LESSON 7.

THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Learning Activities:

The World Wide Web (www, W3) is an information space where documents and other web
resources are identified by URIs, interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the
Internet. It has become known simply as the Web. Hypertext documents are commonly called web
pages, which are primarily text documents formatted and annotated with the Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML). Webpages may contain links to images, video, and software components that
are rendered to users of a web browser application, running on the user’s computer, as coherent
pages of multimedia content. Embedded hyperlinks permit users to navigate between web pages.
When multiple web pages are published with a common theme or within a common domain name,
the collection is usually called a web site.

History

It is a project created, by Timothy Berner’s Lee in 1989, for researchers to work together
effectively at CERN. is an organization, named World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which was
developed for further development in the web. This organization is directed by Tim Berner’s Lee,
aka the father of the web.

System Architecture

From the user’s point of view, the web consists of a vast, worldwide connection of documents or
web pages. Each page may contain links to other pages anywhere in the world. The pages can be
retrieved and viewed by using browsers of which internet explorer, Netscape Navigator, Google,
Chrome, etc., are the popular ones. The browser fetches the page requested interprets the text and
formatting commands on it, and displays the page, properly formatted, on the screen.

What is World Wide Web?

• The World Wide Web, or simply Web, is a way of accessing information over the medium
of the Internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the Internet. The
Web uses the HTTP protocol, only one of the languages spoken over the Internet, to
transmit data. Web services, which use HTTP to allow applications to communicate in
order to exchange business logic, use the Web to share information. The Web also utilizes
browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, to access Web documents called Web pages
that are linked to each other via hyperlinks. Web documents also contain graphics, sounds,
text and video.
 • The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, working at the
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland and released
in 1992.
• Tim suggested three main technologies/components that meant all computers could
understand each other (HTML, URL and HTTP). All of these remain in use today.
• He also made the world’s first web browser and web server. You can still see pages from
the first web server online.

The World Wide Web Consortium

The World Wide Web Consortium (shortened to W3C) is the organization that is responsible for
setting standards for the world wide web. By following the W3C standards, web designers can
ensure that their webpages display correctly on any browser. This also helps computers to do more
useful work over the world wide web.

Why is the web so important?

• The world wide web opened up the internet to everyone, not just scientists.

• It connected the world in a way that was not possible before and made it much easier for
people to get information, share and communicate.

• It allowed people to share their work and thoughts through social networking sites, blogs
and video sharing.

Evolution of the World Wide Web

Web 1.0 (Read Only Static Web)

It is an old internet that only allows people to read from the internet. First stage worldwide linking
web pages and hyperlink. Web is use as “information portal”. It uses table to positions and align
elements on page.

• Most read only web. If focused on company’s home pages.

• Dividing the world wide web into usable directories
• It means web is use as “Information Portal”
• It started with the simple idea “put content together”

Example of Web 1.0

• Mp3.com
• Home Page
• Directories
• Page Views
• HTML/Portals

Disadvantages

• Read only web

• Limited user interaction
• Lack of standards

Web 2.0 (Read-write interactive web)

A term used to describe a new generation of Web services and applications with an increasing
emphasis on human collaboration.

• It is a platform that gives users the possibility (liberty) to control their data.
• This is about user-generated content and the read-write web.
• People are consuming as well as contributing information through blogs or sites.
• Allows the user to interact with the page known as DYNAMIC PAGE; instead of
just reading a page, the user may be able to comment or create a user account.
Dynamic page refers to the web pages that are affected by user input or preference.
• Is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online via
social media, blogging and Web-based communities.

Examples of Web 2.0

Social Networking
Is the use of Internet-based social media sites to stay connected with friends, family,
colleagues, customers, or clients. Social networking can have a social purpose, a business
purpose, or both, through sites such as:

Example:

Facebook Pinterest
Twitter Tumblr
LinkedIn Instagram
Google+ Page

Blogs

Is a discussion or informational website published on the world wide web consisting of

discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (post). Post are typically displayed in
reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web
page.

Example:

WordPress Blogger Tumbler

Wikis

Is a hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience directly
using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of
the project and may be either open to the public or limited to use within an organization
for maintaining its internal knowledge base.

Example:

Wikipedia Wikiqoutes Mediawiki

Wikibooks Wikivoyage
Wikiversity Wikidata
Commons Wikinews
Wiktionary Wikispecies

Video Sharing Sites

 A website that lets people upload and share their video clips with the public at large or to
invited guests.

Example:

Youtube Photobucket VimeoPRO

Facebook Twitter Myspace.com
LinkedIn Veoh Metacate
Flickr Dailymotion

Key Features of Web 2.0:

• Folksonomy – allows users to categorize and classify/arrange information using

freely chosen keyword (e.g., tagging).

• Rich User Interface – content is dynamic and is responsive to user’s input. An

example would be a website that shows local content.

• User Participation – the owner of website is not the only one who is able to put
content. Others are able to place a content on their own by means of comments,
reviews, and evaluation.

• Long Tail – services are offered on demand rather than on a one-time purchase.
This is synonymous to subscribing to a data plan that charges you for the amount
of time you spent on Internet or data plan that charges you for the amount of
bandwidth you used.

Web 3.0 (Read-write Intelligent Web)

• Suggested name by John Markoff of the New York Times for the third generation
of the web.
• In this generation, all the application on the web or mobile will be upgrades with
more features. It applies same principles as Web 2.0: two-way interaction.
• Web 3.0 will be more connected, open, and intelligent, with semantic web
technologies, distributed databases, natural language processing, machine learning,
machine reasoning and autonomous agents.
• Semantic Web – provides a framework that allows data to be shared and reuse to
deliver web content specifically targeting the user.
• It is a web of data.
 • Changing the web into a language that can be read and categorized by the system
rather than humans.

Types of Websites:

eCommerce Website - is a website people can directly buy products from you’ve
probably used a number of eCommerce websites before, most big brands and plenty
of smaller ones have one. Any website that includes a shopping cart and a way for
you to provide credit card information to make a purchase fall into this category.

Business Website - is any website that’s devoted to representing a specific

business. It should be branded like the business (the same logo and positioning) and
communicate the types of products and/or services the business offers.

Entertainment Website - If you think about your internet browsing habits, you
can probably think of a few websites that you visit purely for entertainment
purposes.

Portfolio Website - are sites devoted to showing examples of past work. Service
providers who want to show potential clients the quality of the work they provide
can use a portfolio website to collect some of the best samples of past work they’ve
done. This type of website is simpler to build than a business website and more
focused on a particular task: collecting work samples.

Media Website - collect news stories or other reporting. There’s some overlap here
with entertainment websites, but media websites are more likely to include reported
pieces in addition to or instead of content meant purely for entertainment.

Brochure Website - are a simplified form of business websites. For businesses that
know they need an online presence, but don’t want to invest a lot into it (maybe
you’re confident you’ll continue to get most of your business from other sources),
a simple brochure site that includes just a few pages that lay out the basics of what
you do and provide contact information may be enough for you.

Nonprofit Website - In the same way that businesses need websites to be their
online presence, nonprofits do as well. A nonprofit website is the easiest way for
many potential donors to make donations and will be the first place many people
look to learn more about a nonprofit and determine if they want to support it.
 Educational Website - The websites of educational institutions and those offering
online courses fall into the category of educational websites. These websites have
the primary goal of either providing educational materials to visitors or providing
information on an educational institution to them.

Infopreneur Website - websites overlap a bit with business and eCommerce

websites, but they represent a unique type of online business. Infopreneurs create
and sell information products. That could be in the form of courses, tutorials, videos
or eBooks.

Personal Website - Not all websites exist to make money in some way or another.
Many people find value in creating personal websites to put their own thoughts out
into the world. This category includes personal blogs, vlogs, and photo diaries
people share with the
world.

The Modern Web

The web is still changing today. Search engines have become better at reading, understanding and
processing information. They have found clever ways to find the content we want and can even
show us other things that might interest us.

Web Addresses and the Address Bar

Each webpage on the internet has its very own address called a uniform resource locator (URL),
which indicates to the internet exactly what page you want to see on a website. When you type a
URL in the address bar of the web browser and press ENTER, the browser will take you to that
specific page.

Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)

• The uniform resource locator (URL) is the unique identifier of a web page.
• The location window displays the URL of the current page.
• You can go directly to a web page if you know its URL: click once in the location window
and type it in.

A URL looks something like this:

 http:// www.wow.net /www/www-intro.php3

Let's take a closer look at this address:

➢ http:// - indicates that we want browse the web using the HTTP protocol, the default
protocol for browsing the Web. There are other protocols for other uses of the Internet.

➢ www.wow.net - corresponds to the address of the server that hosts the web pages. By
convention, web servers have a name that begins with WWW, to make it clear that they
are dedicated web servers and to make memorizing the address easier.

➢ /www/www-intro.php3 - indicates where the document is located on the machine.

Structure of an URL

The following is an outline of the most common form of a URL:

http://www.address.edu:1234/path/subdir/file.ext
| | | | |
|service | | | |
|____ host ______| | |
| | |
|port| |
| file and |
|_ resource details _|

Some common extensions are:

• .com (commercial)
• .edu (educational institution)
• .gov (government)
• .mil (military)
• .net (network)
• .org (organization)

You might also see foreign addresses that add a country code as the last several digits of
the address, such as:

• .au (Australia)
• .ca (Canada)
 • .fr (France)
• .it (Italy)
• .us (United States of America)

Browsing and Searching

A browser is an application designed specifically to access and display webpages, including the
webpage's content such as text, images and videos.

Examples of Web Browsers

The five most popular web browsers are:

➢ Google Chrome
➢ Mozilla Firefox
➢ Microsoft internet Explorer
➢ Microsoft Edge
➢ Apple Safari

Browsing vs. Searching

Browsing

Exploration of the World Wide Web by following one interesting link to another, usually with a
definite objective but without a planned search strategy. In comparison 'surfing' is exploration
without a definite objective or search strategy, and 'searching' is exploration definite in both
objective and strategy.
Searching

Exploration of the World Wide Web by following one interesting link to another, usually with a
definite objective and a planned search strategy. In comparison surfing is exploration definite in
objective but not in strategy, and browsing is exploration without a definite objective or search
strategy.

Serving the Web

• Web pages are stored in computers called web servers.

• Any organization can setup a web server.
• A web site is a collection of web pages.
 • The starting point for a web site sometimes is called a home page.

Hyperlinks

• Hyperlinks typically appear as highlighted (underlined and colored) phrases.

• Your mouse cursor will turn to a "pointing finger" when you've found a hyperlink.
• Click once to follow a hyperlink.
• Graphics can be hyperlinks.

Web Site

A site or area on the World Wide Web that is accessed by its own Internet address is called a Web
site. A Web site can be a collection of related Web pages. Each Web site contains a home page
and may also contain additional pages. Each Web site is owned and updated by an individual,
company, or organization. Because the Web is a dynamically moving and changing entity, many
Web sites change on a daily or even hourly basis.

Home Page

The term home page has a couple of meanings. It is the Web page that your browser uses when it
starts, and also the Web page that appears every time you open your browser. Clicking the home
page icon on your browser screen will take you to the specific page you have set as your browser’s
home page.

Home page also refers to the main Web page out of a collection of Web pages. On each site, often
you will see home page as a choice on a Menu Bar. Clicking on the word Home on a Web page
will take you to the home or main page of that particular Web site.

Search Engine

A search engine (sometimes called a Searchbot) is a tool (using both hardware and software) which
indexes Web pages so that they can be retrieved by entering keywords into a search form.
Searching: you may want to search the internet for specific answers or try to find new, interesting
websites to explore. To do this, you can use a search engine to find the information you are looking
for.

Two popular search engines are:

➢ Google (www.google.com)
 ➢ Microsoft Bing (www.bing.com)

How a search engine works

Robots (a kind of software) called spiders go around the Web, indexing its content in vast databases
so that they can be queried.
Since no search engine can reach all pages in one day (the whole process generally takes several
weeks), each engine adopts its own strategy, with some going so far as to calculate how frequently
certain sites are updated.

Using a search engine

When the search engine’s user fills out the form, he or she picks the words to be searched (and
sometimes those not to be searched), with the help of Boolean operators like “and,” “or,” and “not”
(symbolized by +, -, etc.). The request is sent to the search engine, which checks its databases for
each of these words, then refines the search by removing the pages which don’t fit the criteria.

Search Techniques

Search engines search through billions of webpages stored on hundreds of millions of websites to
information matching your search. Most search engines try to place the best options near the top
of the search results, with the results becoming worse as you move to the second and third pages.

Since the first search results are usually the best, if you do not find what you are looking for on
the first page or two of the results, you should try a different search phrase or try to use an advanced
search technique.

Web Crawler

A web crawler is a relatively simple, automated program, or script that methodically scans or
"crawls" through Internet pages to create an index of the data it's looking for. Alternative names
for a web crawler include web spider, web robot, bot, crawler and automatic indexer.

A web crawler can be used for many purposes. Probably the most common use associated with the
term is related to search engines. Search engines use web crawlers to collect information about
what is out there on public web pages. Their primary purpose is to collect data so that when Internet
surfers enter a search term on their site, they can quickly provide the surfer with relevant web sites.

Web crawling is an important method for collecting data on, and keeping up with the rapidly
expanding, Internet. A vast amount of web pages are continually being added every day and
information is constantly changing. A web crawler is a way for the search engines and other users
to regularly ensure that their databases are up to date.

Bookmarks

While surfing the Web, you’ll often come across an interesting website or page and want to record
its address so that you can return to it later. This is what bookmarks (sometimes called favorites)
are used for.

Downloading and Uploading

Uploading means data is being sent from your computer to the Internet.

• Examples of uploading include sending email, posting photos on a social media site and
using your webcam. Even clicking on a link on a web page sends a tiny data upload.

Downloading means your computer is receiving data from the Internet.

• Examples of downloading include opening a web page, receiving email, purchasing music
files and watching online videos.

Glossary:

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). The publishing format for the web. It includes the
ability to format documents and link to other documents and resources.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The URL is a kind of 'address' that is unique to each resource
on the web. It could be the address of a webpage or an image file.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Allows HTML documents to be requested and transmitted
between browsers and web servers via the internet.

Web server. A computer where files are stored which can be accessed via the internet using HTTP.