The NS, or Name Server records of a domain name, reveal which servers deal with the Domain Name System (DNS) records for it. Setting the name servers of a specific host company for your domain is the easiest way to direct it to their system and all its sub-records will be handled on their end. This includes A (the IP address of the server/website), MX (mail server), TXT (free text), SRV (services), CNAME (forwarding), and so forth, so, in case you would like to edit any one of these records, you'll be able to do it through their system. To put it differently, the NS records of a domain name point out the DNS servers that are authoritative for it, so when you try to open a web address, the DNS servers are contacted to retrieve the DNS records of the domain you want to reach. In this way the web site that you're going to see will be retrieved from the proper location. The name servers typically have a prefix “ns” or “dns” and each domain address has at least 2 NS records. There's no functional difference between the two prefixes, so what kind a host company is going to use depends exclusively on their preference.