Earth To Geek

What is a “DNS” and how does it work?

DNS stands for “Domain Name Server”. Basically, a DNS is a phone book for the internet. It connects the name of the web site you are looking for, with the numeric computer address (known as an ip) of the server your web site is on.

So, when you type in www.earthtogeek.com in your browser, or click on a link in a web site, your request is sent to your Internet Service Provider’s DNS service. It takes the name and compares it against a database of ip addresses, similar to how you would look for the company or personal name in a phone book. Once it finds the name of that site, the DNS then sends you to the proper server the site you’re looking for is located.

It’s actually quite amazing how fast this works, considering there are billions of web sites out there and it returns the site you are looking for rather fast.