When you have to change your domain’s nameserver information it can be overwhelming. When you don’t know much about the internet, it can seem almost magical. We’ll explore what happens when you change the domain’s dns information and what to do to make it happen.

Nameservers make the internet easy to use

A nameserver is a server on the internet who speaks authoritatively for your domain name.  Here’s a breakdown of how it works.  When someone types in your domain name in their web browser, the web browser sends the information through your internet service provider.  The servers at your internet service provider will see if they have a current copy in their cache which is a memory of recent requests.  That way they don’t have to use as much bandwidth going to get information they already have locally.

If the information is not current in their cache or is non-existent in their cache, the servers at your ISP will go to the main DNS servers on the internet and ask about your domain name.  These main DNS servers will in turn look up your domain name in their database.  This lookup will identify the registrar of your domain name.  The registrar will identify the nameservers identified with your domain name.  Finally, it will allow your web hosting company’s DNS server to be queried for information.  From there, the DNS zone information for your domain will be accessed by the authoritative DNS server for your domain name.  Finally, your hosting company’s DNS server will process the request based on the information found in the zone file for your domain name.   All of this happens in milliseconds.  Very fast.

Why do I have to change my nameserver information when I change hosts?

The registrar for your domain always lists the authoritative dns server for your domain name.   If the nameservers for your domain are not set properly, your website will not display properly from your new hosting provider.  Changing your nameserver can take anywhere from 24-72 hours to take effect.  

DNS servers make it much easier to surf the internet by allowing the use of english names to lookup websites instead of using IP addresses like 192.168.10.1 that are much, much harder for humans to understand.

Simple, yet complicated…