HOW DO WEBSITES WORK?
What happens when you type www.livescience.com into your browser and hit enter?
1 USER
When you type the web address, you’re telling your browser to make a request to the Livescience web server.
2 TCP CHANNEL
Your web browser opens a connection called a TCP channel. Its job is to link you to livescience.com.
3 HTTP REQUEST
Your browser then sends an HTTP GET request. It’s asking to GET the contents of the Livescience homepage.
4 MODEM
Your computer passes the digital request to your modem. It takes the request and converts it into an analogue message that can pass through underground cables.
5 ROUTER
The request enters a network of cables underground. It passes through a series of computers called routers, which send it on towards the Livescience web server.
6 DOMAIN NAME SERVER
The Livescience web server has a unique address called an IP address. The domain name server keeps a record of that address to help the network work out where to send your request.
7 WEB SERVER
The Livescience web server stores all the pages and data for livescience.com. When it receives your GET request, it sends the data back to your computer.
8 PACKETS
There’s a lot of content on a Livescience web page: text, images and even video. It’s possible for the web server to send it all at once, but if anything goes wrong it needs to send the whole lot again. To get around this, the server splits the content into small parcels called packets. They travel through the network separately, often via different routes. Your browser checks each packet for errors and reassembles them to build the web page. If one packet gets lost or damaged, the server only has to send a small amount of data again.