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What is this TXT record? Paste it and find out

You have inherited a zone with a dozen TXT (Text) strings in it and no sense of which ones are load bearing. Paste them below, one per line, and each is identified: what it is, which name it belongs on, whether deleting it breaks something, and how many domains carry the same token.

46,336,520 of the 174,990,877 domains with at least one apex TXT record carry a verification token, which is 26.48% of them. The single most widely published one is google-site-verification, on 30,511,620 domains across 891 top-level domains.

The string in front of you is probably one of those. The highest count the October 2026 census found on one domain is 125 distinct tokens.

Quotes, and the name and TTL (Time to Live) columns a DNS (Domain Name System) panel or a dig answer puts in front, are stripped for you. Nothing you paste leaves this page.

Before you delete one

SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) records are read on every message and deleting one changes delivery the same day. A verification token is different: it proved ownership once, and some services re-check it on a schedule and quietly drop a feature when it stops resolving. Search the vendor's own admin console for the value before removing it, and remove one at a time.

Two tokens on one domain is ordinary. 5,338,222 domains carry exactly two, which is 11.52% of the ones carrying any. 1,514,205 carry three or more.

The tokens the October 2026 census counted

Ranked by how many domains carry each one. The share is against the 174,990,877 domains with at least one apex TXT record, and a token is counted only where at least three domains in the same top-level domain carry it, so smaller per-registry tails are not in these sums.

RankTokenWho writes itDomainsShare of TXT publishersTLDs
1 google-site-verification Google site verification 30,511,620 17.44% 891
2 ms Microsoft 365 tenant marker (MS=) 8,456,816 4.83% 834
3 zoho-verification Zoho 1,645,478 0.94% 691
4 brevo-code Brevo 1,396,088 0.80% 696
5 facebook-domain-verification Meta / Facebook 1,174,527 0.67% 665
6 yandex-verification Yandex 649,491 0.37% 573
7 protonmail-verification 614,258 0.35% 662
8 apple-domain-verification Apple 593,201 0.34% 584
9 apple-domain 570,204 0.33% 621
10 mscid 523,214 0.30% 518
11 _globalsign-domain-verification GlobalSign (underscore form) 496,990 0.28% 569
12 nameshift 415,017 0.24% 99
13 dan-ownership-verification 403,923 0.23% 258
14 hosting-site 343,176 0.20% 570
15 saw-market 337,598 0.19% 133
16 abuse-report 311,169 0.18% 272
17 replit-verify 308,788 0.18% 565
18 klaviyo-site-verification Klaviyo 306,891 0.18% 346
19 mailerlite-domain-verification 292,212 0.17% 440
20 canva-domain-verify 263,966 0.15% 427
21 dbg 261,865 0.15% 237
22 google-gws-recovery-domain-verification 243,788 0.14% 459
23 openai-domain-verification OpenAI 241,667 0.14% 535
24 atlassian-domain-verification Atlassian 215,246 0.12% 439
25 pinterest-site-verification 195,880 0.11% 412
26 mailconf 180,004 0.10% 200
27 sendinblue-code 141,006 0.08% 399
28 mailru-domain 119,880 0.07% 280
29 globalsign-domain-verification GlobalSign 119,471 0.07% 369
30 knowbe4-site-verification 117,157 0.07% 285
31 firebase 108,127 0.06% 425
32 purelymail_ownership_proof 105,502 0.06% 441
33 forward-email 97,994 0.06% 224
34 include 96,040 0.05% 353
35 stripe-verification Stripe 95,908 0.05% 384
36 sophos-domain-verification 85,459 0.05% 273
37 hosted-email-verify 85,361 0.05% 449
38 forward-email-site-verification 79,882 0.05% 352
39 adobe-idp-site-verification Adobe 78,338 0.04% 225
40 yahoo-verification-key 77,196 0.04% 248
41 ms-domain-verification 69,936 0.04% 308
42 verification-code-site-app_feishu 68,498 0.04% 192
43 amazonses 58,797 0.03% 277
44 mailru-verification Mail.ru 58,275 0.03% 216
45 tiktok-developers-site-verification 58,039 0.03% 325
46 docusign DocuSign 57,998 0.03% 214
47 linkedin-site-verification 57,884 0.03% 269
48 rm_verify 51,975 0.03% 256
49 ip4 48,585 0.03% 184
50 cargo-domain 47,510 0.03% 145
51 verification-code-site-app_lark 45,107 0.03% 293
52 sl-verification 44,158 0.03% 350
53 sav-verification 43,514 0.02% 40
54 clickfunnels-domain-verification 42,974 0.02% 166
55 cisco-ci-domain-verification Cisco 42,518 0.02% 227
56 pcowner 41,409 0.02% 73
57 fah-claim 39,236 0.02% 287
58 tmes 38,282 0.02% 188
59 atlassian-sending-domain-verification 38,147 0.02% 239
60 t-verify 37,127 0.02% 355
61 godaddyverification 36,431 0.02% 174
62 have-i-been-pwned-verification 35,763 0.02% 233
63 duo_sso_verification 33,947 0.02% 169
64 asv 31,910 0.02% 220
65 1password-site-verification 31,842 0.02% 211
66 keybase-site-verification 31,504 0.02% 304
67 https 31,448 0.02% 165
68 twilio-domain-verification 30,255 0.02% 254
69 slack-domain-verification 30,117 0.02% 224
70 canva-site-verification Canva 29,614 0.02% 197
71 domain-verification 28,263 0.02% 175
72 domainparking-verification 28,151 0.02% 5
73 reh-verify 27,365 0.02% 53
74 dropbox-domain-verification Dropbox 24,852 0.01% 117
75 bw 24,531 0.01% 165
76 mx 24,261 0.01% 75
77 miro-verification Miro 24,115 0.01% 166
78 resend-domain-verification 23,848 0.01% 242
79 swisssign-check 21,598 0.01% 125
80 trustpilot-one-time-verification-id 20,926 0.01% 162

The tool also knows 5 further tokens the census named outside this ranking, so a paste can match one that has no row above.

Read next

What lives in a DNS zone, and what each part does · SPF: the TXT record that must not be deleted · DKIM: the long string at a selector name

Figures from the defaults.exposed census, data as of 12 October 2026. Census numbers move every month; the current values are on the census data page.