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If you are new to the world of web site building, let me go over some general things that you should know. A web site is actually a collection of web pages that are stored on a server that is connected to the Internet under the same folder. Most of you are familiar with the term www.whatever.com as a web site, and all pages on that site will be under that name, in other words, www.whatever.com/index.html and www.whatever.com/contact-us.html for instance.  This actually means that somewhere in the world, there is an internet server with a folder on it that has these web pages stored on it. A Domain Name Service (DNS) server stores a "pointer" that directs the domain name www.whatever.com to this folder on the internet server or "web server". When you enter an address in your browser bar. the browser sends your request to it’s DNS server to see where the folder (website) you are looking for is located.  DNS server points ("resolves" is the official term)  the browser to the server (actually the proper folder on that server), the contents of your web page is retrieved, and sent to your browser.  A "Browser" is simply a generic term for software that displays web pages, you may use Internet Explorer or Firefox as your browser.  There are many other less well known browsers out there.

Your browser will assemble the page according to its instructions to be displayed.  A so-called "Markup Language" is used to instruct the browser how to build the page. 

Most pages are built in "Hypertext Markup Language", or HTML. This is what the :"HTML" means at the end of the web site address, or URL.

Next we will deal with exactly what a URL is.  Understanding this is critically important for a novice at building web sites, please do yourself a favor and read this next section.