BCA 2 WEBSOL UNIT – 2 IP 1

Unit II
Introduction to World Wide Web and its work, Web Browsers, Search Engine, Downloading,
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), URL, Web Servers, FTP, Web publishing- Domain Name
Registration, Space on Host Server for Web Site, Maintain and Updating

WWW :

World Wide Web, which is also known as a Web, is a collection of websites or web pages stored
in web servers and connected to local computers through the internet. A broader definition
comes from the organization that Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee helped found, the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C).These websites contain text pages, digital images, audios, videos, etc.
Users can access the content of these sites from any part of the world over the internet using
their devices such as computers, laptops, cell phones, etc.

The building blocks of the Web are web pages which are formatted in HTML and connected by
links called "hypertext" or hyperlinks and accessed by HTTP. These links are electronic
connections that link related pieces of information so that users can access the desired
information quickly.

Difference between World Wide Web and Internet:

Some people use the terms 'internet' and 'World Wide Web' interchangeably. They think they
are the same thing, but it is not so. Internet is entirely different from WWW. It is a worldwide
network of devices like computers, laptops, tablets, etc. It enables users to send emails to other
users and chat with them online. For example, when you send an email or chatting with
someone online, you are using the internet.

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But, when you have opened a website like google.com for information, you are using the World
Wide Web; a network of servers over the internet. You request a webpage from your computer
using a browser, and the server renders that page to your browser. Your computer is called a
client who runs a program (web browser), and asks the other computer (server) for the
information it needs.

The World Wide Web was invented by a British scientist, Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. He was
working at CERN at that time. Originally, it was developed by him to fulfill the need of
automated information sharing between scientists across the world, so that they could easily
share the data and results of their experiments and studies with each other.

How the World Wide Web Works?

Now, we have understood that WWW is a collection of websites connected to the internet so
that people can search and share information. Now, let us understand how it works!

The computer of a user who requests documents from a server is known as a client. Browser,
which is installed on the user' computer, allows users to view the retrieved documents.

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Web Browser
web Browser is an application software that allows us to view and explore information on the
web. User can request for any web page by just entering a URL into address bar.

Web browser can show text, audio, video, animation and more. It is the responsibility of a web
browser to interpret text and commands contained in the web page.Earlier the web browsers
were text-based while now a days graphical-based or voice-based web browsers are also
available. Following are the most common web browser available today:

Browser Vendor

Internet Explorer Microsoft

Google Chrome Google

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla

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Netscape Navigator Netscape Communications Corp.

Opera Opera Software

Safari Apple

It provides a software interface that allows you to click hyperlinked resources on the World
Wide Web. Today, they are more advanced; along with browsing you can use them for e-
mailing, transferring multimedia files, using social media sites, and participating in online
discussion groups and more.

Search Engine
The Search engine is a program which is designed to enable the users to browse information or
content on World Wide Web. It helps retrieve the desired
information in minimum time. It allows you to input specific
keywords or phrases and retrieves a list of items
matching those keywords and phrases. Thus, it does not
provide information straight away; it just retrieves pages
which are related to keywords or other search terms. Some of
the popular search engines are Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
Search.

Search Engine refers to a huge database of internet resources such as web pages, newsgroups,
programs, images etc. It helps to locate information on World Wide Web.

User can search for any information by passing query in form of keywords or phrase. It then
searches for relevant information in its database and return to the user.

Search Engine Components

Generally there are three basic components of a search engine as listed below:
1. Web Crawler
2. Database
3. Search Interfaces

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Web crawler
It is also known as spider or bots. It is a software component that traverses the web to
gather information.
Database
All the information on the web is stored in database. It consists of huge web resources.
Search Interfaces
This component is an interface between user and the database. It helps the user to
search through the database.

Following are the several search engines available today:

Search Description
Engine

Google It was originally called BackRub. It is the most popular search engine globally.

Bing It was launched in 2009 by Microsoft. It is the latest web-based search engine that
also delivers Yahoo’s results.

Ask It was launched in 1996 and was originally known as Ask Jeeves. It includes support
for match, dictionary, and conversation question.

AltaVista It was launched by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1995. Since 2003, it is powered
by Yahoo technology.

Search Engine Working

Web crawler, database and the search interface are the major component of a search engine
that actually makes search engine to work. Search engines make use of Boolean expression
AND, OR, NOT to restrict and widen the results of a search. Following are the steps that are
performed by the search engine:

 The search engine looks for the keyword in the index for predefined database instead of
going directly to the web to search for the keyword.
 It then uses software to search for the information in the database. This software component
is known as web crawler.
 Once web crawler finds the pages, the search engine then shows the relevant web pages as
a result. These retrieved web pages generally include title of page, size of text portion, first
several sentences etc.

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Downloading :
'Downloading' is essentially copying data – music,
text, images or other information – from a source
on the internet and saving it to your computer. It
usually involves a process as simple as clicking on a
link and following instructions.

Downloading means your computer is receiving

data from the Internet.

Examples of downloading include opening a web page, receiving email, purchasing music files
and watching online videos.The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the Internet protocol for
downloading and uploading files and a number of special applications can furnish FTP services
for you.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP):

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol which enables WWW to
work smoothly and effectively. It is based on a client-server model. The client is a web browser
which communicates with the web server which hosts the website. This protocol defines how
messages are formatted and transmitted and what actions the Web Server and browser should
take in response to different commands. When you enter a URL in the browser, an HTTP
command is sent to the Web server, and it transmits the requested Web Page.

When we open a website using a browser, a connection to the web server is opened, and
the browser communicates with the server through HTTP and sends a request. HTTP is
carried over TCP/IP to communicate with the server. The server processes the browser's
request and sends a response, and then the connection is closed. Thus, the browser
retrieves content from the server
for the user.

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URL
Uniform Resource Locator and is defined as the global address of documents and
other resources on the World Wide Web. A uniform resource locator (URL) is the address of a
resource on the Internet. A URL indicates the location of a resource as well as the protocol used
to access it.
A URL contains the following information:

 The protocol used to a access the resource

 The the location of the server (whether by IP address or domain name)
 The port number on the server (optional)
 The location of the resource in the directory structure of the server
 A fragment identifier (optional)

Also known as a Universal Resource Locator (URL) or Web address. A URL is a type of uniform
resource identifier (URI).

Web server
Web server is a computer where the web content is stored. Basically web server
is used to host the web sites but there exists other web servers also such as
gaming, storage, FTP, email etc.
Web site is collection of web pages while web server is a software that respond to the request for web
resources.

Web Server Working

Web server respond to the client request in either of the following two ways:
 Sending the file to the client associated with the requested URL.

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 Generating response by invoking a script and communicating with database

 When client sends request for a web page, the web server search for the requested page if
requested page is found then it will send it to client with an HTTP response.
 If the requested web page is not found, web server will the send an HTTP response:Error
404 Not found.
 If client has requested for some other resources then the web server will contact to the
application server and data store to construct the HTTP response.

FTP
o FTP stands for File transfer protocol.
o FTP is a standard internet protocol provided by TCP/IP used for transmitting the files
from one host to another.
o It is mainly used for transferring the web page files from their creator to the
computer that acts as a server for other computers on the internet.
o It is also used for downloading the files to computer from other servers.

Objectives of FTP
o It provides the sharing of files.
o It is used to encourage the use of remote computers.
o It transfers the data more reliably and efficiently.

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There are two types of connections in FTP:

o Control Connection: The control connection uses very simple rules for communication.
Through control connection, we can transfer a line of command or line of response at a
time. The control connection is made between the control processes. The control
connection remains connected during the entire interactive FTP session.
o Data Connection: The Data Connection uses very complex rules as data types may vary.
The data connection is made between data transfer processes. The data connection
opens when a command comes for transferring the files and closes when the file is
transferred.

Advantages of FTP:
o Speed: One of the biggest advantages of FTP is speed. The FTP is one of the fastest
way to transfer the files from one computer to another computer.
o Efficient: It is more efficient as we do not need to complete all the operations to get
the entire file.
o Security: To access the FTP server, we need to login with the username and
password. Therefore, we can say that FTP is more secure.
o Back & forth movement: FTP allows us to transfer the files back and forth.
Suppose you are a manager of the company, you send some information to all the
employees, and they all send information back on the same server.

Web publishing

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Web publishing is the process of publishing original content on the Internet.

The process includes building and uploading websites, updating the associated
webpages, and posting content to these webpages online. Web publishing comprises of
personal, business, and community websites in addition to e-books and blogs.
The content meant for web publishing can include text, videos, digital images, artwork,
and other forms of media.
Publishers must possess a web server, a web publishing software, and an Internet
connection to carry out web publishing.
Web publishing is also known as online publishing.
Website publishing is the process of uploading content on the internet. It includes:
 uploading files
 updating web pages
 posting blogs

1. domain name : A domain name is the part of your Internet address that comes
after "www". For example, in www.websol.com the domain name is websol.com.
2. A domain name becomes your Business Address so care should be taken to
select a domain name. Your domain name should be easy to remember and
easy to type.
3. A domain name is your website name. A domain name is the address where Internet users can
access your website. A domain name is used for finding and identifying computers on the
Internet. Computers use IP addresses, which are a series of number.
4. A domain name can be any combination of letters and numbers, and it can be used in
combination of the various domain name extensions, such as .com, .net and more.

Domain Extensions
The final letter at end of internet address is known as top level domain names. They are
called top level because they are read from right to left, and the part after the dot is the
highest in a hierarchy.
The following table shows the Generic Top-Level Domain names:

Domain Meaning

.com Commercial Business

.edu Education

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.gov U.S. government agency

.int International Entity

.mil U.S. military

.net Networking organization

.org Non profit organization

Web hosting

Web hosting is a service of providing online space for storage of web pages. These
web pages are made available via World Wide Web. The companies which offer
website hosting are known as Web hosts.
The servers on which web site is hosted remain switched on 24 x7. These servers are
run by web hosting companies. Each server has its own IP address. Since IP
addresses are difficult to remember therefore, webmaster points their domain name to
the IP address of the server their website is stored on.
It is not possible to host your website on your local computer, to do so you would have
to leave your computer on 24 hours a day.

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