DNS Lookup Tool: Making The Most Of It
DNS Lookup Tool: You’ve heard the term. But what is, really, and what does it do? To understand this incredibly useful took, we first have to understand what DNS itself is and does.
The acronym DNS stands for “Domain Name System.” This is the method through which the Internet converts a domain name for a website into a series of numbers called an IP address. Whenever you type a domain name into a browser, what you’re really doing is calling up that series of numbers, which directs your browser to the server associated with that domain name.
But if everything on the Internet is just a complicated string of numbers, then the domain names that everybody is so concerned with, and on which we spend so much money, are really meaningless… aren’t they? What difference does it make what new extensions have been added to the traditional .com, .net, and .org domain names, to name a few (and there have been a lot of additions in recent years) if it all comes down to numbers? Well, the answer is human memory.
Human beings can’t remember complicated numerical strings. (It’s all we can do, these days, to remember our contacts’ phone numbers.)The DNS system, then, makes it possible for human beings to remember multiple sites.
It allows us to navigate easily to these addresses by using the alphabetic stand-ins, or domain names, associated with the numerical IP addresses.
Speaking of IP, or Internet Protocol (another of those terms we use but seldom think about), that brings us back to the importance of lookup utilities.
Every domain name or website address has a DNS record associated with it. When you use a lookup tool, you’re calling up this record in much the same way as you might look for a phone number in the Yellow Pages.
The DNS record for a domain name dwells on DNS servers and enables users all over the Internet to connect to that domain from wherever they happen to be.
When you type in a URL (also known as a Uniform Resource Locator), you’re using Internet Protocol to specify the numeric address.
The DNS server direct you to the specific Web server where the website at that domain address is hosted, calling up the site and allowing you to view it.
Using a DNS Lookup Tool allows you to view the various data associated with the DNS record, including registration and contact information.
Using a DNS Lookup Tool gives you a leg up when it comes to understanding a domain. When you want answers about a website, check the DNS record. A DNS Lookup Tool is the key to understanding what (and often who) you’re dealing with.