What is DNS?

DNS, the "Domain Name System," is the mechanism that the internet uses to publish names that people use and translate them into numbers that computers can use.  As the owner of a domain name, you decide who performs this publishing and translation for you.

How it works (non-technical version):

When you click a link or enter a domain name in your web browser, your computer asks a DNS server to translate "bni.com" to a number, then it connects to that number and shows you the web page of that name at that number.  The process with email is the same: when you send a message to john@doeinc.com, your mailserver asks DNS to translate "doeinc.com" to a number, then it sends your message to john at that number.  Yes, it's that simple.

How does your computer (or any computer anywhere) know who to ask?  When you buy a domain name, you tell the people you buy it from which nameservers should be used for answers when people come asking.  That's us.

It can be almost anyone.  This service can be had for a nominal fee from your registrar, or there are free options available on the internet.  If you have another service elsewhere (like email), they will often host your DNS for you for little or no charge.  Then you can set up and manage your domain name's destinations yourself, and if something needs to change, you can do it yourself.

Why should I use bnidns.com to publish my domain information?

Aside from all the technobabble about how secure and reliable our service is (it really is,) there's three main reasons for a BNI Executive Director to use bnidns.com to publish for her domain:

  • We know DNS, and we know BNI:  we're DNS specialists, and we understand what to do and what not to do to keep everything working.  (one hint: do not use SPF records!)
  • BNI knows us:  since we publish the domain names for over 100 BNI regions, if something technical needs to change at that end, we'll be one of the first to know about it and be able to respond for all our BNI clients at once.
  • Personal, expert service:  when something needs to change (like say you want to change email providers), you can just have them contact us and we'll work with them to take care of the technical details (with your permission, of course.)