This guide is a to the World Wide Web is for beginners. It is an introduction to the World Wide Web after you have read this guide you will know what the World Wide Web is. Used in conjunction with our Beginners Guide to Search Engines you will have all the underlying skills you need to navigate the Web.
This is the third article in our series of Beginners Guide Published every Monday.
What Is The World Wide Web?
The World Wide Web is made up of millions of pages covering any topic that you are likely to think of. These documents can be linked together by hyperlinks to form a web of information. The term world World Wide Web is often referred to as the Web.
A hyperlink is a piece of code that contains details on the web page to where the link will take you should the Hyperlink be activated. A Web page doesn’t need a hyperlink, but most pages do. Hyperlinks in my opinion are what makes the Web the success it is.
Web pages created and owned by the same person or company are normally grouped together to create a website. For example, this beginner guide along with the two other beginner guides are written by myself and are grouped together with articles that I have published on my website.
What is a Web Address?
Every web page has an address that is unique and typing in that web address will take you straight to that page. By grouping all pages that an individual or an organisation own together on a website allows at least part of the address to be the same.
For example, the address of my website is www.ctnet.co.uk will take you to the home page of my website. The home page is the name of the webpage accessed by typing in the address from the website. The website address is called the domain name.
You can go directly to any page on my website or any other website by typing in the web address in the web address bar when I introduce you to the Web Browser. For example, typing in www.ctnet.co.uk/a-beginners-guide-to-the-internet/ will take you to my beginners guide to the Internet webpage.
Information held within the World Wide Web can be searched using search engines. That is why I would recommend that you read this with our beginners guide to search engines. To ensure you get the most out of the Web.
What Is A Web Browser?
A Web Browser is a software application that allows us to view web pages and navigate around the Web. A number of different web browsers are available.
At the top of the web browser, there is a text box. That text box is the address bar it displays the web address of the page you are currently on. If you type a web address such as www.ctnet.co.uk into the address bar. The browser will open that page.
If you are on a secure site that encrypts the data between your computer and the computer hosting the webpage you should see a padlock to the left of the address bar. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the site you are visiting is trustworthy.
The other useful feature with the web address bar is that you can type in a search query directly in the address bar and it will search for that information. The web browser will use the search engine that it has been linked with. Chrome will by default use the Google search engine. While Edge will use the Bing search engine. It is possible to change the default search engine in these browsers.
What is a bookmark?
A bookmark or favourite. Is a way to save the web address of the page you are currently reading. That you think you will need to visit again. Maybe the CTNET website or your favourite for example. You can create a bookmark by clicking on the star at the far right of the address bar.
A guide on managing bookmarks and favourates is outside the scope of this guide. So I will look to write a comperhensive guide at some point.
Conclusion
You should now have the skills you require to start exploring the World Wide Web especially if you use it in conjunction with our beginners guide to search engines. If you have any further questions please feel free to ask them in the comments section below?
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