A DNS can be confusing, although it’s really a simple idea. A DNS is a Domain Name System that points a domain name, like www.vision-tek.net to a servers IP address. That way, you can tell someone your domain name rather than an IP address.
So let me tell you, now, in my terms what a DNS is, how it works and what you might need to know.
A DNS happens right here; there are 3 pieces to your website:
you have your domain name
you have your server that is associated to an IP Address
then you have your website files
All of these have to work together so people can view your website. The DNS is what relates your domain name to your IP address. Can you imagine in an elevator 2 minute “spiel”, given to somebody and they say, “I want to check out your website” and you say, “Great! Let me give you my IP Address; it is 67.12.5.67”. They say, “I can’t remember that!” So, you would rather give them a domain name, Black Bear Design.com; maybe they need to type in blackbeardesigns.com, or blackbeersdesign.com, or blackbearsdesign.com. Just look at the picture; they’ll get close, a lot closer than if you gave them the IP address. So the DNS is an easy way for you to give a URL and associate that to an IP address-the IP address to your server, and that is where everyone can see your files.
Now, where is the DNS?
A lot of times, your DNS is at the Domain Registrar. So, for example, at GoDaddy or Network Solutions, you buy a domain name; you are using their DNS server so they are taking care of all that information for you. Where it gets kind of “dicey” is not everyone will host their website at the same place where they bought their domain name; you might have bought you domain name at GoDaddy , you might host your website with a web developer’s company, because they might have a better server than GoDaddy or any of these other guys.
So that is where you will have to log into the domain name registrar- that is where most likely the DNS is and you will point that to a new server, to the new host.
This is where a lot of the confusion comes in; if you are working on a new website and it is hosted somewhere else, and it comes to the point where you are ready to launch, and everyone looks at each other and goes, “Who has the domain name log in?” That whole situation that starts happening and everyone is scrambling to find that information, and nobody has that information and it ends up being with some person that quit last year! So, make sure you have this information always; if you don’t have it, look it up now-put it in a safe place. Don’t let anyone have it that is not qualified because you can really do some damage by changing this information.
In simple, your DNS is usually at your Domain Name Registrar; it is a simple way to connect your domain name to the IP address of your server.
