What Happens When You Visit a Website
Follow a request from your browser to a distant server and back.
A Simple Click, A Big Journey
Visiting a website feels instant, but a lot happens in that split second. Let's follow one request from your browser to a distant server and back.
Step 1: Resolving the Name
First, your device asks the Domain Name System (DNS) to turn the web address you typed into a numeric IP address. If this lookup fails, the page will not load.
All lessons in this course
- The Internet as a Network of Networks
- What Happens When You Visit a Website
- Internet Service Providers and Backbones
- Bandwidth, Throughput, and Latency Basics