Thanks for checking out our explainer videos where we make complex web topics easy to understand. In this video, which is part of our “What’s in a Website?” series, we explain something called the Domain Name System (or DNS). That’s a technical term that you probably aren’t familiar with, so don’t worry. We’ll explain it as we go.
If you’ve watched our other “What’s in a Website” video entitled “The Three Parts of a Website”, you’ve heard us talk about your domain as being like your house’s address. Understanding DNS is simply understanding how that address system works.
So, let’s start off with something we all know – the Internet.
You access the internet by having an internet connected device and putting in the address of some resource you want to access. That could be a webpage, a person’s email inbox, a video on YouTube, or even something technical like a folder on an FTP server. But no matter what it is, everything must have an address.
Most thing have an address that uses words, like www.cascadewebworks.net But they also have a technical address that is just a bunch of letters and numbers called an IP address. IP addresses used to be just four groups of numbers like 31.72.86.104 but recently the internet outgrew that system and now it uses longer sets with both letters and numbers like 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334. You don’t have to understand any of that, except to know that there’s no way a normal human is going to remember an address like that and so a system exists to convert those IP addresses into simple addresses with words like cascade web works.
So, when your computer tries to access some resource on the internet, it will likely be looking for something like www.cascadewebworks.net rather than 31.72.86.104. This mapping of words to number is one of the main functions of the “domain name system” or “DNS”. The first step in getting a domain name is creating an entry in the system by registering to use a particular set of words and paying a yearly registration fee.
The second step is to put information of a specific server that tells people looking for something on your domain what numeric address to go to.
This type of server is called a nameserver. Most people and companies don’t have their own nameserver, but rather rely on one managed by either their domain registrar or their website hosting company – both work equally well.
So, when a computer connected to the internet looks for something with your domain in the address, it’s pointed to the nameserver who then has to point it on to the actual server you’re using. The set of records that your nameserver maintains about all the servers connected to your domain is what comprises your DNS record.
Almost every domain has multiple servers providing services. Your business likely uses one service for website hosting, but another or email, for example. It’s almost certain that even if their managed by the same company, they’re still separate servers.
So, when a computer connected to the internet looks for a web page at your domain’s address, the nameserver points it to your webserver. If a computer wants to send an email to a user at your domain, the nameserver points it to your email server or to a server run by another company who provides your email like Google or Microsoft. Web and email are the big two, but you can have lots of other services connected to your domain.
One common additional one is if you have any white labeled 3rd party products, like a payment or scheduling service. When your customers use them, it may look like they’re on your website, but the nameserver is really pointing them to a server controlled by the 3rd party company.
So that’s DNS in a nutshell. The important thing to remember is that your domain and your DNS are not part of your website, but site above your website point people to various internet connected services that your company uses.
