Every time you type something like google.com into your browser, your device has one simple goal: find the IP address of that website so it can connect to the server. This process is called DNS resolution, and even though it sounds complex, it happens almost instantly behind the scenes.
It all starts with your device (the client). Before asking anyone else, it quickly checks its own cache—your browser cache, operating system cache, and sometimes even a local hosts file—to see if it already knows the IP address. If it does, great—no extra work needed. If not, it sends a request to a DNS resolver, which is usually managed by your ISP or a public DNS service.
Now the resolver takes over and does the heavy lifting. It doesn’t know the answer directly, so it starts asking around in a structured way. First, it contacts a root name server, which points it in the direction of the correct Top-Level Domain (TLD) server—like .com or .org. Then the resolver asks the TLD server, which responds with the address of the authoritative DNS server for that specific domain. Finally, the resolver queries this authoritative server, which returns the actual IP address.
Once the resolver gets the IP, it sends it back to your device and also stores it in its cache to make future requests faster. Now your browser finally has what it needs—it uses that IP address to establish a connection (using TCP/IP) and send an HTTP request to the server.
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