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How it works The Internet consists of an enormous number of computers in many countries that are linked together by current communications "lines" (telephone, fibre-optical,satellite etc). The World Wide Web (www) consist of millions of domains (websites) that are stored on these servers and which are registered by authorized registrars in each country who issue each domain with a specific name and domain number. So although you know your domain is "mycompany.co.za" its real access code might be something like 196.7.142.22. Service Providers rent out space on their servers (ranging from Megabytes to Gigabytes) and become hosts to that domain on the consumer's behalf. The backbone of the Internet is a common markup language known as HTML (in various forms). Browsers such as Netscape, Internet Explorer or Mosaic interpret this language and render it on the consumer's screen in legible graphic form. Graphics and photographs are generally stored in JPEG or GIF formats which all computers are able to render (there are many other proprietary formats which are unsuitable and thus have to be converted before incorporating into a website) The process of getting a website into operation is relatively straightforward: - server space is hired from an ISP (Independent Service Provider) - a domain is registered (.co,.net.org etc) - a designer writes HTML for the site and places graphics.links etc - a webmaster uploads this material to the domain on the ISP's server. This is usually done via an FTP programme which gives greater security. - a webmaster submits key information to web search engines such as Google and interest groups (newsgroups) - search engines dispatch "robots" to verify sites and once this is done stores the key information on their servers - a webmaster updates and upgrades sections of the site via FTP |
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