The World Wide Web (the Web or WWW) was created in 1989 at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Originally it was created as a method for incorporating footnotes, figures, and cross-references into online hypertext documents in which a reader can click on a word or phrase in a document, and immediately jump to another file. The second file may be located on the same computer or anywhere else on the internet. The WWW organizes widely scattered resources into a seamless whole.

The Web browsers have changed the way people use the Internet. Web pages are now used to distribute news, interactive educational services, product information and catalogs, highways traffic reports, live audio and video, among many other things. Interactive Web pages permit users to consult databases, order products and information, and submit payment with a credit card or other account number.

The latest Web browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, can open file viewers and other application programs automatically when they receive graphic images, audio, video, and other files. Users also can import live, interactive data (such as financial information that changes frequently) and executable programs from the World Wide Web.

The organization of the World Wide Web is built on a set of rules called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and a page description language called HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTTP uses Internet addresses in a special format called a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. The format or URLs is: type: //address/path

Here type specifies the type of server in which the file is located. The address part is the address of the server, and finally the path is the location within the file structure of the server. As an example the URL for the IEEE membership renewal is: http://www.ieee.org/renewal

A document that uses HTTP is known as a Web page. A Web page contains information about a particular subject with links to related Web pages. Many Web sites contain a top-level home page that has pointers to additional pages with more information. For example, a university might have a home page with links to a campus guide, Telnet access to the library, and separate pages for individual departments and offices.

Thousand of new Web pages appear every day, but they are not always easy to find. The World Wide Web does not provide a basic structure for locating resources. To fill this gap, search tools are available online. One of them is Google, Whose URL is https://www.google.com. Google is an extensively directory with menu that lists millions of web sites, organized by topic and a search engine that looks for specified words in titles and addresses of the Web sites in the directories. Other popular search tools include InfoSeek, Lycos, Magellan, and Excite, to name a few.