DNS TXT Record: How Can You Add a TXT Record To Your Domain?

Have you bought a new domain and are you looking to create a TXT DNS record?

You are in the right place!

Table of Contents

What is a DNS TXT Record?

TXT stands for “text”. TXT DNS records have been originally designed to add human-readable information to a given domain.

You can set the value of a TXT record to any “string” you want within certain limits enforced by DNS servers.

In some cases the string is in the following format where the full string is enclosed within double quotes:

attribute=value

Nowadays TXT records are used for two main purposes:

Verify domain ownership
Prevent email spam

An Example of Domain Verification using a TXT Record

An example of a scenario in which you will need to add a TXT record to your domain is domain verification required by Google Search Console.

When you try to import a new domain in Google Search Console you will see the following pop-up requesting to verify domain ownership by creating a TXT record.

Google Search Console - Domain ownership verification via DNS record

At this point, you have to log into your domain provider control panel to create the TXT record.

When adding the TXT record you will have to provide three values:

Host Record: for Google Search Console verification use the @ sign.
TXT Value: the long string provided by Google Search Console in the pop-up window.
TTL (Time-To-Live): for example, 4 hours.

After creating the TXT record, wait for 1 minute and then click “VERIFY” in Google Search Console to complete the domain verification step.

Once that’s done the Domain Property will appear in your Google Search Console.

A similar process applies to other reporting tools that require domain verification before you can import a given website into the tool itself (e.g. when you add a website to Ahrefs to gather stats about it).

In the following section, we will see how to add a TXT record if you use Bluehost to manage your domain.

How Do You Add a TXT Record to a Domain in Bluehost?

To add a TXT record to a domain in Bluehost follow the steps below:

Login to the Bluehost control panel
Expand the Domains section and select “My Domains“. Here you will see all the domains you control via Bluehost.
Click “Manage” for the domain you want to add a TXT record to.
Scroll down until you see the TXT section.
Click “Add Record” and provide values for the following three fields: Host Record, TXT Value and TTL.

After adding the TXT record you will be able to see it in the TXT section for the domain you selected.

If you want to have an alternative way to see TXT records configured against your domain you can use online tools.

For example, this link shows the TXT records for this blog’s domain.

Using a tool like the one above is a good way to understand if you have configured a TXT record incorrectly and an external tool like Google Search Console is not able to verify your domain because of that.