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How does the Internet work? How can I have my own Web Site?

What is a Web Host? What is an Internet Service Provider?

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What is the World Wide Web?

• The Web is a network of computers all over the world.
• All the computers in the Web can communicate with each other.
• All the computers use a communication protocol called HTTP.

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How does the WWW work?

• Web information is stored in documents called web pages.
• Web pages are files stored on computers called web servers.
• Computers reading the web pages are called web clients.
• Web clients view the pages with a program called a web browser.
• Popular browsers are Internet Explorer and Firefox.

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How does a Browser Fetch a Web Page?

• A browser fetches a page from a web server by a request.
• A request is a standard HTTP request containing a page address.
• An address may look like this: http://www.example.com/default.htm.

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How does a Browser Display a Web Page?

• All web pages contain instructions for display.
• The browser displays the page by reading these instructions.
• The most common display instructions are called HTML tags.
• HTML tags look like this

  This is a paragraph.

  .

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What is a Web Server?

• The collection of all your web pages is called your web site.
• To let others view your web pages, you must publish your web site.
• To publish your work, you must copy your site to a web server.
• Your own PC can act as a web server if it is connected to a network.
• Most common is to use an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

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What is an Internet Service Provider?

• ISP stands for Internet Service Provider.
• An ISP provides Internet Services.
• A common Internet service is web hosting.
• Web hosting means storing your web site on a public server.
• Web hosting normally includes email services.
• Web hosting often includes domain name registration.

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Summary

If you want other people to view your web site, you must copy your site to a public server.

Even if you can use your own PC as a web server, it is more common to let an Internet Service Provider (ISP) host your site.

Included in a Web hosting solution you can expect to find domain name registration and standard email services.