DNS is what makes your site live to the public. Think of it like a house and an address — you have to notify the post office of your address to make sure your packages and letters get to you. In the same way, if your website is a house, you have to notify the post office of your IP address, which is where your website lives.
There are two parts to DNS: the registrar and the nameservers. The registrar is where you purchase your domain, and the nameservers are where your DNS points to make your website show up. The registrar and the nameservers may be hosted in the same place, but it’s possible that they’re hosted in different places too.
In many cases, clients don’t know how to find their DNS. If you’re a client with Infomedia, we’re able to do some digging, and we’re often able to find the information we need. If you’re not a client with us, there are a few tools you can use to look up your DNS information. A popular one is who.is. Here, you can type in your URL and a screen will pop up letting you know who your registrar and nameservers are registered with.
Once you know where your registrar and nameservers are, we recommend looking through your email to see if you still have your account information there. You can also try calling the company that hosts your DNS for more assistance with locating your account information. Locating your DNS may take some investigative work, but it can be done. And if you feel confused and overwhelmed, give us a call! We’ll gladly host your website and make DNS a worry of the past.
Lana Aaron