nx.dnsp.co

A name that is guaranteed not to exist.

What it does

nx.dnsp.co and everything under it answer NXDOMAIN, which is what a non-existent name is supposed to give. nxdomain.dnsp.co is the same test under a longer name, in case something in your path treats the short one specially. Providers that monetise typos replace that failure with an address pointing at a search or advertising page.

Example

$ dig nx.dnsp.co
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN
;; ANSWER SECTION: empty

Reading the answer

NXDOMAIN, no answer section

Failures are being passed through honestly.

an IP address

Your provider is overloading failed lookups with a landing page.

NXDOMAIN with a long lifetime

Harmless, but it means the failure will be cached for a while.

Notes

  • Any label works: random123.nx.dnsp.co behaves the same.
  • Browsers hide this behaviour, so test from the command line.