World Wide Web in Plain English

First, a quick message from Common Craft. This video comes in versions designed for use in training and education. Find them at CommonCraft.com Have you ever wondered, when you visit a website, where those words and images come from? This is the World Wide Web in Plain English. These days, as long as we have an Internet connection, using the Web is pretty easy. We can visit billions of pages on things from pet alligators to the weather in Holland. To help figure out how it works, let’s pretend we can get really small, follow the wires and explore what makes the Web work. In order to get to the Web, we need a connection from our home or business to the rest of the online world. This usually happens through the phone or cable lines, or even satellite. This connection means that information from around the world can reach our computers. If we could see the connection, the information coming through it would look like little packets of code. It doesn’t make sense to most people. We need a translator, something that turns the packets of code into the words and images we see on a website. For this, we use a web browser. It translates the information and makes it useful to us. But that code has to come from somewhere, right? If we could follow it to its home, we’d see that it’s coming from another computer. Not a regular computer, but one that’s built to make web pages available. It’s called a “server.” The words and images that appear on our screen live here in the server. If there was only one server this would be simple. But there are millions of servers and web pages. We need a way to find a specific page on a specific server. We do this with web addresses. Each server and website has a unique one. As long as we have the right web address, we can visit a page on any server on the Web. The reason we call it a “web” is that all the servers are connected. We can easily jump from one to the other using addresses via our web browser. And we don’t have to remember all the addresses. Web pages use shortcuts or “links” words and images we can click, that direct us to page after page. These links create a web of connections that are easy to navigate. Together, this system makes up the World Wide Web. So, let’s sum it up. To visit a website, we type in a web address or click a link. The information for the website lives on a server. It comes to us as little packets of code, and our web browser translates this code into words, photos, music, videos, and links that help us get things done. Yaaay! I’m Lee LeFever of Common Craft, and this has been the World Wide Web in Plain English. Do you need this for work? Find presentation-quality, unbranded versions of all Common Craft videos at CommonCraft.com.