Whether you are a beginner or are just expanding your skylines into new area of Web awesomeness, the concepts below should help you get started.

What is “web” or “www”?

In a nutshell, the web is a whole set of interconnected computers talking to one another. The computers (on the web) are typically connected by phone lines, digital satellite signals, cables, and other types of data-transfer mechanisms. A ‘data-transfer mechanism’ a way to move information from point A to point B to point C and so on.

The computers that make up the web can be connected all the time (24/7), or only periodically. The computers that are connected all the time are typically called a ‘server’. Servers are computers just like the one you’re using now to read this article, with one major difference, they have a special software installed called ‘server’ software.

The World Wide Web (www) is a combination of all resources and users on the Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Here the server is accessed by a user in his/her computer browser that can be called as a client.

Important Jargon:

• SERVER- A piece of software or hardware that listens specific requests and responses to them in a predetermined fashion

• CLIENT- A software or hardware based that sends our request and outputs the response in a predetermined fashion already in a manner that we have expectations for.

• http- A standard for communicating over the web

What does domain names, web servers, and website hosting mean?

I assume that you know little about the inner workings of the Internet; like you’re not sure how people actually get to websites, where the websites are actually sitting, how the websites is coming in the first place, how to make my own website….and all.

 In this post I am going to give you the minimum you need to kick-start so that we can actually jump into building websites.

What does server software do?

Server software is created to serve web pages and websites. Basically, the server computer has a bunch of websites loaded on it and it just waits for people (via web browsers) to request or ask for a particular page. When the browser requests a page the server sends it out.

How does the web surfer/user/you find a website?

The short answer is: by typing in the URL, or in other words, the website Address. So for example, if you wanted to find the website http://www.dikshasea.com/, you would type in the address into your web browser’s address bar or maybe use your ‘favourites’ or ‘bookmarks’ link to dikshasea.

There are other ways to find websites (like search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo, ask.. etc.) but behind the scenes websites are all being found by going to the website’s official address.

Now you may get a quick doubt: how does a website get an official address so that the web can find it?

Why should you have a domain name?

If you ever wondered what the heck registering a Domain was all about … you probably figured it out by now! But just in case – registering a domain name gets you an official address for your website on the World Wide Web. With this ‘official’ address, the rest of the web can find you.

Like your home address is unique in the real world, there also can’t be any duplicate addresses on the Internet, otherwise no one would know where to go! In other words, domain names are unique addresses on the web.

Why do we have to pay for a domain name?

The web isn’t free. It costs money to make it work, although this cost is spread over various companies in different ranges etc that run the webservers.

We buy a domain name so that we own it for a certain amount of time may be 1 to 10 years, and we pay the company who we register it with to host it on their name servers. If the domain name isn’t on a name server/ address book of world’s domain names then no one will be able to reach your website. If these companies gave the domain names away for free, how could they afford to run their name servers? – somebody’s got to pay for that!

If you want to have your own unique address on the web, your own domain name, it will cost a few bucks for each year you want to ‘own’ the name. The cost of registering a domain name ranges from less than $10 USD to about $30 USD per year. You can register a domain from 1 to 10 years.

This is it! Hope you are ready to kick-start your website building now. Let look into Concepts you must know before you start building a website: Part 2.

The post Concepts you must know before you start building a website: Part 1 appeared first on Diksha SEA.