What is Nameserver?
A nameserver is a type of DNS server that helps connect URLs with the IP address of web servers. In other words, it acts as a sort of “phone book” for the Internet. It translates human-friendly domain names into the numerical IP addresses that computers use to communicate with each other.
When you enter a URL into your browser, the browser contacts a nameserver to find out the corresponding IP address. The browser then sends a request to that server, and the server responds by sending back the website content.
Concept Of Nameserver
Nameservers are an important part of how the Internet works. They can be configured in different ways to provide different levels of service. For example, some nameservers may offer enhanced security features or better performance than others.
In today’s world, we simply type a web address on the browser and the browser takes us to the desired website. It’s hard to imagine having to remember and enter an IP address every time we want to visit a site. Can you imagine trying to keep track of all those numbers for all the different sites you visit regularly? It would be a total nightmare!
DNS server
Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that any more thanks to DNS servers. DNS stands for Domain Name System and it essentially converts human-friendly domain names into machine-readable IP addresses. So when you type in www.google.com, the DNS server will translate that into the IP address 74.125.239.16. And will take you to Google’s website.
DNS servers are a total lifesaver and make using the internet much simpler and user-friendly. Next time you browse the web, take a moment to think about how grateful you are to DNS servers!
Nameservers play an important role in connecting a URL with a server IP address. By translating a domain name into its corresponding IP address, nameservers provide a human-friendly way to access websites. Most nameservers consist of two parts: a domain name and a server IP address. For example, the domain name www.example.com could be translated to the IP address 192.168.1.1. When you look at a website’s nameservers, you’ll typically see a minimum of two nameservers. You can use more also. Here’s an example of what they look like.
ns-831.wasdns-74.com
ns-1111.wasdns-60.com
Only instead of serving up a website, those nameservers help direct traffic. In other words, they act as intermediaries between your computer and the server that houses the website you’re trying to access. Without nameservers, you would need to remember the IP addresses of all the websites you visit frequently. Not an easy task! Thanks to nameservers, we can simply type in a domain name and be automatically connected to the right server.
Role of Nameserver
When you type “abc.com” into your browser’s address bar, your computer contacts a nameserver to find out the IP address of the website. The nameserver is like a directory for websites. It contains a record of all the websites and their corresponding IP addresses.
Once your computer has the IP address of the website, it can direct your browser to the correct location at ‘abc’ homepage.
So, when you’re browsing the Internet, your computer is constantly contacting nameservers to find out where to go next. And all of this happens behind the scenes – you don’t even realize it’s happening!
What is DNS Record?
DNS records is nothing but a ledger book that stores the actual information that other browsers or services need to interact with. Nameservers, on the other hand, help store and organize those individual DNS records.
DNS records are like individual entries in a phone book, while nameservers are like the phone book itself. Just like you need a phone book to look up someone’s phone number, you need a nameserver to look up a DNS record. And just like a phone book can have multiple entries for one person (for example, if they have multiple phone numbers), a DNS record can have multiple values (known as “resource records”).
How to use nameserver in real world
We use nameservers and DNS records primarily to point to the domain name for the hosting. You can also use the DNS records supplied by your nameservers in other ways like setting up your email account with MX records or verifying your domain name with Google Search Console. By doing this, you ensure that people who want to visit your website reach the correct place. And also the email sent to your domain reach your inbox safely. Additionally, using records like these can help improve your site’s SEO by signaling to search engines what your site is about.
Where is the nameserver located?
It depends on a number of factors. If you are using a shared hosting account, your host may recommend that you use their nameservers for better performance. However, if you have a VPS or dedicated server, you may want to keep your domain’s nameservers pointing to your registrar. This will ensure maintaining control over your DNS records. Ultimately, the decision of changing your nameservers should be based on what will work best for your particular situation.
Effect of change of nameserver
As a consequence of a change in nameservers, a change in the hosting server for the website will take place. The URL that visitors use to access the site may remain exactly the same; though the website might be hosted on a different computer. Depending upon the reason why you change your nameserver, you may face several issues.
Security Risk:
The main risk of using DNS from a lesser-known provider is that you won’t have very good security. The result is that you may get poisoned DNS query results that direct you to malicious servers. In the past, providers for mobile data had overridden the default DNS servers of all mobile phones that use their services. They diverted those to their own DNS servers to cache all sites. By this, they would be able to reduce the size of images and lower the quality of videos before sending these to mobile phones. They do this to reduce the amount of bandwidth for the user.
For the user, this means they can browse a lot more for their money. However, it can affect various services that sites are providing. And as the telecom provider also has its SSL root installed as ‘trusted’ on those mobile phones, they are even able to do so for any secure connection!
Downtime:
A new nameserver takes some time to propagate and get established. During this time, your website may be unavailable if you did not add it to a large content delivery network (CDN). Propagation is the projected length of time it takes for a domain’s DNS (Domain Name System) information to get updated across the entire web after a change is made. The process can take 24-48 hours to complete. Because of propagation, not all visitors will reach your new name servers on your new hosting account; some visitors will continue to reach to your old name servers on your old hosting account until propagation is complete.
Email Service:
Emails play a vital role nowadays for any business. It acts as the face of the company to its clientele and affiliates. It also organizes all business communication in an efficient manner. However, having a business email is not so simple. There are a lot of factors involved in the background, such as DNS, hosting services, and of course, the email server that you are using for your corporate emails.
Changing the Nameservers means that you are shifting your email and website to some other hosting server. However, if you only change the A record, MX, and TXT for mail, then only your email will be affected. Changing CNAME www and A Record local host won’t affect your email. If you are changing the domain host by changing your nameservers, you will have to configure the email correctly as well for the email records to be stored on the right hosting server, and to continue having private email support.
SEO
Changing nameservers may impact search engine rankings or SEO factors for a little period of time e.g.the propagation and subsequent settling in time. During propagation, a few parts or entire zone of your audience may not have access to your website. This may affect your SEO and your business output.
However keeping in view the fact that SEO works by backlinking and content, not by nameservers, a change of nameservers may not impact your SEO for a long period.
Earnings
A part of your audience base may not get access to your website for a little period of time (eg propagation time) and this may slightly bring down your daily earnings.
Precautions to be taken before changing nameservers
Changing your Nameservers can affect your website in a number of ways. Before making any changes, it’s important to take a full backup of your website, including all files, databases, and email accounts. This will ensure that you can quickly and easily switch to the new server without losing any data.
Once you have everything backed up, changing the NameServers is a relatively simple process. However, it can take up to 24-72 hours for the change to propagate across the internet. In most cases, it will only take a few minutes, but in rare cases, it can take longer.
When choosing a new host, be sure to do your research to find one that offers quality service and has a good customer service policy. This will help to ensure that the transition goes as smoothly as possible.
Conclusion
Not all of us (bloggers) are diehard techies that we know all nooks and corners of running a website. Most of the time we look for somebody else like a friend, a relative, or a freelancer to help us. All the time getting service in this way may not be easy. And sometimes, there remain some security risks also. So we have to take care of the fact that whatever we do, we can do that most comfortably mostly by ourselves. Because sometimes a long downtime or going off the internet of your website can cause a bit of mental stress also.
There are some service providers who are not up to the mark in this regard. Some service providers’ service is not good. A few others do not provide good after-sale service. Some are so loaded that they use AI-based customer service and everybody will agree that AI-based customer service does not give the kind of satisfaction a service taker looks forward to. So it is better to be careful while deciding a change in the nameserver.