World Wide Web
{{Short description|Linked hypertext system on the Internet}}
{{About|the global system of pages accessed via HTTP|the worldwide computer network|Internet|the web browser|WorldWideWeb}}
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{{Redirect-multi|2|WWW|The Web}}
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{{Use British English|date=May 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Infobox technology standard
| title = World Wide Web
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| abbreviation = WWW, W3
| year_started = {{Start date and age|1989|df=y}} by Tim Berners-Lee
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File:Chrome on Linux.png from Wikipedia displayed in Google Chrome]]
The World Wide Web (WWW, W3 or simply the Web) is an information system that enables content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond IT specialists and hobbyists.{{Cite book |title=The Desk Encyclopedia of World History |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7394-7809-7 |editor-last=Wright |editor-first=Edmund |location=New York |pages=312}} It allows documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet according to specific rules of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).{{cite web |date=2009 |title=What is the difference between the Web and the Internet? |url=http://www.w3.org/Help/#webinternet |access-date=16 July 2015 |website=W3C Help and FAQ |publisher=W3C |archive-date=9 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150709004648/http://www.w3.org/Help/#webinternet |url-status=live }}
The Web was invented by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee while at CERN in 1989 and opened to the public in 1993. It was conceived as a "universal linked information system".{{Cite web |title=World Wide Web (WWW) launches in the public domain {{!}} April 30, 1993 |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-wide-web-launches-in-public-domain |access-date=2025-01-21 |website=HISTORY |date=30 March 2020 |language=en |archive-date=6 February 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250206200329/https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-wide-web-launches-in-public-domain |url-status=live }}{{cite web |last1=Berners-Lee |first1=Tim |title=Information Management: A Proposal |url=https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html |access-date=12 February 2022 |website=w3.org |publisher=The World Wide Web Consortium |archive-date=1 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100401051011/https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |date=2018-08-30 |title=The World's First Web Site |url=https://www.history.com/news/the-worlds-first-web-site |access-date=2023-08-19 |website=HISTORY |language=en |archive-date=19 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230819131610/https://www.history.com/news/the-worlds-first-web-site |url-status=live }} Documents and other media content are made available to the network through web servers and can be accessed by programs such as web browsers. Servers and resources on the World Wide Web are identified and located through character strings called uniform resource locators (URLs).
The original and still very common document type is a web page formatted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). This markup language supports plain text, images, embedded video and audio contents, and scripts (short programs) that implement complex user interaction. The HTML language also supports hyperlinks (embedded URLs) which provide immediate access to other web resources. Web navigation, or web surfing, is the common practice of following such hyperlinks across multiple websites. Web applications are web pages that function as application software. The information in the Web is transferred across the Internet using HTTP. Multiple web resources with a common theme and usually a common domain name make up a website. A single web server may provide multiple websites, while some websites, especially the most popular ones, may be provided by multiple servers. Website content is provided by a myriad of companies, organizations, government agencies, and individual users; and comprises an enormous amount of educational, entertainment, commercial, and government information.
The Web has become the world's dominant information systems platform.{{cite news |last1=Bleigh |first1=Michael |title=The Once And Future Web Platform |url=https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-once-and-future-web-platform/ |access-date=9 March 2022 |publisher=TechCrunch |date=16 May 2014 |archive-date=5 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211205122820/https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-once-and-future-web-platform/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |date=11 March 2014 |title=World Wide Web Timeline |url=http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/world-wide-web-timeline/ |access-date=1 August 2015 |publisher=Pews Research Center |archive-date=29 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150729162322/http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/world-wide-web-timeline/ |url-status=live }}{{cite news |last=Dewey |first=Caitlin |date=12 March 2014 |title=36 Ways The Web Has Changed Us |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style-blog/wp/2014/03/12/36-ways-the-web-has-changed-us/ |access-date=1 August 2015 |archive-date=9 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150909195224/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style-blog/wp/2014/03/12/36-ways-the-web-has-changed-us/ |url-status=live }} It is the primary tool that billions of people worldwide use to interact with the Internet.
History
{{Main|History of the World Wide Web}}
File:First_Web_Server.jpg was used by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world's first Web server.]]
The Web was invented by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN. He was motivated by the problem of storing, updating, and finding documents and data files in that large and constantly changing organization, as well as distributing them to collaborators outside CERN. In his design, Berners-Lee dismissed the common tree structure approach, used for instance in the existing CERNDOC documentation system and in the Unix filesystem, as well as approaches that relied on tagging files with keywords, as in the VAX/NOTES system. Instead he adopted concepts he had put into practice with his private ENQUIRE system (1980) built at CERN. When he became aware of Ted Nelson's hypertext model (1965), in which documents can be linked in unconstrained ways through hyperlinks associated with "hot spots" embedded in the text, it helped to confirm the validity of his concept.{{Cite thesis |last=Rutter |first=Dorian |title=From Diversity to Convergence: British Computer Networks and the Internet, 1970-1995 |date=2005 |degree=Computer Science |publisher=The University of Warwick |url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1197/1/WRAP_THESIS_Rutter_2005.pdf |access-date=27 December 2022 |archive-date=10 October 2022 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221010/http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1197/1/WRAP_THESIS_Rutter_2005.pdf |url-status=live}}{{Cite book |last=Tim Berners-Lee |url=http://archive.org/details/weavingweborigin00bern_0 |title=Weaving the Web |date=1999 |publisher=HarperSanFrancisco |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-06-251586-5 |pages=5–6}}
File:WWW-LetShare.svg. Currently, there is no widely accepted logo in use for the WWW.]]
The model was later popularized by Apple's HyperCard system. Unlike Hypercard, Berners-Lee's new system from the outset was meant to support links between multiple databases on independent computers, and to allow simultaneous access by many users from any computer on the Internet. He also specified that the system should eventually handle other media besides text, such as graphics, speech, and video. Links could refer to mutable data files, or even fire up programs on their server computer. He also conceived "gateways" that would allow access through the new system to documents organized in other ways (such as traditional computer file systems or the Usenet). Finally, he insisted that the system should be decentralized, without any central control or coordination over the creation of links.{{Cite journal |last1=Berners-Lee |first1=T. |last2=Cailliau |first2=R. |last3=Groff |first3=J.-F. |last4=Pollermann |first4=B. |date=1992 |title=World-Wide Web: The Information Universe |url=https://www.w3.org/History/1992/ENRAP/Article_9202.ps |journal=Electron. Netw. Res. Appl. Policy |volume=2 |pages=52–58 |doi=10.1108/eb047254 |language=en |access-date=27 December 2022 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227185345/https://www.w3.org/History/1992/ENRAP/Article_9202.ps |url-status=live |issn = 1066-2243 }}{{cite news |last=Quittner |first=Joshua |date=29 March 1999 |title=Network Designer Tim Berners-Lee |work=Time Magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990627,00.html |url-status=dead |url-access=subscription |access-date=17 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070815090521/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C990627%2C00.html |archive-date=15 August 2007 |quote=He wove the World Wide Web and created a mass medium for the 21st century. The World Wide Web is Berners-Lee's alone. He designed it. He set it loose it on the world. And he more than anyone else has fought to keep it an open, non-proprietary and free.}}{{page needed|date=September 2016}}{{cite book |last=McPherson |first=Stephanie Sammartino |url=https://archive.org/details/timbernerslee0000mcph |title=Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web |publisher=Twenty-First Century Books |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8225-7273-2 |url-access=registration}}
Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to CERN in May 1989, without giving the system a name. He got a working system implemented by the end of 1990, including a browser called WorldWideWeb (which became the name of the project and of the network) and an HTTP server running at CERN. As part of that development he defined the first version of the HTTP protocol, the basic URL syntax, and implicitly made HTML the primary document format.W3 (1991) [https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1991/08/art-6484.txt Re: Qualifiers on Hypertext links] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211207032603/https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1991/08/art-6484.txt |date=7 December 2021 }} The technology was released outside CERN to other research institutions starting in January 1991, and then to the whole Internet on 23 August 1991. The Web was a success at CERN, and began to spread to other scientific and academic institutions. Within the next two years, there were 50 websites created.{{cite web |last1=Hopgood |first1=Bob |title=History of the Web |url=https://www.w3.org/2012/08/history-of-the-web/origins.htm#c7p1 |website=w3.org |publisher=The World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=12 February 2022 |archive-date=21 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321090119/https://www.w3.org/2012/08/history-of-the-web/origins.htm#c7p1 |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=A short history of the Web |url=https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web |access-date=15 April 2022 |website=CERN |language=en |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417082120/https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web |url-status=live }}
CERN made the Web protocol and code available royalty free in 1993, enabling its widespread use.{{cite web |title=Software release of WWW into public domain |url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/1164399/ |access-date=17 February 2022 |website=CERN Document Server |date=30 January 1993 |publisher=CERN |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217212624/https://cds.cern.ch/record/1164399/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |date=30 April 2003 |title=Ten Years Public Domain for the Original Web Software |url=http://tenyears-www.web.cern.ch/tenyears-www/Welcome.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090813032723/http://tenyears-www.web.cern.ch/tenyears-www/Welcome.html |archive-date=13 August 2009 |access-date=27 July 2009 |publisher=Tenyears-www.web.cern.ch}} After the NCSA released the Mosaic web browser later that year, the Web's popularity grew rapidly as thousands of websites sprang up in less than a year.{{cite magazine |last1=Calore |first1=Michael |title=April 22, 1993: Mosaic Browser Lights Up Web With Color, Creativity |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2010/04/0422mosaic-web-browser/ |access-date=12 February 2022 |date=22 April 2010 |archive-date=24 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424075919/https://www.wired.com/2010/04/0422mosaic-web-browser/?mbid=social_twitter_onsiteshare |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Couldry |first1=Nick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AcHvP9trbkAC&pg=PA2 |title=Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice |date=2012 |publisher=Polity Press |isbn=9780745639208 |location=London |page=2 |access-date=11 December 2020 |archive-date=27 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227165043/https://books.google.com/books?id=AcHvP9trbkAC&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }} Mosaic was a graphical browser that could display inline images and submit forms that were processed by the HTTPd server.{{cite web |last1=Hoffman |first1=Jay |title=The Origin of the IMG Tag |url=https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-origin-of-the-img-tag/ |access-date=13 February 2022 |website=The History of the Web |date=21 April 1993 |archive-date=13 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213213527/https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-origin-of-the-img-tag/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |last1=Clarke |first1=Roger |title=The Birth of Web Commerce |url=http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/WCBirth.html |access-date=15 February 2022 |website=Roger Clarke's Web-Site |publisher=XAMAX |archive-date=15 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215174226/http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/WCBirth.html |url-status=live }} Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark founded Netscape the following year and released the Navigator browser, which introduced Java and JavaScript to the Web. It quickly became the dominant browser. Netscape became a public company in 1995 which triggered a frenzy for the Web and started the dot-com bubble.{{cite web |last1=McCullough |first1=Brian |title=20 YEARS ON: WHY NETSCAPE'S IPO WAS THE "BIG BANG" OF THE INTERNET ERA |url=http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/08/20-years-on-why-netscapes-ipo-was-the-big-bang-of-the-internet-era/ |website=www.internethistorypodcast.com |publisher=INTERNET HISTORY PODCAST |access-date=12 February 2022 |archive-date=12 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220212213213/http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/08/20-years-on-why-netscapes-ipo-was-the-big-bang-of-the-internet-era/ |url-status=live }} Microsoft responded by developing its own browser, Internet Explorer, starting the browser wars. By bundling it with Windows, it became the dominant browser for 14 years.{{cite magazine |last1=Calore |first1=Michael |title=Sept. 28, 1998: Internet Explorer Leaves Netscape in Its Wake |url=https://www.wired.com/2009/09/0928ie-beats-netscape/ |access-date=14 February 2022 |magazine=Wired |date=28 September 2009 |archive-date=30 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130164131/https://www.wired.com/2009/09/0928ie-beats-netscape/ |url-status=live }}
Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which created XML in 1996 and recommended replacing HTML with stricter XHTML.{{cite news |last1=Daly |first1=Janet |title=World Wide Web Consortium Issues XHTML 1.0 as a Recommendation |url=https://www.w3.org/2000/01/xhtml-pressrelease |access-date=8 March 2022 |publisher=W3C |date=26 January 2000 |archive-date=20 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210620230850/https://www.w3.org/2000/01/xhtml-pressrelease |url-status=live }} In the meantime, developers began exploiting an IE feature called XMLHttpRequest to make Ajax applications and launched the Web 2.0 revolution. Mozilla, Opera, and Apple rejected XHTML and created the WHATWG which developed HTML5.{{cite web |last1=Hickson |first1=Ian |title=WHAT open mailing list announcement |url=https://whatwg.org/news/start |website=whatwg.org |publisher=WHATWG |access-date=16 February 2022 |archive-date=8 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220308052351/https://whatwg.org/news/start |url-status=live }} In 2009, the W3C conceded and abandoned XHTML.{{cite news |last1=Shankland |first1=Stephen |title=An epitaph for the Web standard, XHTML 2 |url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/an-epitaph-for-the-web-standard-xhtml-2/ |access-date=17 February 2022 |publisher=CNet |date=9 July 2009 |archive-date=16 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220216142629/https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/an-epitaph-for-the-web-standard-xhtml-2/ |url-status=live }} In 2019, it ceded control of the HTML specification to the WHATWG.{{cite web |title=Memorandum of Understanding Between W3C and WHATWG |url=https://www.w3.org/2019/04/WHATWG-W3C-MOU.html |publisher=W3C |access-date=16 February 2022 |archive-date=29 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529012854/https://www.w3.org/2019/04/WHATWG-W3C-MOU.html |url-status=live }}
The World Wide Web has been central to the development of the Information Age and is the primary tool billions of people use to interact on the Internet.{{Cite book |last=In |first=Lee |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wKyeBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA7 |title=Electronic Commerce Management for Business Activities and Global Enterprises: Competitive Advantages: Competitive Advantages |date=30 June 2012 |publisher=IGI Global |isbn=978-1-4666-1801-5 |language=en |access-date=27 September 2020 |archive-date=21 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240421053156/https://books.google.com/books?id=wKyeBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}{{Cite book |last=Misiroglu |first=Gina |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j4KsBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA398 |title=American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History |date=26 March 2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-47729-7 |language=en |access-date=27 September 2020 |archive-date=21 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240421053157/https://books.google.com/books?id=j4KsBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA398#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}{{cite web |date=11 March 2014 |title=World Wide Web Timeline |url=http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/world-wide-web-timeline |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150729162322/http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/world-wide-web-timeline/ |archive-date=29 July 2015 |access-date=1 August 2015 |work=Pew Research Center}}{{cite web |title=Internet Live Stats |url=http://www.internetlivestats.com |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150702051222/http://www.internetlivestats.com/ |website=internetlivestats.com |archive-date=2 July 2015 |access-date=1 August 2015}}
Nomenclature
{{more citations needed section|date=August 2023}}
Tim Berners-Lee states that World Wide Web is officially spelled as three separate words, each capitalised, with no intervening hyphens.{{cite web |url=https://w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html |title=Frequently asked questions - Spelling of WWW |publisher=W3C |access-date=27 July 2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090802051415/http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html |archive-date=2 August 2009}} Nonetheless, it is often called simply the Web, and also often the web; see Capitalization of Internet for details. In Mandarin Chinese, World Wide Web is commonly translated via a phono-semantic matching to wàn wéi wǎng ({{lang|zh|万维网}}), which satisfies www and literally means "10,000-dimensional net", a translation that reflects the design concept and proliferation of the World Wide Web.
Use of the www prefix has been declining, especially when web applications sought to brand their domain names and make them easily pronounceable. As the mobile web grew in popularity,{{cite web |url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/ |title=Percentage of mobile device website traffic worldwide from 1st quarter 2015 to 4th quarter 2024 |publisher=Statista |access-date=17 April 2025 |url-status=live}} services like Gmail.com, Outlook.com, Myspace.com, Facebook.com and Twitter.com are most often mentioned without adding "www." (or, indeed, ".com") to the domain.{{cite web |last1=Castelluccio |first1=Michael |title=It's not your grandfather's Internet |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/It%27s+not+your+grandfather%27s+Internet.-a0239804575 |date=Oct 1, 2010 |work=Strategic Finance |via=The Free Library |publisher=Institute of Management Accountants |access-date=7 February 2016 |archive-date=5 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305145947/http://www.thefreelibrary.com/It%27s+not+your+grandfather%27s+Internet.-a0239804575 |url-status=live }}
In English, www is usually read as double-u double-u double-u.{{cite web |title=Audible pronunciation of 'WWW' |url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/WWW?q=www |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=25 May 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140525195152/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/WWW?q=www |archive-date=25 May 2014}} Some users pronounce it dub-dub-dub, particularly in New Zealand.{{cite web |last1=Harvey |first1=Charlie |title=How we pronounce WWW in English: a detailed but unscientific survey |url=https://charlieharvey.org.uk/page/how_we_pronounce_www |website=charlieharvey.org.uk |date=18 August 2015 |access-date=19 May 2022 |archive-date=19 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221119073310/https://charlieharvey.org.uk/page/how_we_pronounce_www |url-status=live }} Stephen Fry, in his "Podgrams" series of podcasts, pronounces it wuh wuh wuh.{{cite web |title=Stephen Fry's pronunciation of 'WWW' |url=http://www.podcasts.com/stephen_frys_podgrams_audio_visual/episode/series_2_episode_1_stephenfry.com_2.0 |publisher=Podcasts.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170404220105/http://www.podcasts.com/stephen_frys_podgrams_audio_visual/episode/series_2_episode_1_stephenfry.com_2.0 |archive-date=4 April 2017}} The English writer Douglas Adams once quipped in The Independent on Sunday (1999): "The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than what it's short for".{{cite web |last1=Simonite |first1=Tom |title=Help us find a better way to pronounce www |url=https://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2008/07/help-us-find-better-way-to-pronounce.html |website=newscientist.com |publisher=New Scientist, Technology |date=22 July 2008 |access-date=7 February 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313095715/https://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2008/07/help-us-find-better-way-to-pronounce.html |archive-date=13 March 2016}}
Function
{{main|HTTP|HTML}}
File:Internet Key Layers.png protocol that is run "on top of" (figuratively) the Internet, helping to make it more functional. The advent of the Mosaic web browser helped to make the web much more usable, to include the display of images and moving images (GIFs).]]
The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used without much distinction. However, the two terms do not mean the same thing. The Internet is a global system of computer networks interconnected through telecommunications and optical networking. In contrast, the World Wide Web is a global collection of documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URIs. Web resources are accessed using HTTP or HTTPS, which are application-level Internet protocols that use the Internet transport protocols.
Viewing a web page on the World Wide Web normally begins either by typing the URL of the page into a web browser or by following a hyperlink to that page or resource. The web browser then initiates a series of background communication messages to fetch and display the requested page. In the 1990s, using a browser to view web pages—and to move from one web page to another through hyperlinks—came to be known as 'browsing,' 'web surfing' (after channel surfing), or 'navigating the Web'. Early studies of this new behaviour investigated user patterns in using web browsers. One study, for example, found five user patterns: exploratory surfing, window surfing, evolved surfing, bounded navigation and targeted navigation.{{cite journal|last1=Muylle|first1=Steve|first2=Rudy|last2=Moenaert|first3=Marc|last3=Despont|title=A grounded theory of World Wide Web search behaviour|journal=Journal of Marketing Communications|year=1999|volume=5|issue=3|page=143|doi=10.1080/135272699345644}}
The following example demonstrates the functioning of a web browser when accessing a page at the URL {{samp|
GET /home.html HTTP/1.1
Host: example.org
The computer receiving the HTTP request delivers it to web server software listening for requests on port 80. If the web server can fulfil the request it sends an HTTP response back to the browser indicating success:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
followed by the content of the requested page. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) for a basic web page might look like this:
The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW and commonly known ...
The web browser parses the HTML and interprets the markup (