Where does my website live?
Where a website sits is written down nowhere. DNS only holds a number, and what actually says something is the name kept for that number.
What does that mean?
Three places hang off a domain, and they get mixed up all the time. At one, the domain is registered, and that is where it gets paid for and renewed. At the second, the DNS records are managed, and that is where it says what the domain points at. At the third sits the website itself, meaning the files a visitor gets to see. All three can be the same provider. They do not have to be.
The A record only gives an IP address, and a number tells you nothing. For
most addresses, though, a name is held in the so-called reverse directory
(PTR, or reverse DNS). That name belongs to whoever owns the server, and
it often gives the host away in plain words.
So this tool asks for the address first and then for the name behind it. It deliberately does not fall back on the nameservers: whoever holds the DNS need not host the website. That very mix-up is what sends people looking for changes in the wrong control panel.
What can go wrong?
- A service like Cloudflare sits in front of the website. Then its address answers, and the actual server stays hidden. Only that service's control panel knows where it is.
- No name is held for the IP address. That happens with servers of your own and is not a fault, but from the outside the operator cannot be named.
- The addresses point at two different providers. Visitors land sometimes here, sometimes there. Usually that is a transfer that was never finished.
- Only
wwwhas an address, the domain withoutwwwdoes not. The website runs, and part of your visitors still see an error message.
In short
The name behind the IP address names the host. The nameservers name whoever manages the records. Those are two questions and often two different answers.
What you need the answer for
Before every change comes the question of where it belongs. Anything about the website itself, so files, PHP version, SSL certificate, access, gets set at the host. Every record of the domain, on the other hand, belongs wherever the nameservers point. The result above puts both side by side.
And when you no longer remember who you are with: the name behind the address is the best clue there is from the outside. Your invoices know for certain.
Questions that usually come up together:
