Introduction to Internet:

Web technologies related to the interface between web servers and their clients.
This information includes markup languages, programming interfaces and
languages, and standards for document identification and display. In general web
technology incorporates tools and techniques for web development.

Web Development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web
site for World Wide Web. This can include web design, web content
development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and
network security configuration, and e- commerce development. However,
among web professionals, "web development" usually refers to the main non-
design aspects of building web sites: writing markup and coding. Web
development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain
text to the most complex web-based internet applications, electronic businesses,
or social network services.

Web design is a broad term used to encompass the way that content (usually
hypertext or hypermedia) is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide
Web, using a web browser or other web-enabled software is displayed. The
intent of web design is to create a website—a collection of online content
including documents and applications that reside on a web servers. A website
may include text, images, sounds and other content, and may be interactive.

For the typical web sites, the basic aspects of design are:

- The content: the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to
the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.

- The usability: the site should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation
simple and reliable.

- The appearance: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows
throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and
relevant.

- The structure: of the web site as a whole.

Internet and its Evolution:

Internet is a short form of the technical term internetwork, the result of

interconnecting computer networks with special gateways or routers. The Internet
is also often referred to as the Net. The Internet is a massive network of networks,
a networking infrastructure. It connects millions of computers together globally,
forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other
computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. Information that
travels over the Internet does so via a variety of languages known as protocols.
The Internet is loosely connected compared with the randomized graph.
The Internet is a globally distributed network comprising many voluntarily
interconnected autonomous networks. It operates without a central governing
body. However, to maintain interoperability, all technical and policy aspects of
the underlying core infrastructure and the principal name spaces are
administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN).

The history of the Internet starts in the 1950s and 1960s with the
development of computers. This began with point-to-point communication
between mainframe computers and terminals, expanded to point-to- point
connections between computers and then early research into packet switching.

Since the mid-1990s the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and
commerce, including the rise of near instant communication by electronic mail,
instant messaging, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) "phone calls", two-way
interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums,
blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites.

World Wide Web:

WWW is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the

Internet. The World Wide Web, or simply Web, is a way of accessing
information over the medium of the Internet. It is an information-sharing model
that is built on top of the Internet. The Web uses the HTTP protocol, only one of
the languages spoken over the Internet, to transmit data. Web services, which use
HTTP to allow applications to communicate in order to exchange business logic,
use the Web to share information. The Web also utilizes browsers, such as
Internet Explorer or Firefox, to access Web documents called Web pages that are
linked to each other via hyperlinks. Web documents also contain graphics,
sounds, text and video.

The Web is one of the services that runs on the Internet. It is a collection of
textual documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs,
transmitted by web browsers and web servers. The Web is just one of the
ways that information can be disseminated over the Internet, so the Web is
just a portion of the Internet. In short, the Web can be thought of as an
application "running" on the Internet

What is Hypertext?

Hypertext provides the links between different documents and different

document types. In a hypertext document, links from one place in the document
to another are included with the text. By selecting a link, you are able to jump
immediately to another part of the document or even to a different document. In
the WWW, links can go not only from one document to another, but from one
computer to another
World Wide Consortium:

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international

standards organization for the World Wide Web. W3C was created to ensure
compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new
standards. Prior to its creation, incompatible versions of HTML were offered by
different vendors, increasing the potential for inconsistency between web pages.
The consortium was created to get all those vendors to agree on a set of core
principles and components which would be supported by everyone.

Web Page:

A web page is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World
Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a
monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML
format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links. Web
pages frequently subsume other resources such as style sheets, scripts and images
into their final presentation.

Web pages may be retrieved from a local computer or from a remote web
server. The web server may restrict access only to a private network, e.g. a
corporate intranet, or it may publish pages on the World Wide Web. Web pages
are requested and served from web servers using Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP).

Web pages may consist of files of static text and other content stored
within the web server's file system (static web pages), or may be constructed by
server-side software when they are requested (dynamic web pages). Client-side
scripting can make web pages more responsive to user input once on the client
browser.

Web Site:

A website or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images,

videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web
server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area
network through an Internet address known as a Uniform Resource Locator. All
publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web. Web
sites can be static or dynamic.

Static Website:

A static website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the format that
is sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in Hypertext Markup
Language, HTML.

Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as classic website, a

five-page website or a brochure website are often static websites, because they
present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information
about a company and its products and services via text, photos, animations,
audio/video and interactive menus and navigation.
This type of website usually displays the same information to all visitors.
Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a static
website will generally provide consistent, standard information for an extended
period of time. Although the website owner may make updates periodically, it
is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other content and may require
basic website design skills and software.
In summary, visitors are not able to control what information they receive via a
static website, and must instead settle for whatever content the website owner
has decided to offer at that time.
Dynamic Website:
A dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently and
automatically, based on certaincriteria.
Dynamic websites can have two types of dynamic activity: Code and Content.
Dynamic code is invisible orbehind the scenes and dynamic content is visible or
fully displayed.

The first type is a web page with dynamic code. The code is constructed
dynamically on the fly usingactive programming language instead of plain, static
HTML.

The second type is a website with dynamic content displayed in plain view.
Variable content isdisplayed dynamically on the fly based on certain criteria,
usually by retrieving content stored in a database

URLs and DNS:

 IP addresses are not convenient for users to remember easily. So an IP

address can be represented bya natural language convention called a
domain name

 Domain name system (DNS) translates domain

names into IP addresses. DNS isthe “phone book” for
the Internet, it maps between host names and IP
addresses.

 A uniform resource locator (URL), which is the address used by a

Web browser to identify thelocation of content on the Web, also uses a
domain name as part of the URL.

 Syntax: scheme: scheme-depend-part. Example: In

http://www.example.com/, the scheme is http.

Overview of different protocols: HTTP, POP, SMTP, FTP, WAP

HTTP
HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, FTP for File Transfer Protocol, while
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. All three are used to transfer
information over a computer network and are an integral part of today’s internet.
Why do we need three Protocols for transferring files?
We need the three protocols as they all serve different purposes. These are HTTP,
FTP, and SMTP.
HTTP is the backbone of the World Wide Web (WWW). It defines the format of
messages through which Web Browsers (like Firefox, Chrome) and Web Servers
communicate, whilst also defining how a web browser should respond to a particular
web browser request.
FTP is the underlying protocol that is used to, as the name suggests, transfer files
over a communication network. It establishes two TCP connections: Control
Connection to authenticate the user, and Data Connection to transfer the files.
SMTP is what is used by Email servers all over the globe to communicate with each
other so that the assignment you submitted at 11:59 pm reaches your professor’s
inbox within the deadline.
How do their implementations differ?
All three are Application Layer Protocols, using TCP as the underlying Transport
layer protocol. But the way they use it and are implemented in general is vastly
different. The below table briefly differentiates between them.
Parameter HTTP FTP SMTP

Port number 80 20 and 21 25

State Stateless Maintains state –

2 (Data Connection
Number of TCP
1 and Control 1
connections
Connection)

Persistent for
Can use both
Type of TCP Control connection.
Persistent and Non- Persistent
connection Non-persistent for
persistent
Data Connection
Parameter HTTP FTP SMTP

Transfer files between

Transfer directly Transfers mails
Type of Transfer the Web server and
between computers via Mail Servers
Web client

HTTP is stateless. A Stateless protocol implies that the HTTP Web Server does not
maintain which request had originated from which user. Hence, to give customized
service to the user, HTTP uses Cookies.
FTP is Out-of-band, as it uses a separate channel to send data (Data connection), as to
send control information (Control connection).
As SMTP is much older than HTTP, it restricts all its messages to be in 7-
bit ASCII format. Whereas HTTP has no such restriction.
HTTP encapsulates each file in a different HTTP message. Whereas, SMTP places all
the contents of a mail in a single message.

POP Protocol

The POP protocol stands for Post Office Protocol. As we know that SMTP is used as
a message transfer agent. When the message is sent, then SMPT is used to deliver the
message from the client to the server and then to the recipient server. But the message
is sent from the recipient server to the actual server with the help of the Message
Access Agent. The Message Access Agent contains two types of protocols, i.e., POP3
and IMAP.

How is mail transmitted?

Suppose sender wants to send the mail to receiver. First mail is transmitted to the
sender's mail server. Then, the mail is transmitted from the sender's mail server to the
receiver's mail server over the internet. On receiving the mail at the receiver's mail
server, the mail is then sent to the user. The whole process is done with the help of
Email protocols. The transmission of mail from the sender to the sender's mail server
and then to the receiver's mail server is done with the help of the SMTP protocol. At
the receiver's mail server, the POP or IMAP protocol takes the data and transmits to
the actual user.

Since SMTP is a push protocol so it pushes the message from the client to the server.
As we can observe in the above figure that SMTP pushes the message from the client
to the recipient's mail server. The third stage of email communication requires a pull
protocol, and POP is a pull protocol. When the mail is transmitted from the recipient
mail server to the client which means that the client is pulling the mail from the server.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension

(MIME) is a standard that was proposed by Bell Communications in
1991 in order to expand the limited capabilities of email.
MIME is a kind of add-on or a supplementary protocol that allows non-
ASCII data to be sent through SMTP. It allows the users to exchange
different kinds of data files on the Internet: audio, video, images, application
programs as well.
Why do we need MIME?
Limitations of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP):
1. SMTP has a very simple structure
2. Its simplicity however comes with a price as it only sends messages in
NVT 7-bit ASCII format.
3. It cannot be used for languages that do not support 7-bit ASCII format
such as French, German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese, etc. so it
cannot be transmitted using SMTP. So, in order to make SMTP more
broad, we use MIME.
4. It cannot be used to send binary files or video or audio data.
Purpose and Functionality of MIME –
Growing demand for Email Messages as people also want to express
themselves in terms of Multimedia. So, MIME another email application is
introduced as it is not restricted to textual data.
MIME transforms non-ASCII data at the sender side to NVT 7-bit
data and delivers it to the client SMTP. The message on the receiver side is
transferred back to the original data. As well as we can send video and audio
data using MIME as it transfers them also in 7-bit ASCII data.

Wireless Application Protocol

The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a set of communication protocols and

an application programming model based on the World Wide Web (WWW). Its
hierarchical structure is quite similar to the TCP/IP protocol stack design.

What is Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)?

WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol. It is a protocol designed for micro-
browsers and it enables access to the internet in mobile devices. It uses the markup
language WML (Wireless Markup Language and not HTML), WML is defined as
an XML 1.0 application. It enables the creation of web applications for mobile
devices. In 1998,
WAP Forum was founded by Ericson, Motorola, Nokia and Unwired Planet whose
aim was to standardize the various wireless technologies via protocols. WAP
protocol resulted from the joint efforts of the various members of WAP Forum. In
2002, WAP forum was merged with various other forums in the industry resulting in
the formation of

WAP Model
The user opens the mini-browser in a mobile device. He selects a website that he
wants to view. The mobile device sends the URL encoded request via network to a
WAP gateway using WAP protocol.

The WAP gateway translates this WAP request into a conventional HTTP URL
request and sends it over the internet. The request reaches to a specified web
server and it processes the request just as it would have processed any other request
and sends the response back to the mobile device through WAP gateway in WML
file which can be seen in the micro-browser.

WEB ARCHITECTURE :

Client/Server Architecture:

 HTTP is based on the request-response communication model:

o Client sends a request
o Server sends a response
o HTTP is a stateless protocol: where the
protocol does not require the serverto
remember anything about the client between
requests.
 Normally implemented over a TCP connection
(80 is standard port number forHTTP)

 The following is the typical browser-server interaction using HTTP:

1. User enters Web address in browser
2. Browser uses DNS to locate IP address
3. Browser opens TCP connection to server
4. Browser sends HTTP request over connection
5. Server sends HTTP response to browser over connection
6. Browser displays body of response in the client area of the browser
window

 A model of computing in which powerful personal computers are

connected in a network together with one or more servers

 Client is a powerful personal computer that is part of a network; service

requester

 Server is a networked computer dedicated to common functions that the

client computers on thenetwork need; service provider

 Web is based on client/server technology. Web servers are included as part

of a larger package of internet and intranet related programs for serving e-
mail, downloading requests for FTP files and building and publishing web
pages. Typically the e-commerce customer is the client and the
business is the server. In the client/ server model single machine can be
both client and the server The client/ server model utilises a database
server in which RDBMS user queries can be answered directly by the
server.

Th
e

Fig: Client/ Server Model

 architecture reduces network traffic by providing a query response to the
user rather than transferring total files. The client/ server model improves
multi-user updating through a graphical user interface (GUI) front end to
the shared database. In client/ server architectures client and server
typically communicate through statements made in structured query
language (SQL).

Web Clients:

It typically refers to the Web browser in the user's machine. It is a software

application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the
web server. It is used to create a HTTP request message and for processing the
HTTP response message.

User agent: Any web client is designed to directly support user access to web
servers is known as user agent. Web browsers can run on desktop or laptop
computers. Some of the browsers are: Internet Explorer, Mozilla, FireFox,
Chrome, Safari, Opera, Netscape Navigator.

Web Browsers:

Browsers are software programs that allow you to search and view the many
different kinds of information that's available on the World Wide Web. The
information could be web sites, video or audio information.

Status Bar: You will find the status bar at the very bottom of your browser
window. It basically tells you what you are doing at the moment. Mainly, it
shows you load speed and the URL address of whatever your mouse is hovering
over.

Title Bar: You will find this bar at the absolute top of your browser and in will
be the colour blue for the major browsers. The purpose of the Title bar is to
display the title of the web page that you are currently viewing.

Menu Bar: The menu bar contains a set of dropdown menus

Navigational Tool: A bar contains standard push button controls that allow the
user to return to a previously viewed page, to reverse and refresh the page, to
display the home page and to print the page etc.

Toolbar Icons: You will find the Toolbar directly under the Title Bar. The
Toolbar is where you will find the back button, home button and the refresh
button etc.

Client Area: It is a display window which is the space in which you view the
website.

Scroll Bars: The Scroll bars, usually located to the right of the Display Window,
allows you to "scroll" (move down or up the web page) so you can view info
rmation that is below or above what is currently in the Display Window.

The role of web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer is to find
the web server on which your website data is located. Once the browser finds
your server, it reads the request and processes the information.

Web Servers:

Basic functionality:
 It receives HTTP request via TCP
 It maps Host header to specific virtual host (one of
many host names sharing an IPaddress)
 It maps Request-URI to specific resource associated with the virtual host
o File: Return file in HTTP response
o Program: Run program and return output in HTTP response

 It maps type of resource to appropriate MIME type and use to set

Content-Type header in HTTPresponse
 It Logs information about the request and response
 All e-commerce site require basic Web server
software to answer requests fromcustomers like ;
o Apache
 Leading Web server software (47% of market)
 Works with UNIX, Linux , Windows OSs
o Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS)
 Second major Web server software (25% of market)
 Windows-based
What are web servers used for?
Web servers are primarily used to process and manage HTTP/HTTPS requests
and responses from the client system.A web server can also perform several other
functions, such as:

o Store and protect website data: A web server can store and protect
critical website data from unauthorized users.
o Control bandwidth to regulate network traffic: A web server can help
eliminate the downtime caused by high web traffic. Web hosts can set
 bandwidth to manage the rate of data transmission over the internet and
minimize the excess network traffic.
o Server-side web scripting: The server-side web scripting feature
enables users to create dynamic web pages using scripting languages
such as Ruby, Python, and PHP.
o Virtual hosting: Web servers can also be used as virtual servers to run
multiple applications, websites, data, and other services.

Setting up web servers, Logging users :

 Step 1 - The computer: A Web server requires a dedicated computer

that is directly connected to the Internet, usually through an ethernet
network (LAN/WAN). You can run a Web server on a low-end
computer (80386-based PC or 68040 Macintosh), but if you want your
server to be responsive to Web surfers you should probably use a more
powerful computer (such as a Pentium or PowerPC-based Macintosh).
A Web server needs a fast and large hard drive and should have lots of
RAM (over 16 MB).
 Step 2 - The operating system software: The following operating
systems can support a Web server: Windows/NT, Windows/95,
MacOS, Unix, and Linux. Of these, most of the existing Web servers
run on Windows/NT, MacOS (on a PowerMac) or Unix. Linux is a
PC/DOS-based version of Unix.
 Step 3 - The networking software: All Internet computers need
TCP/IP, and a Web server is no exception. As stated above, your
computer should be directly connected to the Internet and thus may
require appropriate ethernet software.
 Step 4 - The Web server software: There are a variety of Web server
programs available for a variety of platforms, from Unix to DOS
machines. For the Macintosh, a popular Web server is WebStar from
StarNine. For the Windows/NT platform, both Microsoft and Netscape
offer a powerful Web server program free to educational institutions .
Download or purchase the Web server software and install it on your
computer using the instructions provided.
 Step 5 - Configuring your Web server: When you install your Web
server, you will be prompted for basic settings - default directory or
folder, whether to allow visitors to see the contents of a directory or
folder, where to store the log file, etc. Depending on the Web software
you install, you will have to configure the software per the instructions
that come with it.
o Step 6 - Managing your Web server: As your Web server is accessed
by more and more people, you may need to monitor the log file to see
which files people are reading, identify peak access times, and consider
upgrading your computer. You can always add more RAM and disk
space to your Web server computer to improve its performance. Also
check for bottlenecks - such as your TCP/IP software. For example,
Open Transport 1.1 from Apple has been modified to support faster
TCP/IP access if installed on a Web server.
Server Choices:
Once you have the right hardware and connection and choose
your operating system, it’s time to set up your software.
How this is done depends on what operating system you’re using,
whether an open source operating system or a proprietary one.
With Windows, you’ll want to install Internet Information
Services (IIS), a web server add-on.

With Linus, you’ll want to install either Apache, Lighttpd,

or NGINX. Apache is the most well-known. You can also install
Apache on a Windows web server.
The installation process for these programs requires you to open
up the ports on your home router and your firewall.

Client-Side Scripting:

 Client-side scripting generally refers to writing the class of computer

programs (scripts) on the web that are executed at client-side, by the
user's web browser, instead of server-side (on the web server). Usually
scripts are embedded in the HTML page itself.

 JavaScript , VBScript, Jscript, Java Applets etc. are the examples of

client side scripting technologies. JavaScript is probably the most
widely used client-side scripting language.

 Client-side scripts have greater access to the information and functions

available on the user's browser, whereas server-side scripts have
greater access to the information and functions available on the server.
Upon request, the necessary files are sent to the user's computer by the
web server (or servers) on which they reside. The user's web browser
executes the script, then displays the document, including any visible
output from the script.

 Client-side scripts may also contain instructions for the browser to

follow in response to certain user actions, (e.g., clicking a button). Often,
these instructions can be followed without further communication with
the server.

Server-Side Scripting:

 Includes writing the applications executed by the server at run-time to

process client input or generate document in response to client request. So
server side script consists the directives embedded in Web page for server
to process before passing page to requestor.

 It is usually used to provide interactive web sites that interface to databases

or other data stores.
  This is different from client-side scripting where scripts are run by the
viewing web browser, usually in JavaScript. The primary advantage to
server-side scripting is the ability to highly customize the response
based on the user's requirements, access rights, or queries into data
stores.
 PHP, JSP, ASP…. etc, are the server side scripting technologies.

Web Standards

Web 2.0:

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory
information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on
the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate
with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content
in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users are limited to the
passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0
include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services,
web applications.

Domain name and hierarchy

Root-level domain

The root-level domain (“”) is the highest hierarchy level of any domain name system.

In other words, the root-level domain is the primary directory where all other
directories reside. It is the parent folder of the top-level domain and all its contents.

Keep in mind that the root-level domain does not have a name. Technically, its name
is an empty string (“”).

Top-level domain

The top-level domain (TLD) is what follows the domain name in a URL.

For instance, in codesweetly.com, com is the top-level domain.

TLD’s initial purpose is to help classify websites based on their purposes, ownership,
or geographical origin.

In other words, the initial intent for each TLD is like so:

 “com” for commercial websites.

 “org” for organizational websites.
 “edu” for educational websites.
 “net” for network organizations.
 “gov” for governmental websites.
 “ca” for Canadian websites.
 “au” for Australian websites.
 “mil” for military websites.
However, IANA has abandoned the restrictions on most TLDs due to the exponential
growth of the internet. Only a few – like “edu”, “gov”, and “mil” – remain restricted
for educational, governmental, and military purposes.

Domain name

A domain name (second-level domain) is your website’s name. In other words, a

domain name is a text that comes after the subdomain.

In www.codesweetly.com, codesweetly is the domain name.

Subdomain

A subdomain (third-level domain) is a subset of a specific website. It allows you to

categorize your website into one or more sections.

Although most people use www as the main section of their website, you are
technically free to categorize your domain as you wish.

So, for instance, suppose we intend to group codesweetly.com into five categories:

 The main section

 The news section
 An online store
 The forum segment
 The projects area

In that case, our site’s five sections could look like so:

 The main section: www.codesweetly.com

 The news section: news.codesweetly.com
 The online store: shop.codesweetly.com
 The forum section: forum.codesweetly.com
 The projects section: projects.codesweetly.com

Domain Name Registration Process

In order to reserve a domain name in a TLD, a domain name registrant must register it
with an ICANN-accredited registrar. The registrar will check if the domain name is
available for registration and create a WHOIS record with the domain name
registrant's information. It is also possible to register domain names through a
registrar's resellers.

The diagram below illustrates the main functions of the parties that are usually
involved in the process.
A domain name registrant is the person or organization who has registered the
domain name. In order to do so, the domain name registrant will usually apply online
to a domain registrar or one of their resellers. The domain name registrant is bound by
the terms and conditions of the registrar with which it registers its domain name, for
instance adhering to a certain code of conduct or indemnifying the registrar and
registry against any legal or civil action taken as a result of use of the domain name.
Domain name registrants have certain responsibilities that are incorporated into these
terms and conditions like payment of registration fees and submission and timely
update of accurate data.

In addition to registering the domain name, domain name registrants also need to have
their domain names listed on name servers in order for that domain name to be
reachable on the Internet. A domain name registrant is responsible for procuring or
hosting his or her own name server if the registrar does not offer this service or he or
she has opted out of the registrar's service.

In some cases, a person or organization who does not wish to have their information
listed in WHOIS may contract with a proxy service provider to register domain
names on their behalf. In this case, the service provider is the domain name registrant,
not the end customer.

Registrars are organizations accredited by ICANN and certified by the registries to

sell domain names. They are bound by the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA)
with ICANN, and by their agreements with the registries. The RAA sets out
responsibilities for the registrar including maintenance of WHOIS data, submission of
data to registries, facilitating public WHOIS queries, ensuring domain name
registrants details are es crowed, and complying with RAA conditions relating to the
conclusion of the domain name registration period.
Some domain name registrants may opt to register through a reseller. These
organizations are affiliated or under contract with registrars, and usually offer other
services such as web hosting, email mailboxes etc. Resellers are bound by their
agreements with the registrar(s) whose services they sell; they are not accredited by
ICANN. However, the registrar for whom they are re-selling will still be the sponsor
for the domain name registration and accountable for the domain names sold by the
reseller.

While registrars are contracted to conduct the day-to-day business of selling domain
name registrations, registries are responsible for maintaining the registry for each
TLD. The responsibilities of the registries include accepting registration requests
(whether from registrars or directly from domain name registrants), maintaining a
database of the necessary domain name registration data and providing name servers
to publish the zone file data (i.e. information about the location of a domain name)
throughout the Internet.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-
profit organization that oversees the assignment of both IP addresses and domain
names. It has responsibility for managing root server and TLD name system
management and has contractual agreements with both registries and registrars that
provide the foundation for the WHOIS system.

Web Design: Web site design principles, planning the site and navigation

Within just 10-15 seconds a visitor landing on your website can decide whether
he/she should stay there or switch from there. No matter how much complex code
you have written in the backend part of your website if your designing part is not
impressive then a user won’t take interest in other things and will move away from
there. Website designing is subjective where a design can be impressive for one user
but the same design might be ugly for another user and that’s the reason it is one of
the most complex and creative jobs for designers. Web designing is not just about
adding content and elements on your website to make it beautiful, it’s also about
how you add everything to make it easy to use.

If the user is unable to determine the purpose of your website, if the user is facing
difficulty in navigating from one page to another page, if the page layout is not
impressive and easy to understand then these all are the sign of paying serious
attention to your website. There are so many factors behind a poor website design
that can leave a bad impression on a user. Let’s discuss some important factors and
tips for effective website design.

1. Have a Purpose and Plan

A user needs a reason to visit an application and that’s why your website should
clearly explain or convey the services or products you are offering to the users.
Your website and each page of it should have a purpose and clear specification that
what it does. According to the goal (entertainment website, e-commerce site, social
media, etc.) of your website make a rough sketch and identify all crucial elements
(like navigation, contact information, call to action, search, footer, buttons, images,
layouts) that you need to include on your website.
Understand your website from users’ points of view and plan according to that.
Before you jump to the code figure out what’s your user’s expectation is, what
pages they are going to view, what content they are going to read and according to
that find out where you want elements to go.

2. Simplicity

Complexity is scary and in web designing less-is-more approach work more

effectively. Make your website simple and try to display one detail at a time for
getting the individual attention of each part. Most people put everything on the same
page whatever they want on their website, which makes the screen cluttered and
users get distracted and confused. Here are some tips to keep in mind for designing
a clean and simple website…

 Don’t overload the information at home page on your website. If there is too
much content or information, keep them on inner pages. Also, make your
website consistent in terms of font-family, font-size, colors, images, headings
and other aspects.
 Include white spaces in your design. Give enough padding, margin, space
between sections, paragraphs, and boxes. It highlights the content and makes
your website easy to use.
 Limit the pull-out menus (drop-downs, fold-outs, etc.) and avoid using sidebars,
sliders, accordions, tabs, and carousels which most of the web designers prefer
to include on the website. The user gets distracted and ignores the rest of the
useful content on the website. A research Notre Dame University also says that
we should avoid using carousels to draw the users’ attention and increase the
number of clicks.

3. Readability

Users should not face difficulty in reading the text on your website so you need to
pay attention to the contrast between your text and its background. A lot of people
use a background image with text over it where the image doesn’t have any overlay
and the text gets blended with the image. You should use some dark overlay over
the image and then the text over that to make your content readable.
The same goes for the colored background, for example, don’t use the dark gray
color background with slightly lighter text over it instead of that use white color text,
that will be more visible and readable. Also, don’t make the font size too small,
keep your body text at least 16pt and take care of whitespaces between elements.
Sans Serif typefaces are much preferable to use on the website.

4. Responsiveness

People use mobile devices for most of their browsing and 50% of web traffic comes
from mobile devices.These all are the reasons that your application should be
viewable on different devices. Text, layout, images all the elements of your website
should be viewable and accessible on different devices for better user experience.
Learn to use CSS grid, media queries, bootstrap frameworks to make your
application responsive or mobile-friendly.

5. Simple Navigation

Visitors will definitely move away from your website if they won’t be able to find
out the things they are looking for and that’s the reason paying attention to the
navigation of your website is extremely important. Navigation organizes your
complete website and guides a user to move around your application. The
navigation menu should be on the top and sticky on your website so if a user scrolls
down the webpage they can still find and access the menu on your website. Below
are some tips to make easy to navigate application…

 Use “three click rule” in your application that allow users to get all the
information they need in 3 clicks.
 More items in the menus confuse the visitors so try to list the items less than 7
also try to avoid dropdown menus, it becomes difficult for search engines to
crawl drop-down menus.
 Brand logo of your website should redirect to a user on homepage.
 You can include some important menu (For example terms of
use/FAQ/contact/blog etc.), a shortened version of your menu or social icons in
your footer.

6. Call To Action

It’s very important in your website to have a clear call to action button or form that
indicates the next step or action user should take on a page to accomplish the task.
For example, buy now, sign up, contact form, subscription, registration form, social
media button, etc. CTA provides some sort of direction to the user once he/she
knows the purpose of the website. Without CTA user won’t be able to find that
whether he/she needs to purchase a product, do some kind of registration or take a
subscription and the user may leave the website without completing the final task.
It’s good if you keep your CTA above the fold so the visitor can find it right in front
of them.

7. Load Speed

People are very impatient and they are not going to wait for too long if your website
speed is slow. Most of the user moves away from the website within just 5 seconds
if they id doesn’t load fast. Size of images or videos makes a big impact on website
speed so try to compress the image before you add it there. Also, combine code into
a central CSS or JavaScript file to reduce the HTTP requests. Minify HTML, CSS,
JavaScript (compressed to speed up their load time). Limit the large items on your
website and choose the right host.
8. Prioritize Scrolling

We have already mentioned that you should avoid sliders or accordions to present a
lot of information on the website. The best way to present more content and fit that
into your website is by using the scrollbar. It has been found in one of
the studies that conversion rates increase by up to 30% when you add scrolling
feature in your webpage.

9. Pick Up The Right Images

A picture says a lot about a website and choosing the right image for your website
can get a lot of visitors. We highly recommend you to use high-quality optimized
speed which doesn’t affect your website speed. You can take the images from
professionals or from photo stock that provide high-quality images with a natural
look. Your image should clearly speak the type of message you want your user to
understand. Adding photos of people can increase the conversion rates of your
website.

10. Color Palette

The color of your website should match the brand of your website. Choosing the
right color to represent your brand is very important. You also need to take care of
contrast while choosing the color. When you are choosing colors for your website it
should go well with each other also your text should be clear and readable. Your
choice of color should not clash with each other for example don’t use purple and
red color next to each other, it will make your site ugly. Use a single color for the
main element (primary), highlights (secondary) and other less-important elements
(background). You also need to keep in mind that your primary, secondary, and
background colors should be consistent throughout your entire site. Vibrant colors
create emotion so it should be used sparingly (e.g. for buttons and call to actions)