A domain name is the address of your website, and DNS is the system that translates such an address into the server where your site and email actually live.
What is a domain name?
A domain name is the name visitors type in, for example yourcompany.nl. It consists of two parts: the name itself and the extension, such as .nl, .com or .eu.
You do not buy a domain name outright: you rent the right to use it, usually per year. As long as you renew on time, it stays yours. For .nl domains, registration is managed by SIDN.
What does DNS do?
Computers do not work with names, but with IP addresses: a series of numbers that indicates where a server is located. DNS (Domain Name System) is the phone book of the internet. It looks up the right number for a name.
When someone types in your address, their computer asks DNS where that site is located. It gets the IP address back and fetches the page from there. This happens in a fraction of a second.
The most important DNS records
A domain comes with a short list of settings. These are called records. These are the ones you will come across most often:
Where is the website?
Points your domain to the IP address of the web server. This determines where your website is served from.
A redirect
Forwards one name to another name. Often used to point www to your main domain.
Where does the email go?
Indicates which server handles your email. If this is not right, your mail will not arrive.
Additional agreements
Contains text data, for example SPF and DKIM settings. These help prevent your email from being seen as spam.
The master switch
Determines which party manages the records above. This is the master switch of your domain.
Website and email are separate from each other
Useful to know: your website and your email do not have to be in the same place. The A record points to your web server, the MX record to your mail server. So you can host your site with one party and your email with another.
That also explains why your email can simply keep working when the website moves, provided the records are transferred carefully.
Why does a change take a while?
DNS data is temporarily remembered along the way; that keeps the internet fast. If you change a record, some networks will still use the old data for a while. This is called propagation.
In practice, a change is often applied everywhere within a few minutes to a few hours. When moving, allow up to 24 to 48 hours to be on the safe side.
Please noteSo never delete an old environment straight away.
Linking a domain to hosting
- 1Point your domain to your hostingYou do this by pointing the nameservers or the A record to your hosting package. You can read exactly what hosting is in what is web hosting.
- 2Switch on an SSL certificate straight afterwardsThat way your site is immediately reachable via https. More about that in SSL certificate and https.
You will find more about our packages at web hosting.