For your website to be visible on the internet, your domain name has to be pointed to the name servers of your hosting provider. Visitors are able to access your website using your domain name rather than the IP addresses because of the Domain Name System (DNS). 

The concept of the Domain Name System (DNS) can be a confusing subject even to skilled and experienced system administrators. DNS is the system used to abbreviate Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which are in the form of numbers, to memorable, user-friendly names. These Domain names address systems on TCP/IP networks (e.g. the Internet) by certain Web applications, such as browsers. This system enables computers to communicate using numeric addresses and computer users to use simpler names, for example, “www.google.com” and “www.yahoo.com,” to call up services, including websites and email servers on the internet.

How Domains and the Domain Name System Work

When you type a domain name into your browser’s address bar, your computer (or client) sends the name to a publicly accessible computer called a DNS server. This server contains a database mapping of human-readable names to their corresponding numeric addresses. The DNS server sends back a response to the client computer and informs it of the IP address of the target system you would like to access, thus enabling it to send the request directly to the target. Through a process known as recursion, the DNS server may also request the IP from other DNS servers.

You may want to measure any given server's response time for any reason, but the most common one is to gain a better understanding of the visitor's experience by using external testing locations. Another reason would be to ensure that the website is accessible by your clients. By performing a visitor emulation, you can determine the status of the server and get additional statistics based on the time it takes for each one to complete.

Web servers are vital to ensure your website is up and running. Yet sometimes, there can be hiccups in service, and the response time of your web server can change drastically. Slow server response time can distinguish between a reliable website that anyone can access and a website that drives users away, perhaps from your competition.

Here's a brief example: domain and hosting provider GoDaddy recently experienced downtime with their servers, resulting in thousands of websites either being down or responding slowly (or even just hanging, never loading the page). As a result, GoDaddy had to go through an extensive PR mess to get everything fixed. They also had to deal with a crowd of angry business owners who relied on their servers to make a living.

There are a lot of interesting ways in which you can use our monitoring services. Engaging in online reputation management is also one of them. A main prerequisite for establishing a good name for you and your business is being transparent. But let's face it, eventually your website will experience downtime. It happens even to the best of sites. And more often than not it is your responsibility keep track of the performance and availability of your website, and take proper action when needed.

In the unfortunate event of your website going down, for one reason or another, it won’t take long for your visitors to find out. It is better for them to learn about it from you rather than speculate on social networks about the outage. Do you remember how Twitter used to have issues remaining online under heavy use? They came up with what became an internet meme - the fail whale. It was their own way of saying: “Yes, there is a problem and we are working on it”.