Web Development
What is DNS?
Quick answer
DNS is the internet's address book. It translates the domain name you type, like nextlinecreative.in, into the numeric IP address where the website actually lives, so your browser can find and load the site. Without DNS you'd have to memorise IP numbers for every site you visit.
When you open a site, your browser asks a chain of DNS servers to look up the domain and return its IP address, usually within milliseconds. Records do different jobs: an A record points a domain to an IP, a CNAME points one name at another, and MX records tell the internet where your email should go.
For a business, DNS is managed at your domain registrar or a provider like Cloudflare. Changing records to point a domain at new hosting, add a subdomain, or set up email is routine, but updates can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to spread worldwide, a delay known as propagation.
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