The Domain Name System (DNS) is used to resolve human-readable hostnames like WHOISPING.COM into machine-readable IP addresses like 198.49.72.36. DNS also provides other information about domain names, Like mail services mail services. But why is DNS important? How does it work? What else should you know? Why is DNS important? DNS is just like a phone book for the Internet world. If you know a person’s name but don’t know their telephone number, you can simply look it up in a phone book. DNS provides this same service to the Internet. When you visit WHOISPING.COM in a browser, your computer uses DNS to retrieve the website’s IP address of 198.49.72.36. Without DNS, you would not only be able to visit our website (or any website) by visiting its IP address directly, such as http://198.49.72.36 How does DNS work? What is DNS? - DNS Flow Chart When you visit a domain such as WHOISPING.COM, your computer follows a series of steps to turn the human-readable web address into a machine-readable IP address. This happens every time you use a domain name, whether you are viewing websites, sending email.

What's my DNS number?

When setting up your computer/device to connect to the Internet it is very important that you configure your machine to connect to the correct DNS server. Using the correct DNS server means that you will get the fastest and most reliable lookups for when you're visiting websites online.

While most routers and modems will automatically assign the correct IP address to your computer to use as a DNS server there is some cases in which you may need to configure this manually.

When possible you should try and use the DNS server that is provided by your service provider in order to have the fastest possible DNS lookups.

It is also possible to use Google DNS as your DNS server if you want.