At first glance, you might think that there is nothing in common between DNS and SEO, but you will be very wrong. Yes, the DNS and SEO are strongly connected. Having a domain that resolves faster will be translated to a superior user experience for your visitors, which will be seen as a great SEO sign. Google and other searching engines love fast-loading domains, so learning more about DNS is really worth it!
What does SEO (Search Engine Optimization) mean?
The SEO abbreviation stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is the process of improving your website so that it can rank better on search engines’ results. The search engines like Google, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo, and Yandex create their own algorithms based on factors like content quality, keywords used, loading speed, and others to evaluate sites and rank them on their search pages in their free results. They usually have paid results in the beginning and free results after that. Site owners compete for the free results by constantly improving many aspects of their sites.
Some of the top SEO factors that search engines take into consideration are:
- Security – does the site uses a TLS certificate?
- Loading speed – how fast do the domain and all the elements of the site load?
- Mobile-friendliness – how well is it optimized for mobile (smartphone) use?
- Content quality – how well are the texts and articles written, and how well are the keywords selected?
- Crawlability – how easy is it for search engine bots to search the content on the site?
- Website structure – is there a good structure of menus, categories, articles, etc.?
- Backlinks – are the important sites that lead to the particular site?
- User experience – how good is the total experience for the visitors of the site?
The algorithms are not public, but SEO specialists have already understood many of the factors that strongly improve a site’s ranking. Those that we just mentioned are vital for getting a good position.
What is DNS (Domain Name System)?
Domain Name System, or DNS for short, is a decentralized hierarchical structure that links domain names (computers, services, resources, etc.) to their IP addresses (IPv4 or IPv6 addresses). It also links much more additional information information.
People like to compare it to a phonebook in which they can search for domain names like Wikipedia.org and find the IP addresses behind them without remembering long strings of numbers like 91.198.174.192 or 2620:0:862:ed1a::1. It makes everything easier both for humans and machines.
DNS was created in 1983 by Paul Mockapetris from the Internet Engineering Task Force – IETF. The main purpose of the DNS was to change the ever-growing HOSTS.TXT file that people needed to use to find hosts (computers) and to pave the road to the modern interconnected network called the Internet that was just getting popular at that time.
DNS history. When and why was DNS created?
Every time when somebody requests a new domain, his or her browser or application will perform a DNS query for the domain’s IP address. The request will travel a long way. First, it will visit the highest level of the DNS hierarchy called DNS root servers. Then, they will direct to the correct top-level domain server (TLD), based on the extension of the domain like .com. Finally, the TLD server will point to the corresponding authoritative name server, and finally, that last server can answer the DNS query.
You can see that there are many stops that a DNS query makes.
Does DNS service affect SEO, and how?
There are several ways how DNS could affect SEO results. Some are obvious, and others are not so clear. Let’s explore them one by one.
Site loading speed
The DNS is the first process that happens before a website gets loaded inside the visitors’ browser. As we already mentioned, the DNS resolution process is a long process that will add up to the total time that the visitor experience. There is a bit difference between an average of 20 milliseconds with a good DNS provider from all around the world or 200 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds leaving everything to the domain registrar.
Availability
Experiencing DNS outages often and for a long time most definitely affect your site SEO negatively. If a search bot tries to reach your site and it can’t do it, it will report this event. First, it won’t be able to index newly added pages quickly. Second, it will take a note about general availability that could worsen your site’s position.
DNS providers have multiple features to provide excellent DNS availability that includes: providing multiple name servers, Anycast that uses a single IP address for all of them, DDoS protection, DNS monitor, DNS Failover, and more.
Multiple locations
A DNS provider can offer you multiple points of presence (PoPs) that you can use and set name servers. It will significantly increase the speed for the visitors by shortening the route from them to the name servers. 30+ PoPs sure is better than a few! It will also increase the availability.
DNS migration
If the DNS migration is performed correctly and the proper measures were taken, there should be no feelable difference for the users nor the search engines’ bots. The problem occurs only if the TTL values of the previous DNS records are too high, and those DNS records won’t be deleted from the DNS caches of recursive name servers for long. Until the caches get updates, they will still point to the older address, resulting in downtime.
Changing of the IP address
If you have to change the IP address of your site, this won’t negatively affect the SEO.
Conclusion
Now you know that DNS could positively improve your site’s SEO. The great part about it is that you can improve your domain availability and the DNS resolution speed in an incredibly easy and fast way. Check out our Premium DNS plans that start from $2.95 per month or our GeoDNS plans that start from $9.95. Improve the SEO and get all the benefits from a premium DNS service like DDoS protection, DNSSEC, Anycast, and more!
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Hi, I’m Martin Pramatarov. I have two degrees, a Technician of Computer Networks and an MBA (Master of Business Administration). My passion is storytelling, but I can’t hide my nerdish side too. I never forgot my interest in the Hi-tech world. I have 10 years and thousands of articles written about DNS, cloud services, hosting, domain names, cryptocurrencies, hardware, software, AI, and everything in between. I have seen the Digital revolution, the Big migration to the cloud, and I am eager to write about all the exciting new tech trends in the following years. AI and Big Data are here already, and they will completely change the world!
I hope you enjoy my articles and the excellent services of ClouDNS!
