CNAME Record Lookup Tool

A CNAME (Canonical Name) record is an alias: it points one hostname at another. When a resolver looks up an alias, it follows the chain until it reaches a real A or AAAA record. CNAMEs are how most SaaS services ask you to hook a custom domain up to their infrastructure.

What CNAMEs are used for

• Pointing www at the apex domain (or vice versa) so both work.
• Connecting a custom domain to a hosted service — a Shopify store, a Netlify site, a HubSpot landing page.
• Delegating a subdomain to a CDN or edge platform without giving up control of the rest of the zone.
• Simplifying migrations — change one CNAME target and every service that references the alias follows.

CNAME rules to remember

A CNAME cannot coexist with any other record on the same hostname. That is why you cannot CNAME the apex of a domain (the root example.com) in strict DNS — the apex also needs to publish SOA and NS records, which would conflict. Some DNS providers offer “ALIAS” or “ANAME” records to work around this, but they are provider-specific.

Reading the result

Each row shows the alias source and the target it points at. If nothing comes back, the hostname is not a CNAME — try an A or AAAA lookup instead. If a CNAME points at another CNAME, resolvers will keep following until they hit a real address; long chains slow down every lookup, so most guidance is to keep chains short.