Want to see your sites when DNS is propagating? Read this!

Have you ever had a problem where your site appeared to be down, even though your ISP and everyone you talked to at HostGator says your site is working fine, and that DNS propagation is to blame? Can you see the site through a proxy, like pagewash.com, but don't want to have to use that to see your site all of the time while you wait?

There are 3 solutions to this "deficiency" in the internet. The first is also the worst, and that is to wait it out. The second isn't too bad, but it can cause problems for yourself in the future, not to mention that it's not for the faint of heart. That is to modify your hosts file to point directly to our server.

However, the third is not only relatively simple, but has a 99.99% success rate, and can even cause every single site you visit on the internet, whether it is yours or not to load faster, in some cases, pages which normally take a few seconds to load up will take less than a second.

That option is to switch your computer from using your ISP's DNS servers to using OpenDNS.

"But wait" you say, "what does my ISP's DNS servers have to do with my site?". Simple, when you type http://www.google.com in your web browser, your browser sends a request to your ISP's DNS servers to find out where to go to get to that site.

Have you ever heard someone say that you need to wait 24-72 hours for DNS propagation? Your ISP's DNS servers are where the DNS is propagating to! So when your computer looks up yourdomain.com, it's asking your ISP, "Hey! What IP address do you have on record for 'yourdomain.com'?"

Here's the problem with that. Many ISP's have only 1 DNS server that has multiple IP addresses, and that does DNS lookups for literally hundreds of thousands of their customers, possibly even millions of customers going through one single DNS server can cause lookups to take longer than they should.

Here's an example: At home, I had Comcast for a long time. When I first found out about OpenDNS, I decided to put them to the test. I found a tool that would time how long it took to lookup various domain names that I had never been to before. The average lookup took nearly 89ms! That may not seem like a long time relatively speaking, but when dealing with the internet, it's much higher than the average. After following their steps to get setup on OpenDNS, I used the tool with a different set of domain names, again which I had never been to, and my DNS lookups dropped from 89ms average to just under 20ms, a MUCH better lookup time.

As with all things on the internet, using these instructions, Your Mileage May Vary, however it's simple enough to change back to your ISP if things happen to get worse.

Please note, if you are on a laptop and use WiFi at the airport you will need to set this up for both your computer and your at home router, in order to benefit, unfortunately, you can't change settings on an airport router.
Also, if you are attempting this at your workplace, you will also not be able to do this for the router, and may not be able to do this on the computer either, depending on their restrictions. I would highly advise not tampering with this on a workplace computer at all, we don't want you to lose your job after all.

Use these instructions at your own risk, as Hostgator is not responsible for any loss of internet connectivity or downtime at your location due your use of these instructions.

Here's how to get started:

1) Go to http://www.opendns.com - In a new tab would be best, so you dont have to keep click back and forward to see these instructions.

2) Click on Use OpenDNS at the top.

3) Determine if you are using a router, or if you are hardwired to your modem.
Tip: If you are on dialup, you are almost certainly not using a router, however if you are on Cable, ISDN, Satellite, or DSL, you could be.
-The way to tell is if the box your computer is plugged into goes straight to the wall, or if it plugs into another box which then goes to the wall. Of course if you are using a WiFi card in your laptop, you have a wireless router.

4) Click Computer or Router on their site, depending on whether you have a router or not.

If you selected Computer, follow the instructions labelled (A) below, if you selected Router, follow the instructions labelled (B) below.

(A) Select your Operating System, then click Print Ready Instructions, and print them out. In case something goes wrong, you want to have a reference on how to undo the changes you are about to make.

(B) Select your Router's manufacturer. If you aren't sure, you may find it on the router itself, and if not, it should be in the manual.

If you don't have a way to find out, or you aren't sure you are comfortable with the instructions provided for your router, please stop now and call your ISP for assistance. Depending on the technician you speak with, you may be able to get help finding out what your model is. Unfortunately, not all Hostgator employees are trained or equipped to handle these types of calls, so your best bet really is your ISP, or the forums on OpenDNS's site.

(B) Once you have selected your router model, or the Generic Instructions, click Print Ready Instructions, and print them out. In case something goes wrong, you want to have a reference on how to undo the changes you are about to make.

Once you are done with the instructions, bookmark the page you are on (the Step 1 page), and reboot your modem, computer and router, if you have one.

Once everything is back up, go to the bookmarked page and click the button at the bottom to go to Step 2. If everything was setup properly, you will see a message indicating you are now using OpenDNS for your local nameservers. If you don't see that, you will need to go back, retrace your steps through the setup and correct any errors.

If you got the message saying you are using OpenDNS, feel free to close that window, as you do NOT need an OpenDNS account to actually use OpenDNS, and try to get to the page which was loading slowly or not at all before.

If it still does not work, then the problem may lie somewhere else, in which case, feel free to call us, let us know you used the instructions provided here, and verified you are using OpenDNS, and that the site is still down or loading slowly.

[virtvir5]

Perhaps I'm overly suspicious of things that are "free" on the internet. I can't help wondering however, exactly what OpenDNS gets out of the deal. There would certainly be a potential for collecting a lot of web browsing info, expecially for those with sign-up accounts, that could be highly valuable to certain "marketeering" interests.

Yeah, okay! I'll put away my tinfoil hat now.

I have been using OpenDNS myself for a couple of years now, and while I agree that the potential is there, the one thing I've determined is that they can only see what sites are being looked up by your IP, not what you do on the site. The only thing sent to their servers is a DNS request to get the IP address of whatever site you are going to.

Now if you sign up for an account through them, they do have some additional features that you can make use of such as a malicious content blocker, where it displays a warning page if you go to a malicious site, say a phishing site.

There have been several articles written about them, most of them mentioning the same things you have mentioned but assuring people that they have no ill intent. I like to think of them as the Google of DNS.

As a side note, I forgot to mention in my original article that the reason DNS lookups through OpenDNS are faster than your ISP is because rather than using just one or two servers to perform lookups for all of the people that use them, they have a server farm dedicated to it. All of their DNS servers are setup in a cluster.

[RainbowViper]

@virtvir5:

I've used OpenDNS for some time, too, and would highly recommend it.

And I'm just as naturally suspicious of a "free lunch" as you are.

[virtvir5]

Okay. I'm convinced. I'm definitely a prime candidate as my DNS via satellite service is not much faster than a handicapped snail.

[jeds]

Good info, thanks. And worth looking into to get sites loading faster.

If your concern is your own site's dns propagation when changing hosts or for load time, I want to share my experience with Bulk register (now owned by Enom). And I compare this to having used other registrars, but long with BulkReg.

If you set your site to use their servers, propagation for changes takes 15-20 minutes. Enter the IP for your site in the host records section of enom (BulkRegister).Avoid using your own name servers (vanity name servers) or the servers sent by the cpanel email. It is top notch.

Several years ago I ran into an interesting twist on this, I had set up a site for a client that would load for me but not him. We both used the same ISP. He emailed the ISP who either couldn't or wouldn't provide an answer. The solution was to open another hosting account (different host) and then enter the additional IP's at the registrar. Sort of a backup system. After doing that I more than once opened his site in 2 browser windows, with each loading from each host. Its great for static websites (but requires uploading to 2 hosts). Dynamic sites could be set up that way but synchronizing them would be a technological nightmare for me.

But I digress into my hard knocks dns education (I still do not understand why anybody would use the dns mgt inside cpanel instead of at the registrar level)...and btw, that client is still with me today, on my HG reseller account
Yep we like it here!

[citawds]

Great post, I also use comcast for my ISP here at home. I will have to try out opendns and see for myself if there is much of a difference something I've been meaning to do for some time now.

Thanks for taking the time to post the info

Steve