Popular websites such as google.com, wikipedia.com, and youtube.com do not appear to be present in the resolver's cache for large periods of time (at least a day). I noticed this by running the command "dig @8.8.8.8 domain.com +norecurse" on multiple websites, for a few months, once a second. As far as I can tell, Google DNS returns a SERVFAIL response if a DNS request is made with the Recursion Desired bit unset. Google.com, wikipedia.com, and youtube.com consistently return SERVFAIL. However, many websites of similar popularity according to the Alexa top websites ARE cached. I am hoping someone can tell me why these websites are not present in cache when their popularity would intuitively imply that they should be. Does Google DNS deliberately not cache certain websites? Is my measurement technique flawed? Any assistance you can give me would be very welcome.