DNS is the internet’s lookup system. You type a friendly name like benali.com, and DNS points your browser to the right server. Buying a domain reserves the name; you still point it at the place your site lives by setting DNS records.
The front desk directory in an office building does this. You know the company name, not the suite number. The directory says “Benali is on floor 12, suite 1204.” The directory tells you where to go; the office itself is upstairs.
How it shows up
DNS surfaces during deployment. Your site may be ready on Vercel while the domain still points somewhere old, and different records have different jobs: one points the site to a host, one helps email prove your messages are legitimate, one routes traffic through a CDN. Updates take time to spread (propagation), so some visitors briefly see the old address. An agent can deploy your site and still lack the access to change where the domain points.
Why you care
The practical question is simple: where should this name point, and who controls that setting? A working site is useless if the name people know points to the wrong door.