6 DNS Related Terms You Should Know
Domain Name System
If you are a person who surfs various sites online, then you must know how a particular website gets loaded. But it is very rare to have proper knowledge about the Domain Name System which makes the functionality so simple.
If you have a Browser in your website, then you will just enter the domain URL in the search to load the particular website or a web page. But each websites will also have some unique IP address for the servers on which they have hosted. Hosting is nothing but the High End Server Machine with Static Ip Address and where the website files will be stored. If a user opens the particular web page then the contents will be retrieved from the server where all the data were stored.
6 DNS Related Terms
If you host a website, or you are looking to migrate a website, then you may need to know more about the DNS System. So if you don’t have proper knowledge about the terms used in the DNS then it is difficult to handle. Here I have explained the most popular terms used in the Domain Name System.
- ‘A’ Record – It is also called as Heart of the DNS. It is the most important thing where a particular domain will be a point to the Specific IP Address of the Web Server. Using ‘A’ Record, the users will find your website through its domain name.
- ‘CNAME’ Records – This record will not point to any particular IP Address, instead, it points another domain name. Normally CName Records points the non WWW version of the webpage to WWW Version of the webpage.
For example, seekahost.com will be pointed to www.seekahost.com. This means that the user can reach your website through the www version or non www version of the address in the URL Section. - ‘MX’ Records – MX Records were all about the Email Accounts linked to the particular website. If you are choosing some medium or premium web hosting packages then you will be provided with free Email Accounts. So to make use of this your MX Records must point to your server. Mostly these things will be taken care of by the web hosting provider.
- Nameserver – Nameservers are the computer running DNS Software which can be assigned during the domain registration. Some of the hosting companies will provide the nameserver details with their domain names as ns1.webhosting.com and so on. Also mostly for PBN Hosting, people will request for private nameserver details which will have their own domain name in the end.
- Zone Files – Zone files were the complete DNS Setting which is set to point your domain to the particular hosting. Sometimes during the domain transfer, people used to export and import the zone files to avoid the issues. If you make some updates in your DNS Setting then it means you updating your Zone Files as well.
- TTL (Time-To-Live) – TTL indicates your nameserver that how often it should update the details. If you change your A records then the update will take place based on the TTL setting. Also, modern registrars recommend providing very low TTL time like 5 to 10 Minutes for quick updates.
