ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Wildcard DNS record

Alright kiddo, imagine you have a really big book full of phone numbers. You want to save time, so instead of looking up every single number, you write down a rule that says "Anyone with the last name Smith can be found at this number." This is kind of like a wildcard DNS record!

A wildcard DNS record is a special kind of rule you make that tells your computer to automatically point to a certain website or IP address whenever someone tries to visit a website with a certain name. Instead of having to set up individual rules for each website, you can use the wildcard to catch them all at once.

For example, if you have a wildcard DNS record for *.example.com, it means that whenever someone types in something.example.com or anythingelse.example.com, they will be directed to the same website or IP address. It's like having one big rule that covers all the websites you might want to visit!

Overall, wildcard DNS records can be a helpful tool for managing a lot of different websites or domains, and they save time by allowing you to set up one rule instead of many.