Know The Basics

What Every Web Site Owner Should Know KNOW THE BASICS! It is a good idea to have a basic knowledge of how the Internet works. I don’t mean the in depth nuts and bolts, but rather a basic overview. This will help you understand the different processes that are at work and how you can use them to your benefit. If you look at it from the correct perspective, it is surprisingly easy. The Internet is simply a large network of computers. Anyone can connect to it with the right equipment and it is available virtually anywhere on the planet. It is just a system of millions of computers communicating with each other. Each computer or device on the Internet (or almost any network for that matter) has its own unique address (Just just your house). This is known as an IP (Internet Protocol) address. IP addresses are what are used to route data. When you type something.com into your browser the domain name is translated into an IP address. The US Postal Service is a great analogy to use to describe how the Internet works: Let’s say you wanted to get in touch with my dear old Aunt Mildred. You can send a letter to Aunt Mildred who lives in Wisconsin from practically anywhere on the planet. At least anywhere that you can find a mailbox (Oh and don’t send cash of course ...). Mildred’s address is unique. She lives at 123 Main St. Any town, WI 98127. The postal system decodes her address and then routes the letter to the post office nearest Mildred. From there it is sorted further and is placed on a mail truck and eventually it is delivered to her door. Since there is only one address, the mail ends up where it is supposed to be, you can see where there would be a huge problem if there were identical addresses. All of the information flowing across the Internet has been broken down into little packets and each packet has the destination address and return address in the header. A simple email message can be broken down into millions of packets and each packet finds its way to the destination computer where it is rebuilt into its original format. This all happens at the speed of light. In simplest terms TCP/IP is the addressing system every computer on the Internet uses. The Internet “postal system” is known as DNS (Domain Name Service). The DNS system is made up of millions of servers all over the world. There only job is to resolve domain names to IP addresses. While it doesn’t sound like a big job, Billions and Billions of requests are made every hour. TCP/IP and DNS are the backbone of the Internet. The genius of the system is that it is distributed across the globe. In fact, if you so desired, you could run a DNS server yourself. Fortunately, you don’t have to. I know this is a lot to throw at you early on in the book and that it is relatively complicated. You don’t need to commit this to memory however. It is a concept that will need to be familiar with. Later on, we will look into this a bit further. It will all make more sense when we start looking into purchasing your domain name (i.e. whatever.com). For now, just let it percolate in your mind.