A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN.

A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP, a protocol that transfers information from the Web server to display in the user’s Web browser.

All publicly accessible websites are seen collectively as constituting the “World Wide Web”.

The pages of websites can usually be accessed from a common root URL called the homepage, and usually reside on the same physical server. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although the hyperlinks between them control how the reader perceives the overall structure and how the traffic flows between the different parts of the sites.

Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription sites include many business sites, parts of many news sites, academic journal sites, gaming sites, message boards, Web-based e-mail, services, social networking website, and sites providing real-time stock market data.

As of March 2007 there are over 8 billion web pages in total on the World Wide Web. – Source http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/help/features.html

History

The first on-line website appeared in 1991. On 30 April 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to anyone.[1] A copy of the original first Web page, created by Tim Berners-Lee, is kept here.

Prizes

The Webby Awards are a set of awards presented to the world’s “best” websites, a concept pioneered by Best of the Web in 1994.

Links

• Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• The Internet Society (ISOC)

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.