Check which nameservers a domain uses

Find out where a domain's DNS is actually being served from — the first thing to check when DNS changes appear to have no effect.

Find out which nameservers a domain is currently using. Applies to any domain.

This is the first check for almost any DNS problem. If a domain is not using WebGee's nameservers, changes made in cPanel's Zone Editor have no effect — and that accounts for a great many "my DNS change didn't work" tickets.

From the command line

The quickest and most reliable method:

dig +short NS example.com

On Windows:

nslookup -type=ns example.com

The response lists the nameservers the domain is delegated to.

From a browser

Use a public WHOIS lookup such as whois.domaintools.com and read the Name Servers field.

WHOIS shows what is registered at the registry, which is authoritative. dig shows what is currently resolving, which may still be cached. During a change they can disagree for a while — that is propagation.

Reading the result

Result	Meaning
`ns1.webgee.com` / `ns2.webgee.com`	WebGee DNS. cPanel's Zone Editor is authoritative
`ns1.primens.one` / `ns2.primens.one`	Also WebGee — see Which nameservers to use
Cloudflare (`*.ns.cloudflare.com`)	Cloudflare DNS. Edit records there, not in cPanel
Your registrar's nameservers	The registrar's DNS. Edit records there

If they are wrong

Change nameservers wherever the domain is registered, not where it is hosted. See Which nameservers to use.

Allow up to 48 hours to propagate, though a few hours is typical.

Checking what a record actually resolves to

Nameservers tell you where DNS is served from. To see what a record returns:

dig +short example.com          # A record
dig +short MX example.com       # mail
dig +short TXT example.com      # SPF, DMARC, verification

Add @1.1.1.1 to bypass your local resolver's cache and query Cloudflare directly — useful for confirming a change has actually propagated rather than reading a stale local answer.