Every day, we visit dozens — sometimes hundreds — of websites. You open your browser, type something like www.ranjan.info, hit Enter… and within a second or two, the website loads.
It feels almost instant. But what actually happens under the hood is a fascinating series of events involving networks, servers, and encryption.
Let me walk you through it — in simple terms.
🧩 1. DNS Lookup — Finding the Real Address
The moment you hit Enter, your browser needs to figure out where ranjan.info lives on the internet.
It asks:
“What is the IP address of
www.ranjan.info?”
This question is sent to a DNS server — kind of like the phone book of the internet. It translates human-friendly domain names (like ranjan.info) into a computer-friendly IP address (like 93.184.216.34).
Without DNS, you’d need to memorize long strings of numbers for every site you visit.
🌐 2. Connecting to the Web Server
Now that your browser has the IP address, it can connect to the server where ranjan.info is hosted — which might be located in a data center far away from you.
The browser sends a request that says something like:
“Hi server, please show me the homepage of
ranjan.info.”
🔐 3. Establishing a Secure Connection
Since ranjan.info uses HTTPS, your browser and the server perform a TLS handshake — a quick, secure negotiation to encrypt all the data exchanged between them.
This keeps your browsing private and safe from eavesdroppers.
📦 4. Server Sends the Website Data
The server responds by sending all the necessary components that make up the site — like:
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HTML (structure)
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CSS (design)
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JavaScript (interactivity)
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Images and other media
These pieces of data travel across the internet in small chunks, called packets, and are reassembled by your browser.
🖥️ 5. Browser Builds the Page
Once everything is received, your browser gets to work:
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It reads the HTML to lay out the structure
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Applies CSS styles
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Runs JavaScript code
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Loads and places images
In seconds, you’re looking at a fully functional version of ranjan.info.
⚙️ All That… In Just a Click
From your browser to DNS servers, to remote web servers and back again — a lot happens in the blink of an eye.
As someone who works behind the scenes managing the infrastructure of websites like this one, I never stop appreciating how much coordination is required for everything to “just work.”
💬 Want to Learn More?
This post is part of a series where I simplify how the internet works — from DNS to servers, security, and automation.
If you found this useful:
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Have a question or topic suggestion? Drop a comment or message — I’d love to hear from you.