Robs Forum
I get a lot of questions regarding domain names and how they work. This posting should answer a few of those. Q. What does a domain registrar do? A. A domain registrar manages domains for domain purchasers. When a customer purchases a domain from a registrar they are given access to a domain management system that allows the customer to edit settings for their domain name. Changes made by the customer are submitted through the registrar to the owner of the Top Level Domain like .com .net .org etc. Those Top Level Domain companies look after the primary Name Servers that contain your domain name information. The Domain Registrar also maintains the contact information for a domain name which can be edited by the domain owner. There are four main contact groups, Primary, Technical, Administrative and Billing. As well as contact information the Registrar also holds the Name Server information for the domain name. By allowing the domain name owner to access the Name Server address the owner can point his domain name to whatever server contains the website. Q. What does a name server do? A. Name Servers are probably the most important part of the Internet. They act as the phone book for websites by changing website names into internet addresses. All servers connected to the Internet use a method of communication called TCP/IP. This standard provides for a four digit address from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 so that servers know where messages come from and where they are sending them to, much like the address on an envelope. When you enter a domain name into a web browser your computer asks your Internet Provider 'where is www.xyz.com'? Your Internet Provider checks with a master name server which responds with the Name Server address for all Dot Com domains. The Dot Com Name Server is then asked and responds with the Name Server for xyz.com. The name server for xyz.com contains the IP address for the server that xyz.com is stored on. Your computer now knows where to go to access the website xyz.com. Further reading. For a more technical article on Name Servers and Registrars please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_system - Robert Reply to this post:
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