How Domain Names and the Internet Works

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How Domain Names and the Internet Works

On this article, I am going to explain to you the obvious but surprisingly what most people will admit privately that they really don’t know how domain names and the internet work hand in hand to deliver what you see on your computer screen.

To better understand this; just imagine that Computers talk to each other in a way which has an analogue familiar to all of us: the postal system and the way which it addresses and delivers mail.

As the name would suggest, the internet is a sort of network of networks. These networks are dependent on what are known as their “end nodes” – these would be computers connected to the network. The people using these computers are looking for information.

Given that there are so many millions of computers all connected to the World Wide Web, you might wonder how do computers find each other in order to have this sort of communication between each other?

This function is filled by something which is called DNS, short for the Domain Name System. Any part of a network which will need to send or receive data needs (and is assigned) an IP address. An IP address is an identifier for the computer or network component which identifies it on the network. This address takes the form of a numeric string, looking much like his: 209.115.34.158

Of course while these numbers work well for computers, they are difficult for people to use, let alone remember. For those trying to market something online, this is not ideal. For this reason, a more human-readable naming system has been integrated into the DNS system. For the most part, it is the computers on networks that are named, although routers and other network components will sometimes be named as well.

But surely there are millions of computers throughout the world therefore there needs to be a system in place for matching an IP address to each name in order to keep track of all of these pairs of numbers and names. This is taken care of by a few different parts of the system – name registrars, DNS servers and other network elements.

International bodies such as the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) keep track of and provide domain names to website owners. When you register your domain name with any of the domain name company; the company acts as an intermediate between you and these international organizations that maintain and oversee the registration of domain names which in turn lists your name in the DNS server databases.

A DNS server is the system, incorporating both hardware and software which keeps track of the IP/Domain pair and forwards the address from one destination to the next. There may be quite a few DNS servers between your computer and the destination computer you want to send data to or get data from.

If you try to, for instance, load up a website hosted on Site Build It, a DNS server translates (or resolves) the name with the IP address and passes the request along to the IP address you are trying to reach. The data you asked for will be sent back to your computer through the network and shown in your browser.

The process works the same whether you want to communicate between your PC and a server, between one server and another one or any other network communication. DNS servers take domain names and resolve them to IP addresses and forward the requests.

In many cases, DNS servers are a dedicated machine who only perform the function of forwarding and address resolving. The DNS software may also be on a computer which performs other functions.

The process is essential very simple, regardless of how many steps data must pass through. Just like the postal system, DNS translates the name to an address and makes the delivery, with the address being translated back to a name.

Hopefully this article has helped you to understand a little bit more on how domain names and the internet work to enable communication between computers, this will help you especially if you want to start your own internet affiliate marketing business.