DNS is the internet's address book: it turns your domain into the server address it points to. If your site is not working after you connected a domain, DNS is the usual cause, either a record is wrong, or the change has not finished spreading worldwide yet, which can take up to 24 hours.
Information current as at 5 July 2026
DNS is probably the most quietly frustrating part of getting a site live, because it fails in a way that looks like nothing is happening. Understanding what it does, and why it is slow, turns a mysterious dead page into a five-minute fix or a patient wait.
Every server on the internet has a numeric address. People cannot remember numbers, so DNS exists as a giant, distributed address book: you give it a domain, it returns the number, and your browser connects. When you buy a domain and point it at a host, you are writing a new entry in that address book. The reason a working host and a bought domain can still show a dead page is that the address book has not been updated everywhere yet, or the entry you wrote has a mistake in it. DNS is not the site; it is the directions to the site.
When you change DNS, the update does not appear everywhere at once. It spreads server by server across the world, a process called propagation, and different networks refresh at different speeds. Your office might see the new site in ten minutes while a customer across the country still sees nothing for hours. This is normal and unavoidable. The trap is impatience: people assume it failed, change the records, and reset the clock, which makes the wait longer. The correct move is to enter the records once, correctly, and give it up to a day before concluding anything is actually wrong.
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
Beyond propagation, DNS problems come from a small, predictable set. A typo in a record, so it points nowhere. The wrong record type, such as a CNAME where the host wanted an A record. Duplicate records fighting each other, where an old placeholder was never removed. Editing the DNS at the registrar while the domain's nameservers actually point somewhere else, so your changes land in a panel nobody reads. And caching, where your own device stubbornly shows the old answer. Nine times in ten, the fix is to make the records match the host's instructions exactly and delete anything that conflicts.
Here is the practical test. Check your site on a device on a completely different network, such as your phone on mobile data, and ideally after an hour or two. If it loads there but not on your home machine, it is propagation and caching, and you just need to wait or clear your cache. If it loads nowhere after a full day, it is a real error in the records, and you go back and check them against what the host asked for. Separating "still spreading" from "actually wrong" is the whole skill, and it saves a lot of needless fiddling.
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
Whether you can name exactly what you want built, or you just know something is leaking, the next step is the same conversation.