Included with Managed DNS ($2 per domain per month), and with Dynamic DNS Pro and Elite.
1. What This Feature Does
DNS Analytics shows how the domains CertaDNS answers for are being looked up: how many queries they receive, where the queries come from, which names and record types are asked for, and how many answers were errors. It covers your Managed DNS domains and the Dynamic DNS hostnames on your account, on one page.
It also includes a live feed of the most recent lookups, with queries from networks known for abuse flagged.
2. When You Should Use It
- Confirming that a domain you have just moved to CertaDNS is receiving queries.
- Spotting a sudden drop in queries — often a delegation or registration problem — or a sudden spike.
- Finding names that people look up but that do not exist: typos in links, records you forgot to recreate, or someone scanning your domain.
- Seeing which countries, networks and resolvers your traffic comes through.
3. When You Should Not Use It
- Website or application traffic. DNS Analytics counts DNS lookups, not visits. Resolvers cache answers, so one lookup can stand for many visits.
- Domains whose DNS is hosted elsewhere, including domains added only for Email Authentication. CertaDNS does not see their queries.
4. Prerequisites
- Managed DNS bought for at least one domain, or a Dynamic DNS Pro or Elite plan. With Managed DNS the page opens as soon as you have a seat, even before a domain is added.
- At least one domain delegated to CertaDNS (status Live), or a Dynamic DNS hostname that is being looked up. Until queries arrive, the page shows No Analytics Data Yet.
- In an organization, a team role that allows viewing analytics.
5. How It Works (Brief)
CertaDNS's nameservers record the queries they answer for your domains and hostnames. Those records are summarised by day, and the page reads the summaries. Figures usually appear within a few hours of a domain going live.
Each panel covers a fixed window — the last 7 or 30 days (see the table below). There is no date picker.
6. How to Use It
- Go to Monitoring > Analytics. The page is headed DNS Analytics.
- Read the banner at the top first: it says whether traffic is normal, or has dropped or spiked.
- Scroll through the sections: Overview, Traffic, Geography & query types, Security & reliability, Sources and Recent queries.
- Click Refresh to reload the figures and the live feed.
- If a red banner reports attack incidents or open security findings on your domains, click it to open Threats.
In Traffic, Top 10 / Top 25 switches how many sources and names the hourly charts break out.
7. Inputs and Settings
There is nothing to configure. The only controls are Refresh and the Top 10 / Top 25 switch.
8. Outputs and Results
| Panel | Shows | Window |
|---|---|---|
| Status banner | Traffic normal, dropped, or spiked compared with the previous week's daily average | Latest day vs the 7 before; shown once there are 8 days of data |
| Queries · 24h / 7d / 30d | Total queries | As labelled |
| Avg response | Average time our nameservers took to answer | 30 days |
| Query volume | Queries per day | 30 days |
| Requests by source IP / by hostname | Hourly queries from the busiest clients and to the busiest names. Managed DNS domains only. | 7 days, hourly |
| Response codes | Hourly NXDOMAIN, SERVFAIL and REFUSED answers. Managed DNS domains only. | 7 days, hourly |
| Query origins | World map of queries by country | 7 days |
| Query types | Share of A, AAAA, MX, TXT, CNAME, NS, SOA, SRV, CAA and other queries | 30 days |
| Top resolvers | The resolvers sending the most queries | 7 days |
| Security & protocol posture | Share of queries asking for DNSSEC, for IPv6 addresses, using EDNS and falling back to TCP; 95th and 99th percentile response times | 30 days |
| Failed lookups (NXDOMAIN) | The names most often looked up that do not exist | 7 days |
| Response health | Counts of NOERROR, NXDOMAIN, SERVFAIL and REFUSED answers | 30 days |
| Top hostnames | The most-queried names | 7 days |
| Top networks | The networks (by ASN) sending the most queries | 7 days |
| Live query feed | The 50 most recent lookups: time, name, type, client IP, country and reputation | This month |
The DNS Queries card on the dashboard Overview shows the 24-hour, 7-day and 30-day totals on every account.
9. How to Interpret Results
Normal
- Mostly NOERROR answers, a small share of NXDOMAIN, and SERVFAIL near zero.
- A daily pattern that follows your users' working hours.
- A few large public resolvers accounting for most queries.
Worth investigating
- "Query volume is down …% vs your weekly average" — check that the domain is still delegated to CertaDNS and its registration has not lapsed (see Managed DNS), and that the records it needs exist.
- "Query volume is up …% vs your weekly average" — a launch or campaign, or possible abuse. Look at Requests by source IP for one client sending most of it.
- The same names repeating in Failed lookups — a record you forgot to recreate, a typo in a link or configuration, or a record that was deleted while something still uses it.
- A fan-out across many hostnames in Requests by hostname, or many NXDOMAIN answers from one source — someone enumerating your subdomains.
- Flagged rows in the Live query feed — lookups from networks known for abuse. One-off lookups are common; sustained volume is worth a look in Threats.
10. Common Issues and Explanations
"No Analytics Data Yet"
No queries have been recorded for your domains or hostnames in the last 30 days. For a newly moved domain, confirm it shows Live and allow a few hours.
"DNS Analytics needs Managed DNS on a domain, or Dynamic DNS Pro."
Your account has neither. Buy Managed DNS for a domain, or move to Dynamic DNS Pro or Elite, to open the page.
The hourly Traffic charts are missing
They cover Managed DNS domains only, and are hidden when the account has none.
"Could not load analytics data."
The figures could not be fetched. Click Try again.
Counts are lower than my website's visitor numbers
Expected. Resolvers cache answers for the record's TTL, so repeat visits often cause no new DNS query.
11. Limits and Constraints
| Constraint | Value |
|---|---|
| Access | Accounts with Managed DNS, or Dynamic DNS Pro or Elite |
| Longest window shown | 30 days |
| Date range | Fixed per panel; no custom range |
| Live query feed | 50 most recent lookups |
| Export | Not available |
12. Related Features
- Managed DNS — the domains analytics covers, and their delegation status.
- DNS Records — fixing the names that show up in Failed lookups.
- Dynamic DNS — hostnames also counted here.
13. Updates and Behavior Changes
- 30 September 2026. This article was rewritten to match the current page. DNS Analytics opens with Managed DNS rather than with a Dynamic DNS plan. The Export button was removed; it never produced a file.
- 1 October 2026. Dynamic DNS Pro and Elite open the page again, as they always could through the API. 24h now counts the last 24 hours (it included all of yesterday); the weekly trend compares the last 7 days with the 7 before (it compared them with the previous 23); Data as of now shows.