Google Public DNS Now Handles 70 Billion Requests Per Day, 70% From Outside U.S.

Google Public DNS Now Handles 70 Billion Requests Per Day, 70% From Outside U.S.

Google just announced that its public DNS service now handles an average of more than 70 million requests per day. While Google doesn’t often talk about its public DNS service, this is clearly a success story for the company. In comparison, OpenDNS, which is likely Google’s closest competitor in this market handled about 32 billion requests per day last October. Google claims its public DNS service is now the largest in the world.

Using Google’s Public DNS service, OpenDNS or a similar service can help you speed up your browsing experience by a little bit. It also offers some security benefits over using your ISP’s default DNS server. 

Launched in December 2009, the service has apparently become especially popular outside of the U.S. According to Google, about 70% of its traffic now come from outside of the U.S. and the company has added new access points in Australia, India, Japan and Nigeria recently.

Google is also working with a number of standards bodies to improve how public DNS services can work together with content distribution networks as part of the Global Internet Speedup campaign.

Getting Started with Public DNS

If you want to give Google’s Public DNS service a try, here are the step-by-step instructions for setting it up on your computers and/or routers. Interestingly, Google also offers phone support for Public DNS (877-590-4367 in the U.S. and 770-200-1201 outside the U.S.).