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Website

A website is made up of a collection of files sitting on a web server. These files usually
include:

 Text files that tell the web browser how to layout the page and what text to include

 Script files (small programs) that add functionality or effects to the webpage
 Image and/or video files

Website Hosting

The files that make up your website have to be put somewhere that people can access. This
somewhere is a computer running web server software. The server takes incoming user
requests and returns your website files to their browser. Web hosts are companies that rent
space on their servers for you to store your website files on. The web host takes care of the
necessary computer hardware, software and connections.

Website Address

Lets say you have a website, how can people reach it? One answer is, by entering your
website address (or “URL” in nerd-speak) into your browser’s address bar. A website has to
have a unique address so that it can be found. Just as real world home addresses are unique to
avoid confusion, website addresses have to be unique also.

How do you get a unique address? By registering a domain name. Examples of domain
names are “ibm.com” and “wikipedia.org”. Our domain name is “helpsme.com”. The
helpsme.com domain name is mapped to the server that stores the files that makes up this
website.

An organization named ICANN coordinates these domain names across the world. This is
necessary so that when you type an address into your browser, you reach the website you
were looking for.

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