Activation and deactivation

ChrisPAR · September 7, 2023, 9:46am

While the advice in this article is for a different problem, it may also help in your case:

Clear your computer’s DNS cache

You can clear your computer’s DNS cache to force your computer to look up your domain name again. cPanel has written instructions on how to clear DNS cache on various operating systems. You can read their instructions here .

Note that this will only clear the DNS cache on your own computer, not the cache with your DNS Resolver. If your DNS Resolver still has the old records cached, you will not see your website.

Edit your hosts file to override DNS settings

Instead of doing a DNS lookup, your computer also has a so-called hosts file. This file can point domain names to IP addresses on your own computer, and will be checked before any DNS lookup is done. So you can change the hosts file of your computer to point your domain name to your new IP address, before the DNS cache has cleared (or even before any DNS changes have been made).

HowToGeek has a great article on how to make changes to your computer’s hosts file here . You can find the IP address of your website in your client area.

Switch to a better DNS resolver

One of the biggest problems with DNS caching is that DNS Resolvers can cache their results for a long time, and there is no way to clear their caches unless you operate the DNS Resolver yourself.

Fortunately, you are (generally) not forced to use the DNS Resolver provided by your internet provider. Many routers and most devices offer ways to configure your own DNS Resolvers. There are a few great DNS resolvers available for everyone to use. Many of these DNS resolvers don’t cache results as long as the resolvers operated by internet providers, and are sometimes even faster!

A few popular, fast and free DNS resolvers are:

1.1.1.1 provided by Cloudflare.

Google Public DNS .

OpenDNS .

Which DNS resolver is the fastest for you depends on your location and your network connection. In order to figure out which provider is the fastest (and check some other options) you can use a tool like Namebench to test and compare DNS resolvers.