How does the Internet work? How can I have my own Web Site?

What is a Web Host? What is an Internet Service Provider?

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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.

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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 Internet Explorer and Firefox.

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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.

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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>.

If you want to learn more about HTML, please visit our HTML tutorial.

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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).

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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.

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Summary

If you want other people to view your web site, you must copy your site to a public server.

Even if you can use your own PC as a web server, it is more common to let an Internet Service Provider (ISP) host your site.

Included in a Web hosting solution you can expect to find domain name registration and standard email services.

You can read more about domain name registration, email and other services in the next chapters of this tutorial.

Information courtesy of W3Schools.com