Web Design Beginners Guide

What is the World Wide Web?

• The Web is a network of computers all over the world
• All the computers in the Web can communicate with each other
• All the computers use a communication protocol called HTTP

How does the WWW work?

• Web information is stored in documents called web pages
• Web pages are files stored on computers called web servers
• Computers reading the web pages are called web clients
• Web clients view the pages with a program called a web browser
• Popular browsers are Google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer

How does a Browser Fetch a Web Page?

• A browser fetches a page from a web server by a request
• A request is a standard HTTP request containing a page address
• An address may look like this: http://www.example.com/default.htm

How does a Browser Display a Web Page?

• All web pages contain instructions for display
• The browser displays the page by reading these instructions
• The most common display instructions are called HTML tags
• HTML tags look like this <p>This is a paragraph.</p>

What is a Web Server?

• The collection of all your web pages is called your web site
• To let others view your web pages, you must publish your web site
• To publish your work, you must copy your site to a web server
• Your own PC can act as a web server if it is connected to a network
• Most common is to use an Internet Service Provider (ISP)

What is an Internet Service Provider?

• ISP stands for Internet Service Provider
• An ISP provides Internet Services
• A common Internet service is web hosting
• Web hosting means storing your web site on a public server
• Web hosting normally includes email services
• Web hosting often includes domain name registration