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How the Web Works

How the Web Works – From URL to Render

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes when you type a URL and hit Enter? This post explains how the web works—step by step—in simple terms every developer should understand.

1. DNS Lookup

When you enter a web address like www.example.com, your browser doesn’t know the server location yet. It asks a DNS (Domain Name System) to resolve that domain name into an IP address like 192.0.2.1.

2. TCP Connection

Once the IP is known, your browser uses the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) to open a connection to the server on port 80 (HTTP) or 443 (HTTPS).

3. HTTP Request

The browser sends a request to the server, usually starting with something like:


GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
User-Agent: Chrome/117.0

4. Server Response

The server receives the request and returns an HTTP response. This usually contains HTML content, but may also include headers, cookies, and links to CSS, JS, and images.


HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html

<html>
  <head><title>Example Site</title></head>
  <body>Hello, world!</body>
</html>

5. Browser Rendering

The browser parses the HTML, builds the DOM (Document Object Model), downloads any external stylesheets and scripts, executes JavaScript, and paints the final page you see.

6. Additional Requests

If the HTML refers to external files (like images, CSS, JS), the browser sends additional HTTP requests to fetch them and continue rendering.

7. User Interaction

Any interaction from the user (form submission, clicking links, AJAX requests) creates more HTTP requests, repeating parts of this cycle.

Why Understanding This Matters

Knowing how the web works improves your ability to debug issues, optimize performance, secure applications, and collaborate better across frontend and backend teams.

Conclusion

Whether you’re building UIs or APIs, having a mental model of how browsers and servers interact is essential for every modern developer.

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