What is a DNS record and what does it do?

DNS - Domain Name System is basically a translation table that contains IP addresses and their human readable counterparts.

In our example, the A-Pointer which is mentioned first, tells the browser what IP the site ViewDns.Com can be found at. The A-Pointer is a requirement for reaching that website and might be the most common used pointer type today, often referred to as the Host address pointer.

What about TLD’s, NameServers and root name servers?

To understand the entire flow how come you ended up on our site upon typing ViewDNS.Com we need unfold and explain a couple more details.

These steps are required for your browser to retrieve our website:

1. Your browser has hardcoded addresses to the Root Servers where the initial call/query is sent.
2. The Root servers tells your browser to lookup our nameservers, which is where our DNS Records/rows will be provided.
3. Your browser / computer asks the nameserver for the A pointer to the domain viewdns.com, in this example it's 192.132.12.33.
4. Your browser caches the IP for a set amount of time (TTL) and then queries the suggested server with the mentioned IP.
5. Upon receiving the query from your browser / computer, our web server will start sending the content of our webpage to your browser, which instantly will start rendering on your screen, and voila! Here we are! :)