World Wide Web as Spider Web
Did you ever look at a spider web?
At first sight, it appears to be nothing more than a complex design of very fine lines. But on closer observation, one realizes that each line is linked together into one complicated web.
And surprisingly, the World Wide Web is quite alike it.
Each time you visit any website, by clicking different links and going from one page to another, you travel through the extensive web comprising a number of interlinked pages.
Let us now think of the World Wide Web as a spider web.
Every Website is a Node of the Web
Imagine a spider web stretching across from one tree to the other.
The different parts of the spider web are linked by threads. Likewise, every website can be considered as a node of this web in the virtual world.
There are also websites on news, shopping, blogging, social networking, business sites, education sites, etc.
Despite the fact that they may be completely diverse in their nature, they together form one giant network.
One can switch between websites by following links.
And this is exactly where the comparison becomes intriguing.
Connections Web's Relevance
A spider moves around in the web using the strands of the web.
In the World Wide Web, we move from one site to another through the use of hyperlinks.
For example, you have gone through an article regarding web designing.
WWhen you click on this specific article, you get an active link to the site on HTML. Once at the HTML site, you proceed to the CSS website and watch some tutorials on this site.
Within no time, you have moved around on many different sites.
But, in reality, you have not moved anywhere but have just moved around in digital webs.
Search Engines Aid In Finding The Correct Threads
Think of looking for one strand of a huge spider web that covers the entire globe.
That is going to be hard to do.
The World Wide Web is huge, and search engines help us out.
When searching for certain information, a search engine like Google helps us in finding those pages that may prove to be useful to us.
Instead of moving from one thread to another in a random fashion, we can find the right path through the help of the search engine.
We make a query, get an answer, and then we move to another strand of the web.
One Page Could Connect to Thousands of Others
There are parts of a spider web where there are a lot of connections between the strands.
This is exactly how it happens on the Internet.
There may be some pages that may be connected by hundreds of links and even thousands of links to other pages.
This leads to a huge network of connections.
That is exactly why the name World Wide Web fits perfectly.
It is not just a collection of independent websites.
It is a web where pages are connected and exchange information in order to help users navigate through various sites.
Growth of the Web
The spider may continue building its web, repairing it, and enlarging it.
In the same way, the World Wide Web continues to grow everyday.
- New sites appear online.
- Blog posts are written and published.
- Companies build their online stores.
- Video clips, articles, how-to guides, pictures, and various other pieces of data are uploaded.
The creation of each new web page involves creating links to web pages that already exist.
Final Word
The next time you make a click, imagine yourself stepping from one thread on an enormous spider web.
You could visit one page following a click.
You could visit another page after making another click.
And everything – the pages and links and websites – is interlinked on one enormous web of cyberspace.
That is how the World Wide Web works.
It could be found on computer servers, but it shares many things in common with something spiders have been weaving for millions of years.