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Coding Foundations Beginner 14 minute lesson

How websites, browsers, and servers work

Understand the simple request-and-response cycle behind websites.

What you will learn

  • Explain what a browser does.
  • Describe the role of a server.
  • Follow the high-level path from URL to webpage.

A website is delivered, not teleported

When you visit a site, your browser sends a request. A server receives that request and sends back files such as HTML, CSS, images, or data.

Your browser then assembles those pieces into the page you see on screen.

Mental model

The browser asks, the server answers, and the page appears.

URLs point to resources

A URL is the address that tells the browser where to go. Different URLs can point to different pages, images, or files.

Understanding that address structure helps beginners make sense of navigation and routing later.

Quick example

A homepage URL and an article URL often share the same domain but different paths.

Browsers turn files into experiences

Browsers read HTML to structure content, CSS to style it, and JavaScript to add interaction. You can think of them as translators between web files and human-friendly pages.

That is why frontend languages matter so much when building websites.

Bridge to the next lessons

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript work together in the browser to create what users see.

Mark this lesson complete when the main idea feels clear.

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