How Does the Internet Find a Website?

You type a website name. How does your computer find the right destination? Follow a DNS lookup, from the device and recursive resolver to referrals and authoritative records. Then see why a repeat visit can skip work, why two devices can get different answers, and why encrypted lookup traffic is different from authenticated DNS data. This follows a representative public-DNS cache miss and compares it with cached answers. Actual devices, browsers and networks can behave differently. Example domains and addresses are documentation examples; no live measurements or universal troubleshooting promises are claimed. Sources: IETF — DNS Terminology, RFC 9499 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9499 IETF — Domain Names: Concepts and Facilities, RFC 1034 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034 IANA — Root Name Servers https://www.iana.org/domains/root/ser... IETF — DNS Queries over HTTPS, RFC 8484 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8484 IETF — DNS Security Introduction, RFC 4033 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4033 IETF — DNS Query Name Minimisation, RFC 9156 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9156 IETF — Serving Stale Data, RFC 8767 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8767 Chapters: 00:00 A name, not an address 00:49 A hierarchy of responsibility 01:03 The device checks first 02:01 The resolver and its cache 04:33 Aliases and address records 05:50 Lookup is not the webpage 06:13 The shortcut on a repeat visit 06:24 A cached answer needs freshness 07:35 Transport privacy 08:29 Authenticity is a different job 09:08 The hidden engines working together