WWW
Technology & Computing abbreviation · Internet & Web
| Stands for | World Wide Web |
|---|---|
| Categories | Technology & Computing |
WWW stands for World Wide Web, an Internet & web abbreviation.
The system of interlinked hypertext pages, images and other resources reached through browsers using URLs and HTTP. The web is one service running on the internet, alongside email, file transfer and many others, though the two words are often used interchangeably.
Example: Typing the WWW prefix is optional on most sites today, since both versions load the same homepage.
Usage notes
Proposed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in March 1989; the first website went live in 1991, and CERN released the technology royalty-free in April 1993. The "www." at the start of many addresses is just a conventional subdomain name. Spoken aloud, the abbreviation has more syllables than the phrase it replaces, a quirk famously noted by Douglas Adams.
Related abbreviations
More Internet & web abbreviations
- .com – Commercial (top-level domain)
- .edu – Education (top-level domain)
- .gov – Government (top-level domain)
- .net – Network (top-level domain)
- .org – Organization (top-level domain)
- a11y – Accessibility
- AJAX – Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
- AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages
- ARIA – Accessible Rich Internet Applications
- ASP – Active Server Pages
- BBS – Bulletin board system
- BEM – Block Element Modifier