How fast your DNS answers: Crawl Audit check 93

Short answer: before a browser can contact your site, it has to look up your domain's address. That DNS lookup is part of every first visit's wait (check 71). Check 93 passes when the lookup takes under 100ms. It's a low-impact check, and the usual fix is a faster DNS provider.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Full report: Crawl Audit times a DNS lookup of your domain. Pass under 100ms; warning at 100ms or more.
• Free check: the lookup isn't timed, so the check warns that DNS latency couldn't be measured and suggests verifying your provider.

The 100ms line is Crawl Audit's own. We found no Google threshold for DNS time. web.dev says a DNS lookup "usually takes around 20 to 120 ms". The timing also depends on where it's measured from and whether the answer was already cached.

What the sources say

• MDN: "DNS resolution can add significant latency to requests."
• DNS lookup is one of the steps web.dev lists inside TTFB, with redirects, connecting and the server's own time.
• dns-prefetch and preconnect can start lookups early for other domains your page uses, such as a font or analytics host. But MDN: "dns-prefetch is only effective for DNS lookups on cross-origin domains, so avoid using it to point to your site or domain."

How to speed it up

• Use a fast DNS provider with servers worldwide. CDN providers "usually offer extremely fast DNS resolution times" (web.dev).
• Keep sensible TTLs on your records, so resolvers can reuse answers rather than asking again each time.
• For third-party domains your page needs early, add <link rel="preconnect">.

Sources

• web.dev, Establish network connections early and Optimize Time to First Byte, checked 3 October 2026.
• MDN, Using dns-prefetch and rel=preconnect.