Appendix — HTML Basics

Exhibit 25.63   HTML tree and tags.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the standard markup language for creating and designing web pages and web applications. It serves as the backbone of web development, structuring content on the World Wide Web (WWW). HTML consists of a series of elements that define the structure and meaning of content on a webpage. These elements are represented by tags, enclosed in angle brackets < >, and typically appear in pairs—an opening tag and a closing tag.

HTML allows developers to describe the structure of text-based information in a document, including headings, paragraphs, lists, links, images, forms, and more. It also supports the embedding of multimedia elements such as audio and video.

When a web browser loads an HTML document, it interprets the HTML code and renders the content based on the instructions provided by the HTML elements. Together with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript, HTML forms the foundation of modern web development, enabling the creation of visually appealing and interactive web experiences.

This appendix imparts a basic understanding of HTML for beginners to appreciate how spiders traverse the tree structure to navigate and scrape web pages. For those interested in learning how to create a webpage, you can refer to resources like W3Schools for detailed guidance.