What is Dns Propagation?

It is often seen that after finding a perfect domain name that was available, one have to register it and have to paid for hosting to a Web Hosting Provider and then one can have option either to uploaded his/her website to the WHP's servers, or one can go for a professional design firm creating a web site for him/her.

It seems like really hard work and money consuming process trying to manage all these things. However the biggest problem is even after doing all these things one is not all to find his/her website visible all the time on the net. And then it is the time for user to understand that they were quite quick in taking his/her payment and now they are just away from the scene. What is now meaning of customer care?

In this article we are going to discuss if the user had mad a right choice choosing his/her host or it was a mistake. Also we will discuss what is the DNS propagation process, what is its working, and why is it the only thing we can do to speed up the process.

The full form of DNS is Domain Name Server. Server is nothing more than any computer running and providing all the services like "serving" something, whether a web page, a text document, etc.

Now we are going to discuss several things associated with DNS. They are:

1. IP Addresses.

2. Service Providers.

3. Domain Names.

4. Domain Name Registrars.

5. DNS.

6. The Propagation Process.

1. IP Addresses

It is quite surprising to know that even our computers can communicate with each other by identifying themselves using numerical addresses much like the address on one’s home or telephone. Thus, when one computer wants to speak to another computer, it all boils down to an address or what is known as "IP Address".
Example: 92.192.99.92

However the number of possible addresses which are quite immense for the beginner but are actually limited and now the time has come when they are almost on the verge of exhaust.

2. Service Providers

These IP addresses are used by the service providers to identify their network equipment so that they can carry on business on the net.

Given below are two main types of service providers:

A) The ISP (or Internet Service Provider): It is the company that provides one with access to the internet. It is possible only through these to send email or surf the World Wide Web. When one connects to his/her ISP, they will assign your computer one of their IP addresses. Now this IP address will be used to identify one’s computer while one is connected to the internet.

B) The WHP (or Web Host Provider, such as bsleek.com): is a company that provides a means for individuals or businesses to publish their website on the internet. Now the website is published, it is placed on a special computer known as a server which is connected to the internet through a high-speed connection. The WHP has already assigned this server one of their IP addresses.

3. Domain Names.

Talking in simple terms, a domain name is what one typically enters into his/her web browser when he/she wants to visit a website. Also they are used while transmission of emails.

The advantages of Domain names are many like for example they provide a fast and convenient way of reaching required websites and also to communicate via emails. It’s really easy to remember the alphabets rather than any numeric value that too in ling form like 19:342:23:11

4. Registering Domain Name

If one wants to have his/her own domain name then it has to be registered through a company named Domain Name Registrar. It allows tools that allow one to search for and register an available domain of one’s choice. The registrar is let say at the top of the whole naming scheme chain.

5. DNS

It is a software program that runs on a dedicated computer known as a DNS server. It performs mainly two prime:

1) Translating domain names into IP addresses: As earlier stated it’s easy to learn a name rather than any number. It is the utility of DNS servers which makes it possible to make translating of these numbers into names that are easy to memories. Now when ever any computer needs to know the IP address for one’s domain name it simply asks a DNS server.

2) Acting as an authority for designated domain names: In case user needs to host his/her website, the network which is available for a user must have its own DNS servers. Even it is an industry-wide standard to have minimum of two DNS servers or more. The advantages of these servers are that they basically act as an authority for one’s domain name because the user’s provider will put a special entry in their DNS server as it relates to one’s domain name and it is an identification of one’s existence.

Talking about the numbers there are hundreds of thousands of these DNS machines world wide. Now the user is having one interesting question in mind are they just like yellow pages of the internet that contains information about one’s domain name. However one should keep in mind that no single DNS server holds all the domain names for the internet, rather they only hold names that they are responsible for.

There are some DNS servers that strictly store names while others are just engaged in the work of providing lookup services for computers that need to look up names. However there are many DNS servers which perform both the works. In technical terms, the server that is responsible for a particular domain is called the "Authority".

DNS server is quite important as it contains few pieces of crucial information stored in it with regard to one’s domain name. In whole this information is known as one’s “DNS Record". In it one can find a variety of other pieces of information about his/her domain name.

6. Process of Propagation

As stated earlier also one’s domain registrar is the one responsible for publishing one’s domain name at the very first DNS level. As soon as it is published, it is placed into a directory that is broadcast out to primary DNS servers around the world.
The primary DNS servers broadcast out to secondary DNS servers and so on and so forth.

The above whole process is known as propagation and it can take upwards of 72 hours to complete. Specifically the word Propagation refers to the amount of time it takes for all the DNS servers everywhere around the world to recognize the fact that either a new domain is being registered, a domain name has been changed, or that the authority for that domain has changed.

There are most cases where DNS propagation will complete within 72 hour period but it’s not the deadline as it can take even longer. As soon as the propagation is complete, anyone, anywhere on the internet would be able to visit one’s hosted website.

By that time one may experience strange occurrences. This is due to the reason that not every DNS server that requires recognizing, recognizes about one’s domain name. For instance, take one ISP. They apply two DNS servers, a whole day after making one’s name server changes, only one of user’s ISP's DNS servers may get the information regarding user’s domain name and the other might not get.

It is quite terrible if merely one of these servers can decide about one’s domain to an IP address and another server can not, how painful for a user it will be if his/her website was going up and down. For a flash it will be there, and right in the next moment it get vanished.

Such incidences are quite usual, and users keep on always inquiring via WHP about it. In fact, the server will be properly working and user’s WSP will be one of the best. The actual trouble lies in the sector that the domain owner has not allowed 72 hours pass over. If it is done, it can be an effective medicine for such crises.

Thus it can be seen that Web Service Provider is not at fault, one just have to keep patience and must wait for full three days before one tries to determine if his/her website is experiencing a problem or not. So go ahead and best of luck!