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Technology Infrastructure: The Internet and the World Wide Web

Noteworthy is the increase from 2010 to 2011, a year in which the number of Web
sites doubled. This exceptional growth was driven in part by the large number of new Web
sites opening in developing countries, primarily in Asia and Eastern Europe. Since 2011, 77
this worldwide growth has continued, averaging 15 percent each year.

The Deep Web
In addition to Web pages that are specifically programmed to exist in a permanent form,
the Web provides access to customized Web pages that are created in response to a
particular user’s query. Such Web pages pull their content from databases. For example, if
you visit Amazon.com and search for a book about “online business,” computers at
Amazon.com query their databases of information about books and create a Web page
that is a customized response to your search. The Web page that lists your search results
never existed before your visit. This store of information that is available through the Web
is called the deep Web.
Researchers estimate the number of possible pages in the deep Web to be in the
trillions. The deep Web can be difficult or impossible to search because its information is
not stored on the Web, but in databases that are searched only when a user requests that
information through the Web site that maintains the database.

Domain Names
The founders of the Internet were concerned that users might find the dotted decimal
notation difficult to remember. To make the numbering system easier to use, they created
an alternative addressing method that uses words. In this system, an address such as
www.cengage.com is called a domain name. Domain names are sets of words that are
assigned to specific IP addresses. Domain names can contain two or more word groups
separated by periods. The rightmost part of a domain name is the most general. Each part
of the domain name becomes more specific as you move to the left.
For example, the domain name www.sandiego.edu contains three parts separated by
periods. Beginning at the right, the name “edu” indicates that the computer belongs to an
educational institution. The institution, University of San Diego, is identified by the name
“sandiego.” The “www” indicates that the computer is running software that makes it a
part of the World Wide Web. Most, but not all, Web addresses follow this “www” naming
convention. For example, the group of computers that operate the Yahoo! Games service
is named games.yahoo.com.
The rightmost part of a domain name is called a top-level domain (TLD). For many
years, these domains have included a group of generic domains—such as .edu, .com,
and .org—and a set of country domains. Since 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) has had the responsibility of managing domain names
and coordinating them with the IP address registrars. ICANN is also responsible for
setting standards for the router computers that make up the Internet. Since taking over
these responsibilities, ICANN has added a number of new TLDs. Some of these TLDs are
generic top-level domains (gTLDs), which are available to specified categories of users.
ICANN is itself responsible for the maintenance of gTLDs. Other new domains are

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