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...