The World Wide Web and the Internet

The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) are terms that to most people mean about the same thing. While they are related, their definitions are different.

What Is The Internet?

The Internet is at its most basic definition an electronic communications network. It is the structure on which the World Wide Web is based.

What is the World Wide Web?

The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet "designed to allow easier navigation through the use of graphical user interfaces and hypertext links between different addresses" (source:Websters).

The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, and continues to change and expand rapidly. The Web is the user part of the Internet. People use the Web to communicate and access information for business and recreational purposes.

The Web and the Internet - Not The Same Thing

The Internet and the Web work together, but they are not the same thing. The Internet provides the underlying structure, and the Web utilizes that structure to offer content, documents, multimedia, etc.