When you access an internet site, you type in a web address (like you probably typed in www.illuminateict.org.uk to get to our site) and the site appears, like magic, in your web browser.

Unsurprisingly, there's loads of techie stuff that happens between you typing in the address and the site appearing.

An important part of that stuff is to do with the DNS, or Domain Name Server. The internet uses the Internet Protocol (IP) to ship data around at an alarming speed. So that each bit of data knows where it's going, all the computers that are connected to the internet have an address, like your phone has a number. Internet addresses, or IP addresses look like this - 192.168.45.234

So why don't you need to type in the number to get to the site you want? That's where DNS comes in. DNS translates your website address to an IP address, using records for particular domains - also discussed in this glossary.

For example, when you type www.illuminateweb.org.uk into your web browser, a DNS soewhere translates that to an IP address 67.207.135.87. Then your request for a web page will shuttle off over the internet, knowing that it's looking for a webserver with IP address 67.207.135.87.