Thursday, July 14, 2011

How Does the World Wide Web Work

How does the World Wide Web Work

Asking how the Internet works is not the same as asking how the world wide web works. Well, Internet and the World Wide Web are not one and the same, although they are often used as synonyms. While the Internet is an infrastructure providing interconnectivity between network computers, the web is one of the services of the Internet. It is a collection of documents that can be shared across Internet-enabled computers.

The network of web servers serves as the backbone of the World Wide Web. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is used to gain access to the web. A web browser makes a request for a particular web page to the web server, which in turn responds with the requested web page and its contents. It then displays the web page as rendered by HTML or other web languages used by the page. Each resource on the web is identified by a globally unique identifier (URI). Each web page has a unique address, with the help of which a browser accesses it. With the help of the domain name system, a hierarchical naming system for computers and resources participating in the Internet, the URL is resolved into an IP address.

Presence of hyperlinks, the worldwide availability of content and universal readership are some of the striking features of the World Wide Web. The interlinked hypertext documents form a web of information. Hyperlinks present on web pages allow the web users to choose their paths of traversal across information on the web. They provide an efficient cross-referencing system and create a non-linear form of text. Moreover, they create a different reading experience. The information on the web is available 24/7 across the globe. It is updated in real time and made accessible to web users around the world. Except for certain websites requiring user login, all the other websites are open to everyone. This all-time availability of information has made the Internet, a platform for knowledge-sharing. Thanks to the use of a common HTML format for rendering web content and a common access method using the HTTP protocol, the web has achieved universal readership.

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