain registrars will it update faster? Or is there anything I can do?

Click to expand...

There seems to be some confusion in the answers. As I understand your question, you want to know if there is a way to speed up the so-called internet propagation when changing nameservers from the ones supplied by your domain registrar to your own. Some of the answers above are answering a different question: how do I speed up updates to DNS records -- I don't think that is what you are asking. Moreover, DNS updates do not "propagate."

Your dns1 and dns2 are referred to as "authoritative" for your domain -- lets call it bknights.com. When you registered the domain name the authoritative name server was your registrar's -- say ns11.myregistrar.net and ns12.myregistrar.net Because these types of namserver records don't change very often, the DNS servers at ISPs will keep them cached for up to a few days. So when you change ns11 --> dns1 and ns12 --> dns2 it can take a long time before all the ISP DNS servers in the world become updated with the new info. This is known as "propagation." Some will be updated faster than others -- I've seen it happen within a few hours at some ISPs. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO SPEED THIS UP!

Let's say a few months later you change the IP address for bknights.com (the new dns1 and dns2 are still authoritative for your domain). Contrary to some posts above, there is no so-called propagation for these types of changes (although the word is often used in these cases). Here is what happens. When you request your domain name in your browser, the request goes to the name server of your ISP. If the A record for the domain is not in your ISP's DNS cache it resolves the IP address of your domain from the authoritative name servers and the record is stored in the cache memory of the ISP DNS server. When you request it again the ISP will have the correct result in cache and respond without having to forward query to the authoritative server.

Now, if you change the IP address of bknights.com and a browser has never requested that name before, the request will be filled correctly since cache is not used for the A record. If the browser has made the request with the old IP sooner than the TTL expiration an error will occur since the cached result is now obsolete. If you lower the TTL it will still take the old TTL time for that new TTL to be updated in ISP cache (Note that only a visitor's ISP DNS server is involved, whereas in the propagation of authoritative records described earlier all ISP DNS servers in the world are involved)


See the difference? Propagation is the time it takes for internet DNS servers to know the authoritative name server for your domain name. Propagation does not occur when changing A records for a domain. There is nothing you can do about the former.