Role of DNS in E-commerce

E-commerce is a massive industry. It is far easier to buy or sell things online than it is to do so in a traditional physical store. According to Forbes, the e-commerce market is expected to be worth 6.3 trillion dollars in the current year (2024).

To gain an idea of how big of a growth that is, just check out the e-commerce market worth in 2023, which was 5.8 trillion.

One of the reasons for such massive growth is the fact that almost anyone can create their own online e-commerce platform with the help of CMS software like Magento, WordPress, and even specific shop creator tools like Shopify.

However, not all such stores succeed. That’s because there are still some nuanced complexities that require insight and experience to solve. One such thing is the impact of the domain name system (DNS) on website performance. In this article, we will check out how the DNS affects an e-commerce website.

What is DNS?

Before we can begin, it is important that you learn some basics about DNS. DNS is the backbone of the internet. On the internet, resources are placed on websites.

Websites are stored on servers. Each website has its own IP address. An IP address is just a machine-readable numerical identifier. The IP address enables other computers and servers on the internet to find a website.

IP addresses need to be translated to domain names. Domain names are human-readable names for websites. For example, “facebook.com” is a domain name whose IP address is 157.240.241.35.

Humans search for websites using their domain names. However, the computer does not understand domain names. It only understands IP addresses. So, a system that maps domain names to IP addresses and vice versa is required.

That is the DNS. The domain name system is responsible for mapping IP addresses to domain names. The DNS has its own hierarchy. There are different levels of servers that hold the information of different domain levels.

For example, in “facebook.com”, “.com” is the top-level domain, while “Facebook” is the second-level domain. If there was a “www” before Facebook, it would have been the “sub-domain.”

The information in DNS servers is held in the form of text files called “DNS Records.” There are many different types of records and they all hold different types of information that is essential for website function.

DNS Lookup Process

A DNS lookup is the process by which your computer makes a request for domain name resolution and gets an IP address back.

The process starts when you enter a domain name or website URL in your address bar. Your computer (the client) sends a request to a special DNS server known as a resolver.

The resolver’s job is to find the IP address for the domain. Your ISP normally assigns it to you automatically. The resolver checks its cache to see if it has the relevant information.

If it does not, it will ping the root-level server to see if it has the information. The resolver will keep pinging higher-level servers until they find the IP address.

Then, the resolver returns the IP address to the client. Then, the client can make an HTTP request to the server hosting the site. The server then provides the site data to the client, and the website appears to the user.

All of this happens in a matter of seconds.

How Does DNS Affect E-Commerce Platforms

Now that we know how DNS works, let’s examine its effects on e-commerce platforms.

Website Loading Speed

Your e-commerce platform is a website. Since a DNS lookup is required to find a website, the site loading speed is directly dependent on how long it takes to do the lookup.

The longer it takes to do the lookup, the longer it takes to find the website. To the end user, all of this appears to be website loading time.

The loading time needs to be as short as possible. Google recommends that the loading time of a webpage should be under 2-3 seconds. This is a big ask, as most people have trouble keeping the loading time under 4 seconds.

However, it is not impossible if you bring DNS resolution into the picture. There are several ways in which you can hasten the lookup process and complete it faster. Given below are some of these ways.

• Enable DNS caching. With DNS caching, resolvers don’t need to waste time doing the full lookup. They can quickly find the results from their cache and return them to the client.
• Use a DNS service provider that is faster and more reliable. This will reduce the lookup time for your ecommerce website.
• Configure multiple DNS servers in various locations to reduce latency and improve lookup times.

These are just some of the things you can do to ensure your website is quickly found by people around the world.

Website Availability

There are different types of DNS records. One type is called the A record. This record has information about the domain name and which IPv4 address it resolves to. For websites with IPv6 addresses, there is a different record called the AAAA record.

These records need to be set correctly for your website to be available to your audience. If you make a mistake and the wrong IP address gets assigned to your domain, then people won’t be able to find it.

For an e-commerce store, this spells doom because it results in a loss of business.

To make sure that your records are properly set and propagated, you can use various online tools like DNS checker. With such tools, you can check if your e-commerce store’s DNS records on public servers are available or not.

If the propagation is incomplete or erroneous, records have been published, and then your website won’t be available. So, always check your DNS records and propagation status.

Security

The web is an unsafe place. Both consumers and companies need to be prudent to safeguard their information. Businesses have an even bigger responsibility because they collect user data for personalization. Thus, hackers and bad actors have a bigger incentive to attack them.

Unfortunately, the domain name system itself is susceptible to many different types of attacks. One of the most common attacks is the cache poisoning attack.

In this attack, a bad actor alters the DNS records in a resolver or server’s cache. The altered records redirect users away from their actual destination to a fake website that is designed to steal their data.

The worst thing about this attack is that the client is unaware they have been redirected.

To safeguard against such attacks, enable the DNSSEC protocol. With this protocol, all your records are signed with cryptographic keys. This makes it easy to learn whether a DNS record has been altered or not.

This prevents users from getting waylaid and getting their data stolen.

Considerations for Implementing DNS

When implementing your online store’s DNS, there are a few considerations to be kept in mind.

Creating Redundancy

Since the domain name system is so critical for websites, it is necessary to provide fail safes for it.

The most common method of mitigating damage from DNS failure is to create multiple DNS servers and store the records on them. In case one server fails, the other other servers can pick up the slack. This is known as redundancy, i.e., having many copies of one thing even though they serve the same purpose.

Normally, this is not your concern. Your DNS service provider will already have fail-safes in place. However, in the off-chance that you are using your own servers, make sure there is redundancy.

Security Considerations

We mentioned DNSSEC in an earlier section. The thing with DNSSEC is that it needs to be enabled. Then, not all DNS servers are capable of DNSSEC.

You need to make sure to use a DNS service provider whose servers are DNSSEC capable. Then you also need to enable DNSSEC with your domain registrar.

Once that is done, you have done all you can to secure the DNS side of your e-commerce store.

Maintenance and Monitoring

The DNS system is quite dynamic. Each DNS record has a time to live (TTL). Once the TTL expires, servers have to refresh the records in their cache.

Some records have really long TTLs (hours or days), and some have really short ones (a few minutes).

You need to stay on top of your e-commerce website’s DNS records and keep them up to date all the time.

Being prudent like this will help you find issues with DNS settings quickly and rectify them promptly.

As a result, your website’s uptime will stay high, and there won’t be accessibility troubles either.

Conclusion

So, there you have it, the role of DNS in e-commerce. Simply put, without DNS, it is impossible for an e-commerce website to function. Without DNS, it would be impossible to find the website, and it would be impossible to do business.

Proper DNS settings and record management are also required for the correct functioning of the website. With all the considerations that we have highlighted, you will be able to make your website load faster, more secure, and, most importantly, reachable.