BCA - IInd Yr

Internet Programming

Unit - II
World Wide Web (WWW)

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College

The World Wide Web (www) or W3 or Web is one of the most important internet services which were
developed by Timothy Berners-Lee in 1989. It is a mechanism for accessing linked documents spread over
thousands of servers all over the Internet. These documents are also known as webpages.

In other words, WWW is a client-server based architectural framework that uses the Internet to access linked
webpages stored at various web servers using a web browser via the HTTP protocol.

How WWW Works?

WWW works on client- server approach. Whenever a user wants to retrieve a web page, the www works as
follows:
1. User enters the URL (say, http://www.yahoo.com) of the web page in the address bar of web browser.
2. Then browser requests the Domain Name Server for the IP address corresponding to www.yahoo.com.
3. After receiving IP address, browser sends the request for web page to the web server using HTTP
protocol.
4. Then web server receives request using HTTP protocol and checks its search for the requested web
page. If found it returns it back to the web browser and close the HTTP connection.
5. Now the web browser receives the web page, it interprets the file and displays the contents of web page
in web browser’s window.

Web Browser
A browser is a software program that is used to explore, retrieve, and display the information available on the
World Wide Web. This information may be in the form of pictures, web pages, videos, and other files that all
are connected via hyperlinks and categorized with the help of URLs (Uniform Resource Identifiers). The most
commonly used web browsers are Internet-Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.

Web Servers
A web server is a computer that runs websites. It's a computer program that distributes web pages as they are
requisitioned. The basic objective of the web server is to store, process and deliver web pages to the users.
This intercommunication is done using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Types of web servers are:

• Apache HTTP Server. This is the most popular web server in the world developed by the Apache
Software Foundation.

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College

 • Internet Information Services. The Internet Information Server (IIS) is a high performance Web
Server from Microsoft.
• Sun Java System Web Server.
• Jigsaw Server.

URL
A URL is a type of uniform resource identifier and is address of a resource on the World Wide Web and the
protocol used to access it. It is used to indicate the location of a web resource to access the web pages. A URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) contains the information, which is as follows:

o The port number on the server, which is optional. o It contains a

protocol that is used to access the resource.
o The location of the server o A fragment identifier o In the
directory structure of the server, it contains the location of the
resource.

A URL generally takes the form

Protocol: // Domain name: Port/Path

For Example:

http://www.yahoo.com

Here, the first part of the URL specifies the protocol that will be used to retrieve the specific file. The various
protocols that can be used are http, ftp, etc.

The second part of the URL specifies the domain name of the server on which the file resides. The domain is
prefixed with :// i.e. colon and two slashes.

URL can also contain a port number of the server which is optional. Web servers normally run on port number
80.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol):

• FTP stands for File transfer protocol.
• FTP is a standard internet protocol provided by TCP/IP used for transmitting the files from one host
to another.
• It is mainly used for transferring the web page files from their creator to the computer that acts as a
server for other computers on the internet.
• It is also used for downloading the files to computer from other servers.

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College

 The above figure shows the basic model of the FTP. The FTP client has three components: the user
interface, control process, and data transfer process. The server has two components: the server control
process and the server data transfer process.

Advantages of FTP:
o Speed: One of the biggest advantages of FTP is speed. The FTP is one of the fastest ways to transfer
the files from one computer to another computer.
o Efficient: It is more efficient as we do not need to complete all the operations to get the entire file.
o Security: To access the FTP server, we need to login with the username and password.
Therefore, we can say that FTP is more secure.
o Back & forth movement: FTP allows us to transfer the files back and forth. Suppose you are a
manager of the company, you send some information to all the employees, and they all send
information back on the same server.

Disadvantages of FTP:
o FTP serves two operations, i.e., to send and receive large files on a network. However, the size
limit of the file is 2GB that can be sent. It also doesn't allow you to run simultaneous transfers to
multiple receivers.
o Passwords and file contents are sent in clear text that allows unwanted eavesdropping. So, it is quite
possible that attackers can carry out the brute force attack by trying to guess the FTP password.
o It is not compatible with every system.

HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol):

HTTP is a communication protocol. It defines mechanism for communication between browser and the web
server. It is also called request and response protocol because the communication between browser and server
takes place in request and response pairs. When a user want to retrieve a webpage, the web browser initiates
the communication by issuing a request and after receiving a request, the web server sends back a response.

There are two types of HTTP messages, requests and responses, each with its own format

HTTP Request: The http request consists of a series of lines which contains request line, header fields and
optionally contents of the message.

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College

HTTP Response: The http response consists of

• The version of the HTTP protocol they follow.

• A status code, indicating if the request was successful, or not.
• A status message.
• HTTP headers, like those for requests.
• Optionally, a body containing the fetched resource.

Search Engine:
A search engine is a program that helps the internet users to locate information on the World Wide Web. A
web search engine is actually a massive database that contains references to thousands of Internet resources
such as webpages, usenet news groups, programs, images, etc. The users interact with these databases by
specifying some keywords such as a word, phrase or some other criteria.
There are many search engines available and each is different in their scope, search protocol and appearance.
Generally there are three basic components of a search engine:
1. Web Crawler: It is also known as spider or bots. It is a software component that traverses the web to
gather information.
2. Database: All the information on the web is stored in database. It consists of huge web resources.
3. Search Interfaces: This component is an interface between user and the database. It helps the user to
search through the database.

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College

Examples
Following are the several search engines available today:
Search Description
Engine

Google It was originally called BackRub. It is the most popular search engine globally.

Bing It was launched in 2009 by Microsoft. It is the latest web-based search engine that
also delivers Yahoo’s results.

Ask It was launched in 1996 and was originally known as Ask Jeeves. It includes
support for match, dictionary, and conversation question.

AltaVista It was launched by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1995. Since 2003, it is

powered by Yahoo technology.

Alexa It is subsidiary of Amazon and used for providing website traffic information.

Search Engine Working

Web crawler, database and the search interface are the major component of a search engine that actually
makes search engine to work. Following are the steps that are performed by the search engine:
• The search engine looks for the keyword in the index for predefined database instead of going directly
to the web to search for the keyword.
• It then uses software to search for the information in the database. This software component is known
as web crawler. • Once web crawler finds the pages, the search engine then shows the relevant web
pages as a result. These retrieved web pages generally include title of page, size of text portion, first
several sentences etc.
• User can click on any of the search results to open it.

Web Publishing:
Website publishing is the process of uploading content on the internet. It includes:
• uploading files
• updating web pages
• posting blogs

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College

In order to publish the website, the following things are required:
• Web development software: It is used for building web pages for your web site. Dreamweaver
and WordPress are example of web development softwares.
• Internet Connection: Internet connection is required to connect to a remotely located web server.
• Web Server: Web server is the actual location where the website resides on. A web server may host
single or multiple sites depending on what hosting service you have paid for.

Domain Name Registration:

A domain name is the part of Internet address that comes after "www". For example, in www.yahoo.com the
domain name is yahoo.com.
The final letter at end of internet address is known as top level domain names. The following table shows the
Generic Top-Level Domain names:
Domain Meaning

.com Commercial Business

.edu Education

.gov U.S. government agency

.mil U.S. military

.net Networking organization

Registering a Domain Name is very simple. The following step is required to get the desired domain name
registered:
• Think of a name that justifies your business need. To find out the available names you can enter a
name at commercial domain name registrar such as GoDaddy.
• If the domain name entered is available, then select that particular domain name.
• Now it will ask for other additional services such as Email inbox, hosting etc. Choose the services that
required.
• Now they will ask for user personal information which is stored in WHOIS database.
• It will then ask for payment information. Pay for the purchase you have made. Make sure you enter
the correct payment information.
• Once all above steps are completed, user is ready to use their tools to upload the stuff to the site.

Space on Host Server for Web Site (Web Hosting):

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College

Web hosting is a service of providing online space for storage of web pages. These web pages are made
available via World Wide Web. The companies which offer website hosting are known as Web hosts.
The servers on which web site is hosted remain switched on 24 x7. These servers are run by web hosting
companies. Each server has its own IP address.
The choice of a web host depends upon the following factors:
• How much disk space on the server is provided and at what costs.
• How much data (i.e. bandwidth) the web host will allow user site to sent in a month.
• Whether web host provide technical support as and when required.
• How many email address user will get.
• Does the web host charge for registering a domain name or not.
• Whether it offers access to FTP, databases, ASP, Microsoft FrontPage Extensions or not.
Following are the several companies offering web hosting service:
S.N. Hosting Company

1. Blue Host

2. Go Daddy

3. Host Gator

4. just Host

5. Wired Tree

6. Wild West Domains

7. Wix
Maintain and Updating
Website maintenance is the act of regularly checking the website for issues and mistakes and keeping it
updated and relevant. This should be done on a consistent basis in order to keep the website healthy, encourage
continued traffic growth, and Google rankings.
Keeping a website well maintained and attractive is important to companies in order to engage and retain
customers. Website maintenance can easily become one of those things as it doesn’t always present immediate
issues. Regular monitoring of the website is a must for keeping the business running smoothly.

Few tasks that are helpful for maintaining and updating the websites are:

1. Check that all the web pages are loading without errors.
2. Make updates to website software and plug-ins.
3. Check that all of forms on websites are running properly.
4. Remove any spam comments from pages and posts.
5. Check the load speed of your website and ensure that nothing is bogging it down.
6. Review the security scans and make sure nothing is out of place
7. Ensure that the website domain name is renewed

Aman Choudhary Student (BCA-II) Seth G. L. Bihani S. D. PG College