What TXT Records Do
TXT records store arbitrary text in your domain's DNS and serve multiple purposes: verifying domain ownership, authenticating email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and publishing security policies. You will encounter them whenever you connect a third-party service to your domain. The tool on this page reads your current TXT records and explains what each one does.
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Domain Verification
The most common reason you will add a TXT record is domain verification. When you connect your domain to analytics, search console, email marketing, or any SaaS platform, the service asks you to prove ownership by adding a unique string as a TXT record. The service then queries your DNS, finds the string, and confirms you control the domain. Once verified, the TXT record can usually be removed, though some services recommend keeping it in place.
The verification value typically looks like a random alphanumeric string prefixed with the service name — for example, google-site-verification=abc123. You add it at the root of your domain or at a specific subdomain the service specifies. The process takes minutes, and changes propagate according to your DNS TTL settings. If verification fails, the most common cause is adding the record to the wrong hostname or waiting before propagation completes.
Email Authentication and Security Policies
Three critical email authentication standards — SPF, DKIM, and DMARC — are all published as TXT records. SPF lists the servers authorised to send email from your domain. DKIM publishes the public key used to verify message signatures. DMARC tells receiving servers what to do when authentication fails and where to send aggregate reports. Together, these records protect your domain from being used in phishing and improve your legitimate email's deliverability.
Beyond email, TXT records can publish other machine-readable policies. DNSBL (DNS-based blocklist) operators use TXT records for response codes. Certificate Authority Authorization (CAA) records, while technically their own type, sometimes appear alongside TXT entries in discussions about domain security. Some hosting panels also use TXT records for internal verification when connecting services like CDNs or load balancers.
You can have multiple TXT records on the same hostname. Unlike CNAME records, TXT entries do not conflict with each other or with other record types.
TXT records have a 255-character limit per string in DNS. Longer values like DKIM keys are split into multiple quoted strings within a single record. Your DNS provider handles the splitting automatically in most cases.
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Sources
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TXT record format per RFC 1035, Section 3.3.14. SPF per RFC 7208, DKIM per RFC 6376, DMARC per RFC 7489. Character limit per RFC 4408.
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