World Wide Web

Computing a vast network of linked hypertext files, stored on computers throughout the world, that can provide a computer user with information on a huge variety of subjects

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

World Wide Web (www)

the information organised on the INTERNET that utilises URL (Universal Resource Locator) characters to identify locations.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

World Wide Web

[¦wərld ¦wīd ′web]

(computer science)

A part of the Internet that contains linked text, image, sound, and video documents. Abbreviated WWW. Also known as Web.

World Wide Web

(1) (WorldWideWeb) The first Web browser, written by Tim Berners Lee and introduced in early 1991. It ran on the NeXT platform, which was also used as the first Web server. See NeXT.

(2) (World Wide Web) An Internet-based system that enables an individual or a company to publish itself to the entire world, except in countries or locations that prohibit the free interchange of information. The Web is the world's largest online shopping mall and the world's largest source of information, news and commentary. To understand the difference between the Web and the Internet, see Web vs. Internet.

Web Infrastructure
The "Web" is made up of "Web servers," which are computers that store and disseminate "Web pages" to anyone with an Internet connection. Web pages are interactive documents that contain text, graphics, animations and videos. The pages often contain embedded programs that cause them to function the same as software that users install in their computers, smartphones or tablets. As a result, the Web is a "global server" that provides a source of all applications and data (see Web 2.0).

Hyperlinks and Web Addresses
The salient feature of the Web is the hyperlink, which connects each page to each other by address, whether on the same website or on a site half way around the world. In the mid-1990s, the novel concept of "click here" caused the Web to explode. The address of a website or page within the site is known as the "uniform resource locator" (see URL).

The Web Browser
Web pages are accessed by the user via a Web browser application such as Chrome, Firefox and Safari. The browser renders the pages on screen, executes embedded scripts and enables access to millions of websites for information and entertainment. See Web browser and The World.

HTML Is the Rendering Format
A Web page is a text document coded with HTML tags that define how the text and graphics are displayed on screen. Web pages can be created with any text editor or word processor. They are also created in HTML authoring programs that provide a graphical interface for designing the layout, and such programs generate the HTML tags. The ease of page creation helped fuel the Web's growth.

The HTML codes define the page layout as well as certain basic interactions; however, it is the embedded snippets of code written in JavaScript that make the Web page function like a full-blown application. See HTML5.

Websites Are Made Up of HTML Files
A website is a collection of Web pages (HTML files). Large organizations deploy their public websites either on in-house servers, on their own servers co-located in a facility that provides power and Internet access or on servers in a cloud service (see cloud computing). Such public sites may contain hundreds and thousands of pages and databases that hold millions of records.

Web Hosting
Small to medium websites are often maintained by third-party hosting companies for fees that start as little as $5 a month. They can also be hosted by the same Internet service providers (ISPs) that deliver Internet access to the building. For individuals who want their own website, many ISPs host a personal site at no extra cost, although typically limited by size and traffic.

The Intranet
The public Web spawned the private "intranet," an in-house website for employees. Protected via a firewall that lets employees access the Internet, the firewall restricts uninvited users from viewing internal information. There is no difference in hardware and software architecture between a private website (intranet) and a public website. The difference is who has access.

HTTP Can Deliver Anything
HTML pages are transmitted to the user via the HTTP protocol. A Web server stores HTML pages for a website, but it can also be a storehouse for any kind of file delivered to a client application via HTTP. For example, the Windows version of this encyclopedia is available as an HTTP application. The content is hosted on the Computer Language Company's Web server and delivered to the encyclopedia client program in the user's PC. The Windows client is an HTTP-enabled version of the program first introduced in 1996 for stand-alone PCs.

Where It Came From - Where It's Going

The Web was developed at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva from a proposal by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. It was created to share research information on nuclear physics. In 1991, the first command line browser was introduced. By the start of 1993, there were approximately 50 Web servers, and the Voila X Window browser provided the first graphical capability. In that same year, the graphics-based Mosaic browser was introduced (see Mosaic), CERN launched its Mac browser, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Chicago debuted the X Window version of Mosaic.

From a Couple Hundred to a Trillion URLs
By 1994, there were approximately 500 websites, and, by the start of 1995, nearly 10,000. By the turn of the century, there were more than 30 million registered domain names. A decade later, more than a hundred million new domains were added. In 2010, Google claimed it found a trillion unique addresses (URLs) on the Web as it maneuvered from site to site to populate its search engine.

Everyone Has a Vested Interest
ISPs, cable and telephone companies want to sell more connectivity. Webmasters want visitors. IT managers want security. The publishing industry wants to preserve its copyrights. Software publishers want to sell more Web-based products, and hardware companies want to sell more Internet infrastructure.

From Anywhere to Anywhere
Using Web-based protocols and mobile devices, the Web has enabled anyone within reach of a cell tower to monitor or analyze an activity anywhere on the planet as well as obtain information and make every conceivable business transaction no matter the time of day. The Web changed the world. See first website, Web 2.0, Internet, HTTP, HTML, World Wide Wait and Wild Wooly Web.

Web Linking

Accessing a Web document requires typing in the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address of the home page in your Web browser. The home page contains links to other documents that can be stored on the same server or on a server anywhere in the world.

Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

The goal of this paper is to investigate and compare students' perceptions about the benefits of the web-based lectures implemented with different didactical intended purposes and resulting in different application scenarios.

Blending face-to-face higher education with web-based lectures: comparing different didactical application scenarios

In the spring of 2010, there was a question if there was a difference between web-based and land-based classes.

Online learning: a comparison of web-based and land-based courses

* Psychometric equivalency--Concerns have been expressed about reports of instances where differences have been found in results generated by paper-and-pencil and web-based versions of the same assessment.

Making clinical assessments online

To determine if there are any systematic differences between students who prefer web-based homework to paper-based homework, we sorted the sample by the answer to the question, "I prefer web-based homework over paper based homework." T-tests were conducted to determine if there were any significant differences between the support and reject groups.

Student perceptions of web-based homework in an introductory finance course

Although the lost Internet resources were most commonly .com addresses, traditionally authoritative Web-based resources, such as .edu, .gov, and .org, were also lost.

How do psychology students use Web-based information? Trends and implications from a descriptive study

There were more web-based services offered by university libraries, but this study has focused on six categories, including general information about library, web OPAC, reference service, collection, circulation, and document delivery service/Inter Library Loan.

Web-based services in university libraries: a Pakistani perspective

August 26- Nursing Informatics: A Web-based Professional

Indiana nurses calendar

For many of the nurse faculty in the consortium's institutions, this was their first experience with web-based instruction.

A nursing faculty's transition to teaching online

Among the advantages of Web-based applications are:

Thinking about it in tasty terms: a dessert analogy can help you with the decision to choose a Web-based or client/server application

Like many of his peers, Broadhurst recently made the move to Web-based tools, such as MoneyGuidePro that supports a sophisticated, goal-oriented planning process and enables online collaboration with clients.

E-volutionizing retirement planning: web-based and consumer self-service tools are beginning to gain ground in retirement planning

"Existing features of Software Planner include requirements management, test case management, defect management, calendar management, document sharing, discussion forums and list management from a single Web-based solution," says Steve Miller, President and CEO of Pragmatic Software.

Collaboration software