What is Domain Propagation and why do I have to wait?

When you sign up with an existing domain or whenever you make any changes to the records of your domain you will experience domain propagation. The propagation is the short period of time that you have to wait in order for the records to be updated worldwide and your changes to take effect.

Nowadays this period is short for most internet providers and usually takes several hours. It can take up to 24 hours, depending on where you are located. For example, people in Siberia might experience slower propagation while people in Chicago might reflect the changes faster.

The propagation depends on many factors, among which are the physical location, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and other influential factors. It is fully possible that, for example, you are seeing your website, while your friends from the neighborhood are not. This is why the projected timeline is at least 24 hours, so there is enough time for the changes to be updated globally.

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The domain propagation is not a process that can be influenced by the host or the client. Still, there are a couple of things, that the customer might want to do to ensure everything on their side is alright – clear the DNS and the Browser cache.

As it is possible for the computer to remember the old IP information for up to 48 hours, a good trick is to flush the DNS on your machine and this way it will start seeking for a new IP address. Your browser might still have the old page content in its cache, so clearing it will ensure that what you are seeing is the current state of the page. Clearing the browser cache is different for the different browsers, but is generally around the Tools option.