Surfing the Net

Usually, the Internet is simply called the net. Most of the places that we visit on the Internet are part of the World Wide Web (www).

The web, as it is often called, consists of so many websites that we can't count them. Schools, stores, newspapers, and magazines have their own websites. Local governments have websites. Even some families and individuals have their own websites.

Each of these websites has an address, like www.yourname.com. The www stands for World Wide Web. A web address, or domain name, is called an URL. This stands for Uniform Resource Locator. You use the address to locate the website you want to visit.

We call visiting a number of different websites surfing the net. This term originally referred to riding the waves of an ocean on a surfboard. While surfing is still a popular sport, the term has a new meaning made popular by Internet users.

You can think of the web as a great big ocean of information, and each website as a wave that you can surf, or read. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between surfing waves and surfing the web. When you're surfing waves, your ride will end. But when you're surfing the web, you can surf from one site to another indefinitely.