Networking Tools

Two Kinds of Question Live Here

These five tools split cleanly in two. Three of them ask something about a domain that belongs to someone else. Two ask something about the connection you are sitting on right now.

A Working Order for "Something Is Broken"

Most people arrive at these tools mid-problem. Running them in a sensible sequence narrows the fault faster than trying them at random.

A website will not load. Start with the DNS lookup. If the A record is missing, the problem is the records. If it is present and points somewhere you recognise, DNS has done its job and the fault is the server or the route to it — check your own connection with the speed test before assuming the site is down.

Mail is not arriving. Check the recipient domain for MX records with the DNS lookup, then run the address through the email validator. If both are fine and mail still fails, the issue is usually sender authentication rather than the address: look up SPF, DKIM and DMARC as TXT records on your own sending domain.

A change you made has not appeared. Look at the TTL on the record. Almost every case of a DNS change not taking effect is a cached copy that has not yet expired, and the NS records will tell you whether you have even been editing the zone that is actually in use.

A service says you are in the wrong country. The IP detector shows what that service is seeing. Country is usually accurate; city frequently is not.

What These Tools Cannot Prove

Each of these answers a narrow question well and a broad one not at all, which is worth stating plainly.

• A DNS record shows where something is pointed, never whether the server behind it is running.
• An email domain with MX records accepts mail, which says nothing about whether a specific mailbox exists — that cannot be established reliably from outside at all.
• An available domain may still be premium-priced, trademarked by someone else, or carrying penalties from a previous owner.
• IP geolocation is a database lookup, not a measurement. Country is usually right, coordinates are typically a regional placeholder.
• A speed test measures the path between your device and one test server at one moment, which is not the same as the speed you get to every service all day.

Everything Here Is Already Public

None of these tools uncovers anything hidden. DNS records are published deliberately so the internet can find a domain. Your IP address is visible to every site you visit, because it is how responses find their way back to you. Registration status is a matter of public record.

That is the useful framing for the privacy question these tools raise. The question is not how to hide what they show, but how to understand what is visible by default and decide what to do about it. Our guide to what your IP address, DNS and email actually reveal works through that in detail.

Accuracy and Data Sources

These tools differ from the calculators elsewhere on this site in one important way: they do not compute an answer from your inputs, they report what a live external service returns.

DNS results come from a public DNS-over-HTTPS resolver, so you see what that resolver currently holds — which can differ from your own network's cache. IP and location details come from a geolocation service that maps address ranges to places. Domain registration status comes from public registry data. The speed test measures against a large public network with servers worldwide, so your result reflects the route to the nearest of those rather than to any particular website.

In each case the accuracy of the answer is the accuracy of the underlying source, which is why every page here says what it cannot establish as well as what it can. Nothing you enter is stored, and the queries run from your browser.