What is DNS and How to Read WhoIs

DNS, WHOIS, and Registrant are three very important terms to know to understand how a website appears on the Internet.  Registrant is the most important term so we will start with it.

 

Registrant

The company or person listed as the Registrant is in control of the domain name. The email address associated with the Registrant is where all communication is sent regarding the domain name.  It is a huge legal issue to not be able to access the email account listed under the Registrant.  We can be listed as the Registrant, or you can; either way you own your own domain name.  If you want to be listed as the Registrant, you can be listed within our registrar account or you can open a your own registrar account with a domain name registrar to control your own domain name(s).  We have no recommendations but here is a link to a Google search for domain name registrant. We are happy to handle this for you at no extra charge.  If you handle it, you must know where to enter the DNS settings.
    

DNS

DNS is an acronym for Domain Name Server (or Service or System). DNS is an Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Domain names are alphabetic because they're easier to remember. However, the Internet is really based on IP addresses, which are based on numbers. Every time you type a domain name into a browser and click enter, a DNS server must translate the name into the corresponding IP address number sequence. A server has a fixed IP number so that DNS can find it and route the traffic to the proper server that is hosting the website.  For example, the domain name www.example.com might translate to 198.105.232.4.  
The DNS system is, in fact, its own network. If one DNS server doesn't know how to translate a particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is returned.  If no IP address is returned, you will likely see a "page cannot be displayed" error.

Once DNS has been configured properly for a domain name, the website can be made live in just a few hours. 
 

WHOIS

WHOIS is an Internet utility that returns public information about a domain name or IP address. For example, if you enter a domain name such as microsoft.com, WHOIS will return the name and address of the domain's owner (in this case, Microsoft Corporation). You have the option of making a domain name Registrant private information.       
View the WHOIS for any domain name.