When you request a domain name, your computer first checks its local cache to see if you’ve previously looked up the address recently; if not, a request to your Recursive DNS Server will be made.

A Recursive DNS Server is usually provided by your ISP, but you can also choose your own. This server also has a local cache of recently looked-up domain names. If a result is found locally, this is sent back to your computer, and your request ends here (this is common for popular and heavily requested services such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter). If the request cannot be found locally, a journey begins to find the correct answer, starting with the internet’s root DNS servers.

The root servers act as the DNS backbone of the internet; their job is to redirect you to the correct Top Level Domain Server, depending on your request. If, for example, you request www.kanohost.com, the root server will recognize the Top Level Domain of .com and refer you to the correct TLD server that deals with .com addresses.

The TLD server holds records for where to find the authoritative server to answer the DNS request. The authoritative server is often also known as the nameserver for the domain. For example, the name server for example.com is tlb.ns.cloudflare.com and una.ns.cloudflare.com. You’ll often find multiple nameservers for a domain name to act as a backup in case one goes down.