What role does the Domain Name System (DNS) play in web hosting?

The Domain Name System (DNS) plays a crucial role in web hosting by translating human-friendly domain names into machine-readable IP addresses. This function is essential for directing user requests to the correct server hosting a website.

By managing how these requests are directed, DNS can indeed help manage demand by distributing traffic. For instance, DNS can balance the load by redirecting requests to different servers based on their availability and performance, which improves the overall user experience and the reliability of the web service.

Creating user-friendly URLs might sound relevant, but it is more about the design of the URLs and their readability rather than the core function of DNS. Similarly, while secure file transfers are vital for data protection, this feature does not relate to the purpose of DNS, which focuses on resolving domain names. Increasing the physical server count also does not have a direct link to the function of DNS; rather, it pertains more to scaling infrastructure rather than managing user requests through name resolution.