What are TXT records?

TXT records or Text records are custom records that comprise of textual data, readable by human beings.

Dynamic TXT records find usage for a number of purposes like domain ownership verification for different services like Google Apps.

An example of a TXT record, used for SPF verification, might be:

v=spf1 ip4:34.243.61.237 ip6:2a05:d018:e3:8c00:bb71:dea8:8b83:851e include:thirdpartydomain.com -all

DNS TXT records are a specific type of DNS record that has text information. DNS TXT lets a domain administrator enter text into the DNS. It was actually intended as a human-readable text. One domain can have multiple TXT records.

The most important use cases of DNS TXT are –

1. Emai Spam Prevention
2. Domain Ownership Verification

How TXT ensure email spam protection –

Spammers generally modify the domain names from which they are sending the emails and TXT records have key components for email authentication that helps the email server to determine the source.

How TXT records help domain ownership verification-

An administrator can check the TXT record and validate if the record has been modified or not. This is similar to the process where the user sends the email back to the sender and confirms if the sender is the same person who has sent the email.