You can identify bad DNS services by failed links, unresolved websites and the error message that you see if you web browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc. may use different language) is that the URL failed to resolve or the link is broken. This is often not the fault of the website owner, but your local internet provider.

You can't buy good DNS services, at least not from your local internet provider. Oddly, free DNS services out perform the service provided you by your ISP (Internet Service Provider). DNS just isn't that complex, for general purposes. A DNS server, or name server, translates a name like tekany.com to an IP number. The IP number is a physical address for the place that stores the information you're seeking with the URL (Universal Resource Locator). For some reason big ISPs tend to skimp on name services and provide notoriously poor end user support. A free service called OpenDNS seems to out perform some of the big national ISPs.

You go simple go to OpenDNS.org and learn more. Or, you can follow these simple instructions.

Configuring your DNS manually is simple. If you're using Windows XP (Vista is similar) just click on Start, then Settings, then Control Panel.

Find your network settings. In XP it's in "Network Connections" and then you'll need to find the connection you use to access the internet.

In this case, you see the Local Area Connection. That's how I connect to the internet. You're may be different. For example, if it were a wireless network through which you connect to the internet.

Double click the connection and when the screen pops up to allow you to disable, enable or change configurations, click on Properties to change the configuration.

Highlight internet protocol (TCP/IP) and click on Properties.

You can set the configuration here by choosing the "Use the following DNS server addresses," as appose to allowing your local router to set them autmatically. The DNS IP numbers for OpenDNS are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.

What's the catch? There is one. If the name you type in fails to resolve, you'll see their advertisement Google search page results. You only see this is the URL you key in or click fails. It's a tiny price to pay for reliable DNS services.