A TXT record, as the abbreviation implies, is a record, that keeps data in human-readable form and not code. It could be created for a domain or a subdomain for various purposes. Search engines like Yahoo, for instance, have different ways of making sure that you're the owner of a particular domain name and one of them is by creating a TXT record with specific text that they provide and which you must use as the record value. The exact same verification method is being employed by some analytics platforms that monitor the traffic to your web sites as well. However, in such a case the content of the record is going to be read by a robot, but it will still be in human-readable form. A TXT record is also used when you enable the so-called SPF protection for your email addresses so that you can protect them from being forged. In this situation, the record contains information showing that a given digital message is sent from a dependable and authorized mail server. You could use a TXT record for any other information also, such as your company details, for example.