The NS, or Name Server records of a domain, indicate which servers handle 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 forward it to their system and all its sub-records are going to be taken care of 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 on, so if you wish to edit any of these records, you are going to be able to do it by using their system. In other words, the NS records of a domain address show the DNS servers which are authoritative for it, so when you try to open a web address, the DNS servers are contacted to get the DNS records of the Internet domain you are trying to access. In this way the web site that you'll see is going to be retrieved from the right location. The name servers typically have a prefix “ns” or “dns” and every single domain address has at least two NS records. There is absolutely no functional difference between the two prefixes, so what type a host company will use depends exclusively on their preference.