How The Web Works

Surfing the Internet using a web browser is pretty straight forward for us, but there are actually a lot of work behind the scene. Each individual document is called a Web page, and if there is a combination of documents that are related to each other, we can call that a Web site. To view any of the Web pages through the World Wide Web, we usually start by entering an Unique Resource Locator (URL) or the particular Web site address on a Web browser. Alternatively, we could also use a search engine to locate a Web site and then follow the hyperlink given to reach the page.

The URL then turned into an Internet Protocol (IP) address by the Domain Name System (DNS) which is necessary for the IP to contact, send and receive data from the main source. When the IP and the server are inter-connected, the browser will send an Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to request any data needed for the page. First, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) will be requested and the Web browser will analyze what additional files are needed such as images to complete the page.

After having all the sources needed from the server, the whole page is rendered and that is what us, users will see. Also, each page will specify their own languages used, like HTML or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), plus an "Error 404" will be shown if it does not contain any file or if there are no such page exist. Happy surfing!