Learn · Web development
When you type an address, your browser asks a server for that page, the server sends back files (HTML for structure, CSS for style, JavaScript for behavior), and the browser assembles them into what you see. The whole exchange usually takes under a second and repeats every time you click.
Behind the address is DNS, which turns a name like example.com into the numeric address of the server that holds the site. Your browser connects to that server, requests the page, and renders the response. For a simple site the files are ready-made. For a dynamic one the server builds the page on the spot.
Everything else in web development is detail on top of this loop: making it fast, making it work on phones, connecting it to data, and making it do more than display text.
Updated July 2026
Related
The frontend is everything the user sees and interacts with in the browser: layout, buttons, text, and animations. The backend is the server side the user never sees: the database, the business logic, and the code that decides what data to send. Frontend is the storefront, backend is the warehouse.
A web server is a computer (usually one you rent in a data center) that stores your website and sends it to visitors when they request it. It listens for browser requests, finds or builds the right page, and returns it. It runs continuously so your site is available at any hour.
A domain is your address (example.com). Hosting is the land and building the site actually sits on (a server that stores your files and serves them to visitors). You rent the domain from a registrar and rent hosting from a host. You need both, and they can come from different providers.