What is a DNS server?

DNS stands for Domain Name System and is similar to the telephone directory of the Internet.

A DNS server is a computer server that contains a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) directory and the corresponding public IP address for that domain.

Fully qualified domain names are host names, domain names and top-level domains (TLDs) (if formatted as hostname.domain.tld) that are used as a human way of identifying devices/computers on the Internet with which to communicate.

The DNS server translates the domain name into its IP address, which ultimately allows you to view the Web content to be accessed. We explain this process in the following section.