In one embodiment, a resolution resiliency application modifies domain name service (DNS) resolution. In operation, the resolution resiliency application determines that an authoritative name server has begun recovering from a degraded state or receives a flush list update from the authoritative name server. In response, the resolution resiliency application performs operation(s) that modify a query rate and/or a cache. The query rate specifies a frequency associated with DNS queries transmitted to the first authoritative name server. The cache stores DNS record(s) received from the first authoritative name server. Finally, the resolution resiliency application generates a DNS response to a DNS query based on the modified query rate and/or the modified cache.