Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

CSS How to Make a Website Sharing a Website Pick a Web Host

Li Mbo
Li Mbo
5,096 Points

What is the difference between IP address and DNS

I am still a newbie. Can someone explain to me the concept of IP address and DNS address with examples? What do they do and what are they used for?

1 Answer

Hey Amir,

An IP address is an address assigned to any computer (including servers) to identify it on a given network. A DNS address is a Domain Name Service which is used to convert alphabetic references into a server's IP address generally for hosting services.

An example of an IP address is your local computer's address that no one else can access: 127.0.0.1. Every machine has this address. It's also known as localhost. This is not your actual IP address, as it will always be different than this. I don't want to confuse you too much, as there is a lot to do with IP addresses.

An example of a DNS name is "ns1.godaddy.com". That URL is a link to GoDaddy's name service. If I had paid for my website address (http://www.marcusparsons.com) at some other hosting company, I could link that domain name to GoDaddy's name service, and access the files I have stored on GoDaddy's server.

The best thing to do for both of these concepts is to read more into them by searching the terms on Google and reading articles about them. There is quite a bit that goes into both terms.

Li Mbo
Li Mbo
5,096 Points

This was helpful, thank you Marcus :D