You are reading this on the Internet, which is currently home to approximately 1.9 billion websites. Oddly enough, though, it hasn’t been that long since the entire internet had a single website. This was the first website created in the world, launched on August 6, 1991.
It may have been a simple text-based site with information about the World Wide Web project, but that web page was the seed that preceded all the websites that would quickly populate the digital landscape for the next three decades. We are fascinated by telling the story of that first website on the internet.
The World Wide Web Project
Cyberpunks may have fantasies about the Internet being a radically decentralized, peer-to-peer, non-hierarchical space, but the truth is, we have the government to thank for the World Wide Web. More precisely, we have to thank the collaboration between multiple European governments in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
The World Wide Web (WWW) Project at CERN was led by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. He was trying to solve the problem of how to share information, data and resources between different devices in various places.
Berners-Lee proposed a solution that used hypertext to connect (or “link”) documents stored on separate computers, as long as both machines were connected to a new network called the Internet. Although his first proposal was rejected, his second chance got the backing of his management and went into production.
To make his vision a reality, Berners-Lee first had to develop Hypertext Markup Language (or HTML, the language used to encode web pages), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (or HTTP, the protocol used to get HTML files ) and Uniform Resource Locators (or URLs, the addresses used to access a web page).
More than 30 years later, HTML, HTTP, and URLs still form the backbone of the Internet we use today.
What was the first website?
Despite literally limitless domain name options, Berners-Lee decided to launch the world’s first website at a wildly forgettable address. While that domain now hosts information about the first website, versions of that website are still out there. available to view.
If someone had navigated to that address in 1991, they would have found a wonderful retro version of the website:
Since the green-on-black computer output of the early 1990s is likely to make modern Internet users’ heads spin, CERN has also created an updated version of the website more suitable for today’s browsers:
But what was really on the world’s first website? Well, since the website was meant to be the starting point for a huge network of interconnected websites, the Internet we know today, the first site included instructions on how to create other websites.
Provided resources for developers to understand HTML, HTTP, and URLs, and explained how hyperlinks can be used to link to content.
There were no ads, no pictures, nothing to sell and nothing to distract you. Berners-Lee simply wanted to inspire others to use the technology he had created to create digital spaces for themselves and become more connected. His only call to action was to learn and create.
The growth of the web and the loss of the first website
Berners-Lee launched the first website in mid-1991 and by 1992 there had been a 1,000% increase in the number of websites. That is, by 1992 there were ten live web pages.
By 1994, the World Wide Web had really gained some momentum, with more than 3,000 websites accessible on the Internet. At this point, it was possible to list all the websites in published directories, like a phone book.
However, physical directories became obsolete and inconvenient in just a couple of years. By 1996, more than 2 million websites had been published, which is when Google was launched to help the growing base of Internet users find their way around cyberspace.
This is where we need to clarify: the screenshot of “the first website” above is not the original site that Berners-Lee created. With all the excitement about the success and growth of his project, the first website was lost on the Internet.
We only have the above example thanks to the work of Internet historians, who in 2013 launched a project to recover and revive the first website in history. Fortunately, it turned out that Berners-Lee himself had made a copy of his entire original website on a floppy disk, which was then tracked down and used to relaunch the site.
It now exists as a kind of online exhibit that anyone can visit to gaze into the digital past.
Steve Jobs helped create the World Wide Web
Granted, this last subtitle may be a bit misleading since Steve Jobs never worked at CERN, let alone the WWW Project. However, the creator of Apple had a small part in the success of it.
This is because the computer that Berners-Lee used to create and host the first website was a NeXT computer designed by Steve Jobs.
While it may be surprising to hear such a familiar name appear in this story, it’s worth keeping in mind that the early computing community was relatively small.
We can all spend our lives online nowadays, but when the first website was launched, Internet users were part of a tight-knit club. Berners-Lee and his contemporaries envisioned a future unimaginable to most.
Carlos is a professional in digital marketing, eCommerce and website builders. He loves helping businesses grow online through his tips. In his free time, he is surely singing or practicing martial arts.
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