How websites are loaded

The browser broke the URL into three parts:

 The protocol ("http")
 The server name ("www.howstuffworks.com")
 The file name ("web-server.htm")

The browser communicated with a name server to translate the server name
"www.howstuffworks.com" into an IP Address, which it uses to connect to the server machine. The
browser then formed a connection to the server at that IP address on port 80. (We'll discuss ports later
in this article.)

Following the HTTP protocol, the browser sent a GET request to the server, asking for the file
"http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-server.htm."

The server then sent the HTML text for the Web page to the browser. (Cookies may also be sent from
server to browser in the header for the page.) The browser read the HTML tags and formatted the page
onto your screen.
Domain Names
Because most people have trouble remembering the strings of numbers that make up IP addresses, and
because IP addresses sometimes need to change, all servers on the Internet also have human-readable
names, called domain names. For example, www.howstuffworks.com is a permanent, human-readable
name. It is easier for most of us to remember www.howstuffworks.com than it is to remember
209.116.69.66.

Domain Name Servers

A set of servers called domain name servers (DNS) maps the human-readable names to the IP addresses.
These servers are simple databases that map names to IP addresses, and they are distributed all over
the Internet. Most individual companies, ISPs and universities maintain small name servers to map host
names to IP addresses. There are also central name servers that use data supplied by VeriSign to map
domain names to IP addresses.

If you type the URL "http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-server.htm" into your browser, your

browser extracts the name "www.howstuffworks.com," passes it to a domain name server, and the
domain name server returns the correct IP address for www.howstuffworks.com. A number of name
servers may be involved to get the right IP address. For example, in the case of
www.howstuffworks.com, the name server for the "com" top-level domain will know the IP address for
the name server that knows host names, and a separate query to that name server, operated by the
HowStuffWorks ISP, may deliver the actual IP address for the HowStuffWorks server machine.
Important terms for technical Interview
AdSense – Google AdSense is a pay-per-click advertisement application which is available to bloggers
and Web publishers as a way to generate revenue from the traffic on their sites. The owner of the site
selects which ads they will host, and AdSense pays the owner each time an ad is clicked.

AdWords – The pay-per-click (PPC) search-engine marketing (SEM) program provided by Google.

Banner Ad – Graphical image or small animation file embedded within a Web page and used for
advertising, often containing a link to other sites, products, etc.

Bounce Rate – Refers to the percentage of a given page’s visitors who exit without visiting another page
on the same site. This term is often used in e-commerce in conjunction with merchandise shopping
carts. Also known as “abandonment rate.”

Click-thru Rate (CTR) – The percentage of people who actually click on a link (e.g., in an email message
or sponsored ad) after seeing it.

Cloaking – A prohibited practice of tricking a search engine into indexing different content than the user
actually sees. In essence, it is serving one version of a page to search engines (for intended SEO benefit)
and another to humans. Often the content is entirely unrelated to the actual topic/theme of the rest of
the site.

Collaboration – In reference to Web 2.0, this concept states that shared contributions of large numbers
of individuals, using social media tools, is a main driver of quality content on the Internet.

Collective Intelligence – The idea that a community or group of individuals is more efficiently capable of
higher thought processes than an individual. Social-media applications of this concept include online
communities which provide user-created informative content, such as Wikipedia.

Conversion Cost – See “cost-per-acquisition (CPA).”

Conversion Rate – This is the percentage of visitors to a site or ad who actually take a further action, like
buying a product or filling out a survey. For example, if your primary goal is to collect survey data
through your site, and 20 people visit it, but only 5 people complete the survey, you have a conversion
rate of 25%.

Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) – Represents the ratio of the total cost of a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign to
the total number of leads or customers, often called “CPA” or “conversion cost.”

Cost-Per-Click – A method of paying for targeted traffic. For a fee, sites like Google or Facebook direct
traffic to your site. You agree to pay a set amount for every click.

CPA – An abbreviation for “cost-per-acquisition.”

CPC – An abbreviation for “cost-per-click.”

CPM – This is the “cost-per-thousand” views of an advertisement. Often, advertisers agree to pay a
certain amount for every 1,000 customers who see their ad, regardless of conversion rates or click-thrus.
The “M” in “CPM” is derived from the Latin word for 1,000 (mille).

Crawler – An automatic function of some search engines that index a page, and then visit subsequent
pages that the initial page links to. As the cycle continues over time, search engine crawlers or
“bots”/“spiders” can index a massive number of pages very quickly.

Dashboard – Any area of administrative control for operating applications, especially social media
settings, blogging software, and user profiles for websites that offer multiple customization options.

Doorway Page – A low-content page traditionally created expressly for the purpose of ranking on a
search engine. Usually very keyword-heavy and user-hostile, most search engines now frown on these
pages.

Impression – An instance of an organic search-engine listing or sponsored ad being served on a

particular Web page or an image being viewed in display advertising. In paid search, “cost-per-
impression” is a common metric.

Inbound Link – A link from another website directed to yours, also known as a “backlink.” Related
marketing areas that focus on inbound links include link popularity,social media and online PR, all of
which explore ways to collect quality links from other websites.

Keywords – The terms that a user enters into a search engine. They can also signify the terms a website
is targeting to rank highly as part of an SEO marketing campaign.

Keyword Density – The proportion of keywords to the total number of words in the face copy of a
website.

Keyword Proximity – The relative placement of keywords in prominent areas of a Web page, including
the distance between keywords in the visible text.

Keyword Stemming – The practice adopted by search engines to group search results not only by exact
keyword matches, but also by variations of keywords in semantic groups, such as singular-plural, related
suffixes, and synonyms.

Landing Page – A stand-alone Web page that a user “lands” on, commonly after visiting a paid search-
engine listing or following a link in an email newsletter. This kind of page often is designed with a very
specific purpose (i.e. conversion goals) for visitors.

Link Popularity – A measurement of the number and quality of sites that link to a given site, especially
as cataloged in a search-engine index.

Listings – A listing is a website’s presence in a search engine or directory, and is not necessarily
indicative of its search-engine positioning.

Meta-Search Engine – A search engine that does not compile its own independent results, but rather
pulls data from two or more search engines, such as Dogpile.com.
Meta-Tags – Also called meta-data, this information found in HTML page headers used to be the bread
and butter of SEO marketing tactics. Still used today despite widely perceived diminishing relevance to
search-engine rankings, the most common are the “title,” “description,” and “keyword” tags

Microsoft adCenter – The pay-per-click (PPC) search-engine advertising program provided by Microsoft
in conjunction with its Bing search engine, now also populating Yahoo! search results.

PageRank – A former proprietary method of Google (now disavowed) for measuring the popularity of a
Web page.

Pay-Per-Click – Also known as “PPC,” this type of paid search marketing involves placing advertisements
that run above or besides (and occasionally below) the free search-engine listings on Google, Bing, and
Yahoo!. Typically, to get the highest position among these ads, website owners place a per-click bid. It’s
not uncommon to participate in a bidding war for coveted top spots. For example, if a website’s listing is
among the top 3 advertisements on a page, the same ad appears in the same location on partner
websites.

Robots.txt – A small text file included on a website that directs a search engine to include/exclude
specific pages from its index. It can be submitted manually to search engines to ensure the latest version
is followed regardless of the “crawl cycle.”

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – A phrase sometimes used in contrast with “SEO” to
describe paid search activities, SEM may also more generally refer to the broad range of search-
marketing activities, either paid or organic.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of using website analysis and copy/design/structural
adjustments to ensure both the highest possible positioning on desired search-engine results pages and
the best experience for a given site’s users.

URL – “Universal” or “uniform resource locator,” this string of letters and numbers separated by periods
and slashes is unique for every Internet page. A page’s address must be written in this form in order to
be found on the World Wide Web.