Prove that a domain is yours with a TXT record

The full audit looks deeper than the public checks: subdomains that could be taken over, exposed services, archived files, breach data. Those details are for the owner of the domain only, and so are the history and the alerts, so Perimetry Cloud asks you to prove that the domain is yours with a DNS TXT record. It is the same kind of proof that mail providers and search engines ask for.

Publish the record

1. Open the domain’s page. The card Prove that this domain is yours shows the record to add: its name, its type and its value.
2. Sign in to the place that hosts the domain’s DNS zone (your registrar, Cloudflare, OVHcloud, Gandi, your web host…).
3. Add a record of type TXT, with the name _perimetry.example.com (your domain instead of example.com) and the value perimetry-verify=… exactly as shown. Copy both rather than typing them.
4. Save the record, then press Check the record now on the domain’s page.
5. Wait for the confirmation. The page shows “checking” while we look the record up and updates by itself: no reload needed. When the record is found, it says “Ownership confirmed” and the first full audit starts.

You can leave the page: we also check on our own, every few minutes during the first hour after you added the domain, then every six hours.

When the record is not found

The page says what we saw:

• There is no TXT record yet. New records can take a few minutes to appear, sometimes up to an hour. Check the name: many DNS panels add the domain for you, so enter only _perimetry as the name if yours does. Otherwise the record ends up at _perimetry.example.com.example.com.
• A TXT record exists, but with another value. The page shows the value found. Replace it with the value on the page: a value from an earlier attempt, or from another workspace, does not count.

Still stuck? The record must be in the zone that the domain’s name servers actually serve. If you moved the domain to another DNS provider, add it there.

Keep the record in place

The record proves ownership for as long as you use Perimetry Cloud, so leave it in your zone. A verified domain’s record is checked once a day. After three checks in a row without it, the domain becomes lost and its page says “The ownership record disappeared”:

• scheduled audits stop until the record is back;
• its public score page is turned off and its DMARC reports address stops working, so that a new owner of the domain does not inherit them.

Publish the record again and the domain is verified again at the next check (every six hours), or straight away with Check the record now. The history is kept.

Imported domains

Domains brought in with an import are verified the same way, each with its own value. Download every record to publish as one CSV file and add them in one go; each domain becomes verified on its own once its record is found.