Best DNS Providers in India - ECommerce

The internet may have been the greatest invention of the 20th century, but one could argue it’s what makes the world go ‘round in the 21st. In 2020, global eCommerce sales exceeded 4 trillion dollars and are expected to hit 5.4 trillion by 2022. While 2020 numbers were certainly influenced by the pandemic, online buying trends have been steadily increasing for many years. Today, there are approximately 4.66 billion internet users across the globe—up 16% from 2019’s 3.97 billion internet users. 

India: Online Trends and Behaviors

The dramatic shift in the global population’s reliance on the internet demonstrates that the speed and reliability of websites and applications are critical. This couldn’t be more true for India, which has gone from an internet penetration rate of just 4% in 2007 to 45% in 2021. 

In fact, India is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, which currently contributes nearly 8% to the GDP. Furthermore, almost half of India’s 1.37 billion population uses the internet. This ranks India as the second-largest online user base in the world. According to IBEF, India’s eCommerce sales are predicted to surpass US$111 billion by 2025. That is an 82% increase from 2020, which hit 46.2 billion.

India’s cyber growth is driven by the country’s Digital India program, which was developed by the government to empower its society and economy with technology. 

Top 10 Visited eCommerce Websites in India

According to ecommerce guide, India’s top-performing industries online are electronics, followed by apparel. Beauty and wellness items are also top-selling products for India, as demonstrated by websites such as Alibaba, Nykaa, and 1mg making it to the list of top 10 visited websites in India.

1. Amazon India
2. Flipkart
3. Alibaba
4. Snapdeal
5. Myntra
6. IndiaMART
7. Book My Show
8. Nykaa
9. First Cry
10. 1mg
    

With the Digital India program’s push toward a more “virtual” India, the rapidly growing economy, and India’s increased global presence, online performance has never been more important.

The truth is, India is a vital part of the online economy and DNS is a vital part of the internet.

Keep reading to see how:

Best DNS Server in India: Boost Domain Performance For Businesses

Because all online activity starts with a DNS lookup, it is only logical to build your online strategy based on the domain name system (DNS). DNS is how consumers are able to find your website and content. You may have seen the analogy that DNS is akin to a phonebook, as it stores the IP address for domain names. This is true. 

But DNS is so much more than that.

With a strong DNS partner, you can optimize your web traffic and deliver your content based on user location, capacity, and performance. Of course, not all DNS providers are created equal. While features are a major piece of the puzzle, infrastructure and scalability are often overlooked to the detriment of the company receiving the service.

Constellix runs on parent company Tiggee LLC’s extensive network of bare-metal servers that are strategically placed around the world. With more than 500 Gpbs of peering capacity, 100 monitoring nodes, and 23 points of presence (PoPs) and counting, we’re able to provide consistently fast, stable, and 100% reliable DNS to our customers. We are also one of the only providers in the industry that focus on DNS, which allows us to invest in infrastructure and development that leverages optimal performance based on user need. With such a strong infrastructure and peering capacity, domains receive noticeable boosts in speed and performance, including faster page load times.

We added a new PoP in Mumbai in 2020 based on careful analysis of industry trends and more importantly, to meet the needs of our customers—many of wich are in India. Our direct network expansion into India has resulted in a noticeable speed increase for domains in India based on customer feedback. Our users speak, we listen.

It all comes down to this:

You should have the fastest and most reliable DNS possible and a provider you can trust.

Fastest DNS

In the online market, every millisecond matters—and this starts with DNS. As I mentioned earlier, every online transaction generates a DNS lookup. The faster and better optimized your DNS resolution, the quicker your page load times will be. This is important because just a one-second delay in load times can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions, 11% drop in page views, and even 16% drop in customer satisfaction (The Daily Egg). Google has even begun using website speed as a means of ranking SEO.

Why risk it?

DNS Provider Speed Comparison 

While the overall provider speed is a critical factor, don’t make the mistake of not analyzing DNS speed based on your users’ location. For example, if your provider is one of the fastest when looking at speeds on a global scale, but the bulk of your traffic is in India, that doesn’t tell you much. It could very well be that the same provider has subpar speeds where it matters most—India. 

Seeing is believing, so let’s take a look at some examples:

In this graph, we have compared 10 of the most popular DNS providers:

*We did not include our sister company DNS Made Easy as it runs on the same network as Constellix.

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What this data is showing you is the speeds per provider for only India within the last 30 days. As you can see, there are some rather large differences between providers.

Speed Test Region: India

Provider Speed (milliseconds)

Cloudflare  10.58

Constellix  19.67

Route 53/AWS 25.83

GoDaddy  25.91

Azure         26.81

NS1  32.9

UltraDNS 47.51

Google Cloud 126.41

Akamai  148.15

Dyn  149.68

Constellix is one of the top-performing DNS providers in India. For instance, we are 83% faster than UltraDNS and 153% than Akamai. This can make a massive difference in your domain’s overall performance.

For perspective, let’s compare the same providers by world.

DNS Speed Test Region: World

Provider Speed (milliseconds)

Cloudflare  11.64

Constellix  20.88

UltraDNS 24.5

NS1  26.68

Route 53/AWS 31.9

Dyn  38.2

GoDaddy  39.46

Azure        41.35

Google Cloud 58.95

Akamai  83.27

Several of the providers in this example have significantly varying speeds in different regions. That is why it is vital that you investigate provider speeds based on where the majority of your traffic will be coming from. 

But we can break it down even further:

For instance, let’s say most of your business is done in or comes from Mumbai? You would then want to make sure your DNS provider performs especially well there. Now, I’ll compare the same providers as above but narrow the results to reflect server performance in Mumbai only.

As the graph demonstrates, performance and rankings shift again.

DNS Performance Test Region: Mumbai, India

Provider Speed (milliseconds)

Constellix  2.37

Cloudflare  4.94

Azure        22.32

Route 53/AWS 26.77

GoDaddy  29.51

NS1  39.04

UltraDNS 64.43

Google Cloud 131.5

Dyn  141.43

Akamai  159.44

In Mumbai, Constellix is over 70% faster than Cloudflare and almost 200% faster than Akamai. While a provider may be the overall fastest for a country or the world, that doesn’t mean they are the best performer in the area that matters to your business the most.

Tip: The tool we used in the above example is PerfOps, which is the leading data resource for DNS and Cloud providers. With PerfOps, you can find unbiased information on provider performances, which can help you choose the best provider for your organization as well as troubleshoot network issues.

History of DNS and Cloud Provider Outages

Now that we have covered speed, let’s talk about reliability. You can have the fastest DNS provider, but if they are prone to outages, speed becomes secondary. The simple fact is that DNS-related outages are one the most costly events a domain owner can experience. Choosing a provider that can truly back up their claim of 100% uptime is one of the most important decisions a business can make.

Why is provider uptime such a big deal?

Because just one minute of downtime can cost as much as $5,600 and as much as $540,000 in an hour. For Fortune 1000 companies, unexpected downtime averages a combined $1.25 to $2.5 billion dollars.

Is that an expense you are willing to pay?

Using the same providers from our speed comparison, let’s take a look at how they compare when it comes to reliability and uptime:

Provider Outages (regional and global)

Cloudflare  June 2021, Aug 2020, Jul 2020, Apr 2020, Jul 2019

Constellix  NONE (over 8 years of 100% uptime)

UltraDNS May 2021, Oct 2015, Apr 2014, Jan 2013, Apr 2009

NS1  2016

Route 53/AWS Nov 2021, Sept 2021, Nov 2020, Oct 2019, May 2019, Apr 2019, Mar 2017 

Dyn  Mar 2021, Oct 2016

GoDaddy  Nov 2020, Mar 2017, Sept 2012 

Azure        Oct 2021, Mar 2021 (2), Mar 2019

Google Cloud         Jun 2021, Dec 2020, Nov 2020, Aug 2020, Nov 2019, 

Akamai         Jul 2021, Jun 2021

As this history of outages demonstrates, reliability and uptime history trump even speed. If your domain is unavailable due to a provider outage, no one is making it to your website or using your services. This costs your business not just monetarily, but negatively impacts your reputation, which has far-reaching consequences. Despite the clear need for redundancy, 70% of FTSE 100 companies only use one provider. This is a costly and absolutely unnecessary risk.

Constellix DNS Solutions for India

I have gone over the importance of infrastructure, speed, and uptime. Now, I’ll cover the top DNS solutions that every business in India should have. There are core similarities between several features offered by DNS hosts in the industry, but to be competitive in the online marketplace, advanced, specialized services that can be custom-tailored to the unique needs of your organization are a must.

1. Primary/Primary

Even with our outage-free history, we can’t express the importance of DNS redundancy enough. This is hands-down best practice. When you have two DNS providers, in the event one provider goes down, your domain will stay up as you still have a host to resolve your queries. While it serves the same purpose as traditional Secondary DNS, with Primary/Primary you have two authoritative DNS providers that handle traffic for your domain at all times. 

2. Failover

With Failover, you can protect your domain from outages due to unhealthy resources or unexpected issues on your own servers or networks. This tried and true solution automatically reroutes traffic to a backup resource if your primary IP/host is down.

3. Internet Traffic Optimization (ITO)

ITO allows you to Intelligently balance your DNS traffic load based on the fastest and most geographically accurate resource.

4. GeoIP Filters

With GeoIP filtering, you’re able to set business rules in front of your DNS records that help make decisions that are beneficial for your ROI. You can also optimize traffic by region or block traffic from accessing your domain entirely.

5. Advanced DNS Analytics‍

With advanced DNS analytics, you can analyze DNS query activity in real time or over a set period of time to learn where your traffic is coming from. This helps to spot misconfigurations, malicious traffic, and more. 

6. Real-time Traffic Anomaly Detection (RTTAD)

With the growing popularity of DDoS and other cyber attacks, a monitoring solution is a must-have for your domain. Our RTTAD uses AI and machine learning to learn your domain’s unique traffic patterns. Any time RTTAD detects unusual or suspicious activity, you receive an instant notification. This affords you the opportunity to stop or prevent attacks before they can cause damage to your domain.

DNS Solutions for a Digitized India

As India continues to make a larger global footprint and pushes technological boundaries, it’s crucial that organizations choose the best DNS solutions possible. Speed and performance in India, as well as any other specific region you do frequent business in, is a major factor to consider when choosing a DNS provider. But you also want to check the uptime history of your provider to ensure they are reliable. And of course, you want to choose a provider that is scalable and has the availability of products that IT teams can use creatively and efficiently. DNS is a necessity in the world of the internet, and when used to its maximum potential, can provide your business with the competitive edge it needs to increase ROI and provide a superior customer experience.