The Effects of Domain Name Changes

In the world of domain names, there are new ones issued and old ones that expire constantly. The ones that expire are usually from the owner not renewing the name out of not caring or maybe he sold it.  When these domain names expire, they can be picked up and used by someone else.

There are two things involved when you want to change your domain name.  You are going to have to let go of your old name and you are going to have to get a new one. The problem here is just like with the post office, when you change your address or business name, sometimes it takes a while to get your mail until the post office completely catches up with the change.

One of the most common problems is changing the thousands of DNS sites.  They will all have to be notified of and make the necessary changes to your combination of new name and IP address.  This process may take a while, but it is usually a short while.

This is worth noting also. There is not always a one to one name and IP address combination, sometimes the IP address can be for a server that holds many different websites, so the new name must be listed here as well to get the connection through correctly.  For the sake of simplicity, we will just assume that all IP and name combinations are one to one.

When your computer sends out a request, there are times when the request will hit a server that has no record of that combination. Through a series of complicated processes, the server will forward your request to a DNS server that does have that combination so the request can move forward.

Let’s take for example, if you just were given the domain name of Google.com, the chances that you would get the same IP address would not be very likely. So now the name/IP address combination is not the same.

The same problem can exist if you want to keep your same IP address and want to change your domain name.  In this case the combination of Domain name /IP address has changed.

The problem here is, when you make this change, not all DNS servers worldwide have made this change instantaneously.

How the changes take effect is, when a combination that a server does not know hits it, the server will cache it.  Now, the next time that same request comes through the DNS server, it will recognize it and make that part of its permanent address log.

This process is the same for a new IP address or a new name, it does not matter, and it is a new pair.

This address change usually takes only a short while within the internet. It can be as short as a few hours, but the rule of thumb is anywhere from 24 to 48 hours with the overall average being approximately 6 hours.