What is DNS and Propagation?

In a previous blog post, I talked about hosting and registration. Registration is kind of like a driver's license - it gives you the right to use a particular domain for your website but doesn't actually give you a website. Hosting is kind of like a car - it is your space online where you can add all the things your website needs.

DNS is the way that the domain registration connects to your hosting account. DNS stands for Domain Name Service. To understand DNS, let's walk through what happens when you type a particular website address into your browser.

When you type in qwconsulting.com, the first step that is taken is to look up the domain at the registrar. The registrar then responds with the information to access your hosting environment. That information is used to access the hosting company and ask where the domain exists at that host (for instance, what server the domain is on). The host will respond with the IP address specific to that particular website and then, finally, will display your website files.

To make this process move more quickly, your internet service provider keeps a local copy of the DNS records instead of looking them up at the registrar every time a request is made. The local copy of the DNS records is updated periodically. This process of updating is called propagation.

To make all this work for your website requires telling your registrar where your website is hosted by providing your registrar with the DNS information from your hosting company. Once you have entered this information your registrar will update the DNS information that is looked at when a domain request is made. However, since internet service providers keep a local copy of the DNS records, this update will take time to propagate, or update, through all the different internet service provider's local copies of the DNS records.

The same is true for new domains and for existing domains when you change hosting companies. For example, when I moved qwconsulting.com from the old hosting to the new hosting company I had to provide the registrar of the domain with the new host's DNS information. It took time for it to fully propagate until the new hosting company was found.

For more information about DNS - or any other web related questions - contact QW Consulting today.

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