ADVANCED – What is a Name Server?

Nameservers convert your name to a number

Your domain name isn’t just a name. It’s a number too. Your domain name is unique. No two domain names are the same. No two websites have exactly (technically speaking) the same IP address either. Computers communicate with numbers. Humans communicate with words. That’s where name servers come in. They make the translation between domain names and the IP (Internet Protocol) address of your website.

Name to Number

In a way, domain name servers are like phone books. When you look for a business’s name, the phone book tells you the phone number for that name. A phone book with just names and no numbers would be worthless. A phone book with just the phone numbers and no names would be just as useless. The phone book has to be able to translate the names into numbers in order for it to actually useful. That is what a name server does. It takes domain names and translates the domain name into an IP address so when you type a domain name in your browser, your computer can find that web site.