DNS Resolution 101

'www.google.com → 142.250.183.4(the IP varies based on the edge server nearest to you)

Just a few keystrokes — but what really happens underneath?

Today I was digging down the rabbit hole of DNS resolution and found an interesting fundamental. Multiple sequential steps run to resolve a domain name and fetch its IP:

Domain name → Browser cache lookup → OS cache lookup → ISP's recursive resolver cache lookup (if all miss)

Here comes the actual recursive resolution:

i) Recursive resolver → asks the Root servers for the TLD server IPs (13 root identities, replicated into 1,700+ servers worldwide via anycast; their IPs are hardcoded in the resolver's root hints file)

ii) Resolver → fetches the authoritative server IPs from the TLD servers (.in, .com registries like NIXI and Verisign)

iii) Authoritative server responds with the real IP of the domain.

Note: The answer gets cached on the way back at each consumer level — resolver, OS, and browser — each honoring a TTL that the domain owner sets in the authoritative records.