How DNS finds a website

You type example.com, and a page appears. Computers don’t find each other by name, though. They use numbers called IP addresses.

So before the page can load, your browser needs the IP address of example.com.

First it checks if it already knows the answer. The browser and your operating system both keep recent answers in a cache.

If neither of them knows it, the browser asks a resolver. Your internet provider usually runs one, and there are public ones like 1.1.1.1.

The resolver starts with a root server. The root server doesn’t know the address, but it knows where the dot com servers are.

The dot com servers don’t know it either. They send the resolver to the name server of example.com.

That name server has the answer. It sends the IP address back, and the resolver saves it for the next time someone asks.

That makes four questions to find one address. It usually takes a fraction of a second.