The Domain Name System, also known as DNS for short, is the Internet’s system for linking alphabetic names to numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. It is like a phone book that maps a person’s name to a phone number. For illustration, when a Web address (URL) is typed into a browser, a DNS query is created to get an IP address of a Web server correlated with that name.
For example, when using the www.example.com URL, example.com is the domain name, and www is the hostname. DNS resolution maps www.example.com into an IP address (like 123.4.56.78). When a user wants to view a webpage, a conversion has to happen between what a user types into their web browser (www.example.com) into an IP address needed to locate the www.example.com website. Find out more detailed information about the Domain Name System!