Have you ever wondered how the Internet keeps track of all of the domain names out there? One way to understand it is to consider how the postal service knows which cities and towns to send mail to – by the numbers. The postal service uses zip codes, but the Internet uses IP addresses.

IP Numbers

IP addresses are also a series of unique numbers that are assigned to computers. Just as your own computer is assigned an IP number when it connects to the Internet, your website is on a server – which is essentially a computer – that also has a unique IP number assigned to it. It’s kind of like a zip code.

The Internet is essentially a huge network of computers that communicate with each other across the world. There are literally millions of computers that make up the Internet – including the one that your webpages reside on. When the postal service uses zip codes, all of the mail that has that zip code on it gets sent to that post office. From there, the mail is sorted and sent out to the appropriate addresses within that zip code.

Domain Name System

The Internet uses IP numbers instead of zip codes, but since many people use shared hosting, where more than one website resides on a server – just as more than one person resides in a zip code, we have the Domain Name System, or DNS, to act as addresses within a zip code – or IP address.

An IP number is written in the form of 123.456.78.910. Obviously, a series of numbers like this is hard for people to memorize. They also aren’t very good from a marketing standpoint. Can you imagine Best Buy, in a certain zip code, advertising with its street address and zip code, instead of with its name? Of course not, and you don’t want to do that either.

So instead, you use a domain name. Your domain name is attached to your IP number – just like Best Buy in a certain city is attached to its address and zip code. While the postal service keeps up with addresses and zip codes, who keeps up with all of the IP numbers and DNS? The entire system involves Domain Name Registrars, DNS Servers, and other elements as well.

Domain Name Registrars

Domain name registrars are governed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or IANA, as well as other associations throughout the world. The important thing is that the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing when it comes to the infrastructure of the Internet – so everything works right.

Domain names are registered and recorded, and then DNS Servers, which are essentially hardware and software, work to make sure that IP addresses and domain names are matched up, forwarding the domain name to the appropriate IP address – without the visitor to that IP address ever knowing it happened.

What really happens when you type a domain name into your web browsers address bar? First, your browser translates the domain name into an IP address. Information is then passed from your computer, in the form of a request, through the browser, to the computer that you are requesting information from. The information is then passed back from that computer, and displayed on your computer, in your web browser.

Just as the post office translates zip codes into cities, your web browser translates domain names into numbers, making sure that the correct address is reached, so that the information you want is displayed.