Computers identify each other with numbers rather than
words. Each domain name is therefore assigned a numeric equivalent, called an IP (Internet
Protocol) address, which might look something like this: 208.33.65.155. DNS (the Domain
Name System) is a set of distributed databases containing these numeric equivalents and
their corresponding domain names. DNS has servers located all over the Internet which
perform the translation between names and numbers for other computers. This arrangement
allows users to invoke an easy-to-remember name (yourname.com) rather than a difficult
string of numbers when seeking out a site on the Internet.