The TCP/IP Guide  9  TCP/IP Application Layer Protocols, Services and Applications (OSI Layers 5, 6 and 7)       9  TCP/IP Key Applications and Application Protocols            9  TCP/IP File and Message Transfer Applications and Protocols (FTP, TFTP, Electronic Mail, USENET, HTTP/WWW, Gopher)                 9  TCP/IP World Wide Web (WWW, "The Web") and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

TCP/IP World Wide Web (WWW, "The Web") and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 1 World Wide Web and Hypertext Overview and History

The World Wide Web expands the concepts of messaging beyond the limits of simple text file transfer of e-mail, FTP and Usenet. Its power is in its combination of hypertext, a system that allows related documents to be linked together, its rich document format that supports not just text but graphics and multimedia, and the special protocol that allows efficient movement of those media. The result is a powerful system that once introduced, caught on almost immediately amongst everyone from large companies to individuals, and in a few short years came to dominate all other applications on the Internet.

In this section, I take a high-level, summarized look at the concepts behind the World Wide Web. I begin with a short overview and history of the Web and hypertext, and a discussion of the components that comprise the Web system. I briefly describe the documents and media used on the Web and explain the importance of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). I conclude with an overview of how documents are addressed on the Web using Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

TCP/IP World Wide Web (WWW, "The Web") and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 1 World Wide Web and Hypertext Overview and History