Can I put a CNAME record at the root apex domain (@)?

Under RFC 1034, you cannot. A CNAME cannot coexist with other records like MX, NS, or SOA at the root. Modern DNS providers bypass this using ALIAS, ANAME, or CNAME flattening.

Does a CNAME slow down DNS resolution?

Yes, slightly. Because the recursive resolver must execute a second lookup to resolve the canonical destination's IP address, it introduces minor DNS lookup latency.

How do I verify a CNAME record?

Test your subdomain in our DNS Lookup tool or run 'dig CNAME www.example.com' from your terminal.

Home/DNS Lookup/CNAME Record

AAAA MX

DNS Resource Record Type

CNAME Record: Canonical Name Record

Creates an alias mapping one domain or subdomain name to another canonical domain name.

Record Type

CNAME

Query Protocol

DNS Port 53

Standard / RFC

RFC 1034, Section 3.6.2

Recommended TTL

3600 seconds

Query Live CNAME Records

Query any domain name to inspect authoritative CNAME records, response latency, and TTL values.

Loading DNS lookup tool...

BIND Zone File Syntax

Standard BIND representation of this record in authoritative master zone files:

www.example.com. 3600 IN CNAME example.com.

Recommended TTL: 3600 seconds (1 hour) for standard web services; 300 seconds for auto-scaling CDN distributions.

Common Configuration Pitfalls

Placing a CNAME record at the domain root / apex (@), which violates RFC 1034 because CNAME cannot coexist with mandatory NS and SOA records.
Creating recursive CNAME chains (A -> B -> C -> A) causing DNS lookup loops.
Leaving dangling CNAME records pointing to decommissioned third-party cloud buckets, resulting in Subdomain Takeover vulnerabilities.

How the CNAME Record Operates in DNS Resolution

The CNAME (Canonical Name) record acts as an alias in DNS. Instead of resolving directly to an IP address, a CNAME points a hostname (such as www.example.com) to a canonical target name (such as example.com or an AWS CloudFront distribution). The resolver then queries the target domain to find its IP address.