Walking Through a DNS Lookup

When you enter a domain name, your device must turn it into an IP address before connecting. This process is a DNS lookup, and it follows a clear sequence of steps.

The goal is to find the authoritative answer as quickly as possible, using caches along the way to save work.

The device first checks its own local DNS cache and the hosts file. If the name was looked up recently and is still valid, the cached IP is used immediately.

This avoids any network query. Caching is why visiting a site a second time often connects faster than the first.