Get Around Your ISP’s DNS Cache with Google’s Public DNS

If you’ve ever migrated a WordPress site to new hosting, you know that one of the many ways the process can turn confusing is DNS caching by your internet service provider (ISP). It looks as follows:

1. You change a site’s nameservers to the new hosting.
2. The change propagates across most of the internet. You can see the new site on your phone, for example.
3. But your machine, and any other device using the same WiFi connection, keep on showing the old site (and, more broadly, ignoring that any sort of DNS change has taken place) for as long as 24 to 48 hours.

This issue is a real bummer, and I’ve found a good fix for it: Stop consulting your ISP’s DNS records! You can set your device to use Google’s Public DNS records instead. The linked article shows you how, on both Windows and Mac. I found it by Googling during a site migration over the weekend, and to my great relief it finally let me migrate the site properly. I’m definitely keeping this setting on my device going forward.