After You Hit Enter

You type "google.com" and press enter. Behind the scenes, your browser needs to convert that human-readable name into a numeric IP address that computers understand.

Your request first goes to a DNS resolver, which checks its cache. If it does not have the answer, it queries root servers, then top-level domain servers, then the authoritative server for that specific domain — a chain that typically completes in well under a second, often 50 to 100 milliseconds when nothing is cached.