HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. A protocol is a method of communicating.

HTTP is a protocol of communicating based on a defined set of rules. It is a method of communicating between the browser (also known as the client) and the server (the machine that stores your HTML files).

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is a web address.

A domain name is the name of your web site. For example:

The domain name for ABC, Inc., a commercial company, is abc.com.

The domain name for the White House is whitehouse.gov.

The domain name for the New School is http://www.nsu.newschool.edu/.

When we want to access a web page, we can use its exact URL (web address). If we want to get to the home page of ABC, we just type the URL:

http://www.abc.com

Notice that we did not have to type http://www.abc.com/index.html. This is because all servers are configured to load the index.html page when you type in a domain name.

The default for a home page is usually saved as index.htm or index.html, but an ISP (Internet Service Provider) can configure the web server to have your home page be default.htm, or any other name you wish to give it. It makes life easier for everyone if you stick to the convention of naming your home page index.htm or index.html.

It is very important to remember that the first page of your site will be named index.htm or index.html. Naming your home page index3.htm, for example, will not work and would require the user to type in the domain name followed by /index3.htm. Not a good idea.

Now that you know a little HTML, go ahead create your first HTML page. Save the page in a new folder, where you will be saving all your HTML files, as well as images you will later create.

Notice that, while your home page HTML document should be named index.htm or index.html, any other HTML page should be saved with a name that reflects its content. The file names should be kept brief and contain letters, numbers or the underscore (shift+dash) character. Any other irregular characters, such as the question mark, percentage sign or others, will prevent your page from displaying.