8

Are servers 8.8.8.8 (or 8.8.4.4) located on location, or are they distributed throughout the world? What I am interested in is, if I issue DNS request from Austria, will I get reply from US or from datacenter in Europe?

Dave M
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zebra
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2 Answers2

19

8.8.8.8 is a anycast address, so you will get the server "nearest" (in internet/metric terms (usually hops) - not neccessarily kilometers too) to you.

You will probably reach the googles datacenter in Frankfurt (i'm not sure if google has anything nearer to Austria).

mulaz
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2

As 8.8.8.8 is an anycast address you cannot tell which particular nameserver will respond. It should be the one that is closest in "hops" which is simply the number of routers that are between you and the destination network. You can use Steve Gibsons Domain Name Speed Benchmark to determine if that is the best DNS server to use in your location.

On a related note you can test if the upcoming change to IPv6 will be a DNS issue for your OS and or browser here

Jim B
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