Check your website after a DNS or domain change

What you need

• Login to your DNS provider (the place where you edit records today, which may not be where you bought the domain).
• A screenshot or export of your old DNS records, if you have one. Many providers let you export a zone file; if not, screenshots are fine.
• A phone that can switch off WiFi and use cellular data.
• A second email account (a personal Gmail or Outlook works) to send test messages.
• Optional: access to Google Search Console if your site already uses it.

Steps

1. Confirm the internet sees your new records

1. Open Google Admin Toolbox Dig and type your domain (example: yourshop.com).
2. Check the A (or CNAME) record. It should match the new host’s address, not the old one.
3. Repeat for www.yourshop.com. The bare domain and the www version are separate records and are often configured differently.
4. Check NS (name servers). If you moved DNS providers, these should show the new provider’s name servers. If they still show the old ones, the change at your domain registrar has not finished or was never made.

If the answers are still old, wait out the old TTL and check again. If they are still old after a few hours, the change was saved in the wrong place.

2. Load the site the way a customer would

1. On your phone, turn WiFi off so you are on cellular data. This avoids your office router’s cached answer.
2. Visit https://yourshop.com and https://www.yourshop.com. Both should load the new site and land on the same address.
3. Visit http://yourshop.com (no “s”). It should redirect to the https:// version.
4. Click through the pages customers actually use: home, contact, services, booking or quote form.
5. Do the same on a desktop browser in a private or incognito window.

3. Check HTTPS and the padlock

1. In the browser, click the padlock or site-info icon next to the address. It should say the connection is secure.
2. If you see a certificate warning, the new host may still be issuing the certificate. Most hosts do this automatically within minutes to an hour once DNS points at them. If it persists past that, the host cannot see the domain yet, usually because DNS still points somewhere else.
3. Watch for “mixed content”: the page loads but images or forms are missing. That often means the site still links to the old address with http://.

4. Make sure email still works

This is the most common casualty of a DNS move. Website and email are separate, and moving one can quietly break the other.

1. In the Dig tool, look up MX for your domain. It should still point at your email provider (for example Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), unless you intentionally changed email too.
2. Look up TXT and confirm your SPF record (starts with v=spf1) is still there. If you use DKIM, check those CNAME or TXT records too. Your email provider documents exactly which records it expects (Microsoft 365 DNS records).
3. Look up _dmarc.yourshop.com (TXT). If you had a DMARC record before, it should still be there (Google Workspace DMARC setup).
4. From your personal email account, send a message to your business address. Then reply from the business address back to the personal one. Check that the reply did not land in spam.

5. Test your forms and anything that sends mail

1. Submit your contact or quote form with a test message that clearly says “TEST.”
2. Confirm it arrives where it should. Website forms often send through a separate service whose own DNS records (SPF or DKIM) need to be carried over.
3. If you take bookings or payments through the site, run one test through the confirmation email.

6. Tell Google about the change (if you use Search Console)

1. Open Search Console and confirm the property still shows as verified. A DNS move can drop the TXT verification record (verify your site ownership).
2. If you changed to a new domain name, the old domain should redirect page-by-page to the new one, not just to the new home page. Ask your web person to confirm this before you let the old domain lapse.
3. Resubmit your sitemap if your host or site structure changed.

7. Check the small stuff people forget

• Subdomains: shop., booking., portal., mail. or anything else that used to work.
• Third-party verification records (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, payment processors) that live as TXT records.
• Your Google Business Profile and social profiles still link to the right address.
• Printed material and email signatures if the domain name itself changed.