How The Web Works: Understanding Webpages, Websites, & Search Engines

Using the Internet is already second nature to us. Whether it’s asking Google questions or scrolling through social media, we pick up our gadgets and surf the web without much thought.

As of 2024, the Internet has an estimated 5.5 billion users. Most use it for instant messaging, email, and social networks. eCommerce is also very popular, with 2.71 billion people shopping online.

As web developers, it’s essential to know how the web works. This mainly requires understanding webpages, websites, and search engines. Learning how user requests are delivered will help you create robust websites with clean code, especially if you’re a back-end web developer.

Defining Web Jargon

Websites responding to user requests is a technical and complicated process. Depending on the command sent, many different combinations of events must happen for everything to work smoothly.

Before diving into how the web works, though, we must define a few terms.

• Client – the application that connects to the Internet and sends user requests to servers
  • A web client translates user interactions into a language the receiving end understands and processes.
  • Although a web browser or application is technically considered a client, the term can also refer to a computer or mobile device.
• Server – the machine that accepts and executes requests before sending them back to the front end of a website or web application
  • Like the client, the web server has a unique IP address.
  • Different types of servers include web servers, application servers, and database servers.
• IP address (Internet Protocol address)—The IP address is a unique set of numbers used to identify computers, servers, and routers. The TCP/IP protocol software converts it to a physical address.
• TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)—These communication protocols interconnect network devices on the Internet.
  • TCP ensures that packets are transmitted adequately across networks.
  • IP allows data to communicate across the Internet.
• ISP (Internet Service Provider) – An ISP connects clients to servers and vice versa by pulling up the IP address of the website you’re visiting.
• DNS (Domain Name System) – A database that sorts and stores domain names and their corresponding IP addresses. It’s best described as the “phonebook of the Internet.”
• URL (Uniform Resource Locator) – The URL is also the web address. A complete URL contains the website protocol (HTTP or HTTPS), domain name, and path (if applicable).
• Domain name – the URL containing the website’s name and TLD (top-level domain). Typically, users enter the domain name into the browser to access a website’s homepage.
• TLD – the part of the URL that tells you a website’s geographical location, purpose, or owner. The most common TLDs include .com, .org, .net, .edu, and .gov.
• Path – the specific file a user wants to access on a website. It’s not always seen on a URL.
• HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) – HTTP enables users to interact with web page elements using hypertext messages. It also determines how requests are structured on the client side and how servers respond to them.
• HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) – HTTPS uses an encryption protocol to prevent data interception and theft. It’s now the recommended protocol for the various types of websites on the Internet, including banking websites.

How It All Works

Now that you’ve learned the jargon, let’s explain how the web works.

It all starts when a user enters a URL in their browser. Usually, people only input the website’s domain name (e.g., “devwerkz.com”). Sometimes, the browser displays the complete URL, including the protocol and path.

What Happens After You Enter a Website URL?

Behind the scenes, the browser checks the information contained in the URL: its protocol, domain name, and a specific resource. The browser displays the website’s main page (index) if nothing comes after the TLD.

Next, the browser communicates with the ISP for a DNS lookup. The DNS contacts a Root Name Server that matches the domain name to its IP address. Once the service receives the IP address of a domain name server, it communicates to that server and requests a website’s exact address. The system then sends the IP address of the destination server to the ISP, which will send it to the web browser.

After the browser receives the IP address, it takes the URL’s port number. This number can be port 80 for HTTP and port 443 for HTTPS. After this step, TCP connects the browser and the server.

How Does a Web Browser Load Website Content?

To load website content, a web browser asks the web server for a website’s main HTML page. The latter searches for this page and, if it’s available, sends it to the browser. Otherwise, you get the dreaded 404 error message: “Page Not Found.”

Data is sent via the appropriate protocol (HTTP or HTTPS), which the browser parses before displaying the web page. In other words, the client scans and analyzes the HTML file to determine what content should be loaded.

Note that the browser parses all assets and sends additional requests to the server as needed. After analyzing the data packets, the browser builds a DOM (Document Object Model) tree to map how it would display the different objects embedded in the code.

HTML is loaded alongside CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript to make web pages more visually appealing and dynamic.

Servers may send pre-generated HTML pages, but can also be programmed to respond to specific requests and cues. For example, if a user clicks on an ad, the server can display a personalized landing page to enhance the user experience.

In Summary

We can condense how the web works into a quick 10-step guide. The entire process would look like this:

1. The user types a URL.
2. The browser communicates with the ISP.
3. The DNS server gets the IP address of a website’s domain name.
4. The IP address is sent to the browser.
5. A connection is established between the web browser and the web server.
6. The browser sends a request to the server.
7. The server sends data packets to the client.
8. The browser parses the response.
9. The website’s assets are loaded.
10. The website is displayed.

Web Pages vs. Websites: What’s The Difference?

To wrap things up, we’ll differentiate web pages from websites. Then, we’ll discuss search engines and why they’re essential to building a secure, functional, and well-optimized website.

What is a Web Page?

A web page is a document written in a markup language, making it scannable for web browsers. It contains different features, text, and URLs for immediate access. Web pages can be built using dedicated tools or HTML.

There are two types of web pages: static and dynamic. Static pages are written in HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and other markup languages because they display the same content to every visitor. Web servers fulfill requests for these types of web pages immediately.

On the other hand, dynamic web pages are built using more advanced programming languages. Examples of these frameworks include AJAX, ASP, and ASP.NET. Dynamic web pages show various content to different users and load much longer than static web pages. They contain modifiable information such as stock prices and weather information.

What is a Website?

A website is a collection of interconnected web pages. If you’re a business owner, you can introduce your company, sell products, or engage with customers through a website.

Websites can also be static or dynamic. Static and dynamic websites follow the same definitions as the ones above, although both have advantages and disadvantages.

The Advantages & Disadvantages of Building Static Websites

First, static websites are much easier and faster to build. They also require little to no maintenance due to their simple design. At most, you only need to upload a static website’s files to any host.

Web servers don’t need to retrieve static websites, either. This translates to optimal website performance, eliminating caching and database optimization.

Despite these advantages, static websites are more complex to scale. They’re suited for websites that only need a few pages and are purely informational. Plus, updating static sites is challenging. Each file must be modified to show your desired changes and reuploaded to your server.

The Advantages & Disadvantages of Dynamic Websites

Dynamic websites offer more flexibility than static websites. In the long run, they’re easier to maintain and optimize for web page rankings. And with web servers spontaneously creating a dynamic website for each visitor, personalization becomes possible.

Search engines usually favor dynamic websites because they deliver a better user experience and have more content for indexing. However, coding these websites from scratch is a highly complicated task. You may need a no-code content management system to build a dynamic website.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Search engines, like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, are websites specifically coded to organize and find web pages based on searches. For website owners, they’re a crucial part of the web that makes or breaks their online success.

Search engines access and check billions of web pages using web crawlers (spiders or bots). These systems navigate the World Wide Web and follow links to find new pages. Once those web pages are scanned and assessed, they’re added to an index where search engines retrieve results.

Algorithms are another essential part of search engines. They match and rank relevant results from a search engine index. If a web development agency’s site is optimized for keywords such as “website design and development services” and “what is JavaScript,” search algorithms would connect it to those queries.

A Guide to (Some of) Google’s Ranking Factors for Websites

Google’s algorithms rank every website, including yours, based on over 200 factors. Of this significant number, technical SEO, user experience, and schema markup (structured data added to a website to help search engines better understand its content) are key to higher rankings on search results pages.

In short, your website must be mobile-friendly, fast, well-structured, secure, and user-friendly. Google’s page-level and site-level ranking factors cover these requirements and other crucial factors, which we discuss below.

Page Speed

Google considers page speed when ranking desktop and mobile web pages. However, it’s regarded as a negative ranking factor because it hurts the slowest pages more than the quickest-loading pages.

Note: Google now evaluates page speed based on actual Chrome user data.

Image Optimization

An image’s file name, alt text, title, description, and caption tell search engines it’s relevant to your website and its target keyword(s). Furthermore, image optimization allows each image to be indexed appropriately.

Tip: Compress images to smaller files or use next-gen image formats for better website performance.

Ranking Factors for Mobile-Friendly Websites

These page-level and site-level ranking factors include:

• Google’s mobile-friendly update – This search algorithm update ranked mobile-optimized websites high on Google’s SERPs.
• Mobile usability – Mobile-first indexing can reward a user-friendly mobile website.
• Mobile optimization – Google penalizes websites that aren’t mobile-optimized.

HTML Errors or W3C Validation

If your website has countless HTML errors or is built with disorganized code, it may be considered poor quality. It’s believed that a well-coded page is used as a quality signal.

A User-Friendly Website Layout

According to the Google Quality Guidelines Document, the highest-quality web pages show their main content to visitors immediately.

Site Architecture

With a well-organized site architecture, Google can group site content into different themes. Additionally, it can make accessing and indexing web pages easier for Googlebot.

Site Uptime

The more times site downtime occurs due to maintenance or server issues, the lower your website might rank on Google SERPs. It may even risk being de-indexed if you don’t address its frequent downtimes.

Server Location

Server location affects site rankings in different areas worldwide. Simply put, it helps your website rank for local keywords. Examples of these queries include “best web developers in the Philippines” or “UX designer in Makati.”

SSL Certificate

Google also rewards websites that use the HTTPS protocol. But if its search algorithm retrieves two of the same results from its index, it will determine whether they direct users to a secure page.

Site Usability

While mobile usability focuses on how easy it is to use mobile sites, the site usability signal applies to all of a website’s versions.

Complicated websites can rank lower on SERPs when they make visitors leave and browse other sites, affect the number of pages viewed, and increase bounce rates. Google RankBrain measures user satisfaction using these three factors.

Core Web Vitals

Google also looks at a website’s Core Web Vitals when matching and ranking it for relevant search results. John Mueller stated that these metrics are “more than a tie-breaker,” but relevancy remains a crucial ranking factor.

In addition, CWV is more than just a ranking signal. According to Mueller, speed-related user experiences can place websites higher or lower on SERPs. This makes achieving and maintaining optimal page speeds critical. (Our guide to optimizing your website for Core Web Vitals shares how you can improve your page speed.)

Build a Functional & High-Converting Website Today

The job of the World Wide Web may seem simple to us users. What we don’t know, though, is that it follows a complex process to give us the information we need—understanding how the web works will help you create and deliver top-notch, high-converting digital experiences.

If you’re building a brand website, nothing beats the professional touch of seasoned web developers and designers. Contact DevWerkz today to work on robust and beautiful websites that convert. For more guides to web development and design, visit our blog.