How DNS Finds a Website

This episode explores the resolver, root, top-level-domain and authoritative steps behind an ordinary lookup. The story keeps the mechanisms clear and the research grounded for a casual listener. Inside this episode: - Names and addresses - Asking a recursive resolver - Root to authority - What the answer contains - DNS is the directory, not the delivery Sources include Internet Engineering Task Force, RFC 8499, ICANN, DNS concepts, and RFC 1034. This episode is a researched narrative summary. Historical records may be incomplete, translated differently, or interpreted differently by scholars. We distinguish documented facts, estimates, disputed interpretations, and later stories where material. Corrections are logged and incorporated into future editions. Follow The Internet in Practice for more researched stories about the infrastructure of the internet.