Web Navigation Tools

Web Navigation Tools
Prior to the use of Web browsers and the World wide web, there were several internet navigation tools that required more user expertise than the modern browser, including;

· File Transfer Protocol (FTP), a cross-platform protocol for transferring files to and from computers anywhere on the internet.

· Gopher, a tool for browsing files on the internet.

· Usenet, a worldwide messaging system through which anyone can read and post articles to a group of individuals who share the same interest.

· Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), one of a handful of internet search tools that can be spread across the network to scour multiple archives and handle multiple data formats.

· Hyperlink (also called link), a pointer – from text, a picture or a graphic, or form an image map-to a page or file on the World Wide Web; hyperlinks are the primary way to navigate between Web pages and among Web sites.

· A Web browser Is the main piece of software required by the end user to find information through internet. Some of the most popular browsers are: Lynx, Mosaic, Netscape Navigator/Communicator, and internet Explorer. Lynx is a text-only Web browser; was the first “full-featured” graphical browser for the Web. Netscape Navigator/Communicator is one of the most popular Web browsers. Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s Web browser.

Web Resources
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
is a Web resource that describes the protocols needed to access a particular resource or site on the Web, and then point to the resource’s internet location. URLs are, in short, used to locate information on the Web.

Normally the URL is composed of six parts:
1. The protocol or data source (i.e., ftp://, gopher://, news://, telnet://, WAIS://, http://)

2. The domain name (for the Web server where the desired information resides)

3. The port address

4. The directory path (location of the Web page in the Web page in the Web server’s file system)

5. The object name

6. The spot (precise location within the file)

The difference between the World Wide Web and the internet
The World Wide Web (The Web) is only a portion of what makes up the internet, but it is the fastest growing part of the internet. The We lets people, organizations and companies publish information for other people to see. This makes the Web a very useful tool for finding information on just about any topic.

The Web is a large number of computer documents or “Web pages” that are stored on computers around the world and are connected to one another using hyperlinks. These Web pages can be seen by anyone through their computer’s “Web Browser:, which is the program you are using now.

A group of Web pages that follow the same theme and are connected together with hyperlinks is called a “Web site”. Web sites Web pages are written in a coding language that makes it possible to add pictures, sound and interactivity to plain old text, making people’s reading experience more exciting.

Web addresses
As described earlier the Web is a collection of documents (Web pages) stored on computers around the world. Just like very house has a postal code, each Web page has an address describing where it can be found. On the web these addresses are called URLs.

Each URL has several parts which can be demonstrated using the address: http://www.google.com/services/index.htm

http://
this part of the address indicates that it is a web page.

www.
This indicates that the web page you are looking at is part of the world wide web. Many web sites do not use www but are still part of the Web.

Google.com
This part of the address is the domain name and indicates the unique address of a web site. The domain name also often indicates what the site is about, for example www.dog.com is a web site about dogs.

/services/
The “/” symbol indicates you have moved into a specific directory in the web sites. Directories are like the folders on your computer and help to organize web pages in a web site.

Index.htm
A word with “.htm” or “html” following it indicates the name of the specific page in the web site you are looking at.

Thanks for reading.We love comments. share your comments below