I had a head scratcher earlier tonight. My wife was able to see the website I’d just launched for her, but I wasn’t. There we were, sat on the same sofa using the same wi-fi with the same URL in our web browsers and yet, we were seeing different websites. How come?

I’m not a server administrator so it took a few minutes to realise that it was to do with which DNS servers we were using. When a new website is launched it can take a couple of days for the new IP address to propegate through all the DNS servers around the world. Because the update happened so recently we realised that we were using different DNS servers, one of which had updated and the other which hadn’t.

The solution was surprisingly simple.

Apple > System Preferences > Network > Advanced > DNS

On the left hand side of the screen you’ll see some IP addresses. The IP address at the top is the one that you’re currently using to surf the web. Simply drag another IP from further down the list to the top. Press OK > Apply and refresh your browser to see if things change.

They did for me.