What exactly is DNS?
When registering your domain name, pointing it to Power-eCommerce, changing it altogether, or just making basic updates to your domain; you will probably hear the term "DNS" being used over and over again.
If you've ever used a hosting service or you've enjoyed an online presence for a while, then you should be very familiar with DNS. However, we understand that many of our merchants are just starting out in the online world and certain terms may be unfamiliar to them.
Let's face it, with so many acronyms like FTP, PCI, IP, MX, SMTP, SSL, ISP, URL, etc being thrown at someone just starting out in the eCommerce world; it's easy to see how "DNS" can become just another acronym and easily overlooked.
The problem though is that DNS is so important to your online business that a basic understanding of it is really needed to fully grasp how your website works and helps you minimize "surprises" when it comes to setting up or changing aspects of your online presence.
The Importance of DNS
DNS stands for Domain Name System, and it's pretty much the backbone of how your domain name works on the Internet. Absolutely everything related to a domain name (FTP, Email, location, hosting service, etc) is related to DNS. Whether you're pointing something to or from your domain or even just checking your domain's email; if the domain name is part of it in some way, DNS is involved.
The simplest way to explain it is this:
On the Internet, everything has an IP address. Everything. Even websites. For example, as far as the Internet is concerned, CNN is actually located at 157.166.226.26. Technically speaking, all of the pages, images and information on the site are located at the base IP address.
DNS is the system that takes a domain name and points that "easy to remember" name to its base IP address. Without DNS, you'd have to enter "173.194.37.1" into your browser just to "Google" something.
The following information will outline the more common ways you (as a domain owner) will need to deal with DNS.
Waiting for Propagation
Propagation is another term that you'll hear often when requesting or handling DNS changes. This is basically the amount of time it will take for DNS Changes to be reflected across all nameservers on the Internet.
When a change is made to your domain's DNS - whether it's adding, deleting or modifying entries - the DNS server on which the change is made will update itself with the new information and post it almost immediately. However, other DNS servers online will still need to connect to the DNS server to update their own records accordingly. During this requesting and updating process, there may be some instances where one connection will see the old information, while a different connection will see the updated information. This interim period is called propagation and it's just the amount of time it will take for everyone one to "be on the same page" as it were.
The following example may explain it better: