Purchasing a new domain name or switching web hosts can be frustrating. Typically, domain owners wait up to 48 hours for a domain’s name servers to propagate across the internet. During this time the domain is either inaccessible or resolving to the old web host. To make matters more frustrating, website visitors may receive the new domain information before the domain owner; creating situations where visitors may see a non-functioning website.
Thankfully, this annoying wait time is a thing of the past. OpenDNS, a free DNS provider, offers a service that allows users to clear OpenDNS’ cache on a particular domain name, thus eliminating the propagation time for all OpenDNS users. The directions that follow will explain how to use this service.
Step 1: Change Your DNS Servers to OpenDNS
The first step is to change your DNS servers to OpenDNS. OpenDNS provides directions for just about every internet connection, so I recommend following their setup directions. Keep in mind, if you’re behind a VPN or using free WiFi at a place like Panera, you may be unable to change your DNS settings. After following OpenDNS’ directions, visit their welcome page to verify you are utilizing OpenDNS’ servers.
Step 2: Use CacheCheck to View Current Cache Information
Once you’re on OpenDNS’ servers, you can now use OpenDNS to flush your domain’s cache. To do this, we need to first view your domain’s current cache information. Simply navigate over to OpenDNS’ CacheCheck page, enter in your domain name, fill out an annoying captcha, and click ‘Check this domain’.
Step 3: Interpret Your Current Cache Information
You should now be presented with a page displaying OpenDNS’ cache information on your domain. If this is a new domain, most likely the server results are showing a red ‘NXDOMAIN’ message. This means OpenDNS has no information on your domain. If you’re switching web hosts, more than likely your old host’s name servers are listed here.
If OpenDNS’ cache information is showing name servers for a new domain, or your new name servers for a web host switch, you’re done! Although, performing the last step won’t hurt.
Step 4: Refresh OpenDNS’ Cache
Now that you know the state of your domain name on OpenDNS, you can finally perform a cache refresh. This is the hardest step of all. Simply scroll down past the server information and click the ‘Refresh the cache’ button. The page should reload, and with a little luck, your new name server information should be displayed. If the ‘NXDOMAIN’ message remains or your old name servers are still displaying, just wait a few minutes and try again.
You should now be done. Just load your domain in your web browser of choice. If for some reason you’re still seeing your old web host, close your browser and restart it. You may still have the old name servers cached locally.
Other than that, enjoy, and be thankful you didn’t wait the typically 48 hours for your domain to propagate.
4 Comments
Glad I could be a little inspiration for this post… Funny thing is I thought about OpenDNS after I made that tweet. Switched my DNS from what ever my school was using to OpenDNS (I use it at home but just was too lazy to worry about it here) and I saw my newly bought domain is pointing to the (mt) servers.
Yeah, OpenDNS is great. I found out this little secret a few months ago and your tweet made me realize not everyone knows this awesome feature. I’m hoping some random Googler will find this in the future and this will speed up the process for them.
It’ll def help me in the future if/when I buy another domain… I think it was just more luck that it had already updated. I’ll defiantly bookmark this for later.
You could also edit your /etc/hosts file on your local machine. Just add a line with the IP address of the server and your domain name. That way you can view the website instantly with your domain. This procedure takes about 1 or 2 seconds. Of course the method with OpenDNS is more elegant. Thank you for sharing this technique.
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