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Q & A DNS Records · August 21, 2026

What is a good SOA TTL?

For the SOA TTL itself, 3600 seconds (1 hour) is a safe default. The Minimum TTL field inside the SOA record controls the negative cache TTL — how long resolvers cache NXDOMAIN responses. A value of 300–900 seconds balances propagation speed against resolver query load.

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What Is an SOA Record? The DNS Zone's Control File Explained
The SOA record is DNS's control file — it governs zone transfers, cache TTLs, and negative response lifetimes. Every misconfiguration here ripples across every resolver on the internet.
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