WebBuilding

Events and eras

The first website (info.cern.ch)

Summary

The first website was a set of pages about the World Wide Web project, written by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and served from his NeXT computer, first under the name nxoc01.cern.ch and later as info.cern.ch. W3C dates the first server and page to November 1990, and the site became the public home of the web software when the project was announced on August 6, 1991. The original files are lost; CERN restored a 1992 copy to the first address in April 2013.

Web Building Encyclopedia · Events and eras · Last reviewed October 22, 2026 · 7 min read

What the first website was

The first website was a small set of linked pages about the World Wide Web project itself, written by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva. It ran on his NeXT computer, which was also the first web server.12

CERN says the site explained the web’s basic features, how to reach other people’s documents and how to set up a server of your own.1

Its home page lived at the path /hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html on a machine named nxoc01.cern.ch. That machine was later given the alias info.cern.ch, so the page became known as info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.34 A URL like this one names the host computer first and then the file on it.

The original files are no longer served. CERN says no screenshots of the original page were made and that its content changed daily as the project developed.5 Berners-Lee’s FAQ points to a November 1992 snapshot kept by W3C and says he has no snapshot from 1990 or 1991. CERN’s restored site is built from a 1992 copy in W3C’s archive.36

The site also had a second job: it was the home of the software. In the project’s first years, people downloaded the browser and server code from info.cern.ch and reached the web through it.73

Building it, 1990

Berners-Lee wrote the first web software in the autumn of 1990. W3C’s timeline of the early web says the first web server, nxoc01.cern.ch, and the first web page went online in November 1990.4 His FAQ dates the first page served over HTTP to the end of 1990. Before that, he says, his pages were local files opened with “file:” addresses, so his NeXT was both the first browser and the first server.3

The site grew alongside the software. In November 1990 Nicola Pellow started on the line-mode browser, a text-only program for ordinary terminals, and Bernd Pollermann helped link the project to FIND, an index on CERNVM, one of CERN’s central computers. By Christmas 1990 both browsers could be demonstrated, with access to hypertext files, the FIND index and internet news.8

Reaching ordinary screens was a goal from the start. The project proposal that Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau submitted on November 12, 1990 set the goal of letting people read at least text, if not graphics, on a large proportion of the computer screens in use at CERN.9

The first browser, WorldWideWeb, was also an editor, so the person writing the pages could edit them on screen in the same program used to read them.10 Berners-Lee dated its first edition December 25, 1990.10

The NeXT that served the site carried a handwritten warning in red ink telling people not to switch it off, because it was running as a server.11

What was on it

The earliest copy CERN’s restoration team could find dates from 1992, so descriptions of the site come from CERN’s accounts and that copy.65 CERN’s short history says the first page linked to information about the project, about hypertext, about how to set up a server and about other servers as they appeared.11

The 1992 copy, which CERN now serves at the original address, opens with a one-sentence definition of WorldWideWeb as “a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.”12 Hypermedia means hypertext that can also carry other media, such as images.

The rest of the home page is a list of links. In order, it offers:1213

  • an executive summary of the project, its mailing lists, its policy and the latest W3 news
  • a page of frequently asked questions
  • What’s out there?, with online information sorted by subject and a list of W3 servers
  • help on the browsers
  • software products: the line-mode browser, the X11 Viola browser, the NeXTStep browser, servers, tools, a mail robot and the code library
  • technical details of protocols, formats and program internals, and a bibliography
  • the people involved, the history of the project, how to help, and how to get the code by anonymous FTP

A web of a few dozen servers

The 1992 copy shows how small the web still was. Its list of servers named 26 open sites and 4 with restricted or difficult access.14 W3C’s timeline describes a November 1992 snapshot listing 26 reasonably reliable servers.4

Most were physics and computing centers. The open list included NCSA in Illinois, SLAC in California, KEK in Japan, DESY in Hamburg, NIKHEF in the Netherlands, Fermilab and the Technical University of Graz. It also listed a few others, such as Cornell’s legal information service, the online magazine VOICE and a CERN server of software information organized by Mike Sendall, Berners-Lee’s supervisor.14

The people page

The site also documented its makers. Its People page listed more than 20 contributors, including Berners-Lee, who started the project in 1989 and wrote the NeXT application, and Robert Cailliau, who handled public relations and contributed Macintosh browser software.15

It also named Nicola Pellow, who wrote the original line-mode browser, Jean-François Groff, who joined in September 1991, and outside developers such as Pei Wei, author of the Viola browser, and Paul Kunz, who brought the web to SLAC.15

Opening it to the world, 1991 to 1993

At first the site was mostly used inside CERN. The line-mode browser was released to a limited audience in March 1991, and on May 17, 1991 the web software was generally released on CERN’s central computers.4

On August 6, 1991, Berners-Lee described the project on the Usenet newsgroup alt.hypertext. He offered the prototype code by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch, including a line-mode browser that ran on almost any system and a hypertext editor for NeXT machines.7

In October 1991 the project started an anonymous telnet service.8 Telnet is a way to log in to a distant computer from a simple text terminal. Berners-Lee’s FAQ says many people first saw the web by telnetting to info.cern.ch, which gave them the line-mode browser written by Nicola Pellow.3

In December 1991 the project presented a poster and a demonstration at the Hypertext ’91 conference, and a CERN newsletter announced W3 to the high-energy physics community.8 In May 2013 Paul Jones told CERN’s restoration team that he had kept a copy of the page Berners-Lee used for that presentation. His copy is hosted on ibiblio.org.16

The site’s software then became free for anyone. On April 30, 1993, CERN released the web software, giving up its intellectual property rights so that anyone could use, copy, change and redistribute it.17

Lost and restored

Over time the original pages disappeared from their address. By 2013 the first URL had been inactive for many years and simply sent visitors to the root of info.cern.ch.6

On April 30, 2013, the 20th anniversary of the royalty-free release, CERN announced that it was restoring the first website and preserving the digital assets tied to the birth of the web.1 The project set four goals:18

  • put the files back at the first URL, in their earliest possible versions
  • examine the first CERN web servers and preserve and share what was on them
  • restore the original machine names and IP addresses
  • make info.cern.ch a place that tells the story of the web’s beginnings

The first goal came quickly. On April 29, 2013, Dan Noyes of CERN reported that TheProject.html was live again, using a 1992 copy from W3C’s archive that he said might be the earliest one that could be found.6

The team also recovered details of the setup. In May 2013 it recorded that the original IP address of info.cern.ch was 128.141.201.74, as confirmed by Jean-François Groff.19 The project also published photos of the NeXT being checked over at CERN in August 2009, when its hard drive was imaged.20

Recreating the experience

Later work recreated the software people used to read the site. In September 2013 CERN invited a small group of designers and developers to build a simulator of the line-mode browser, which CERN calls the first readily accessible browser.2122 The result, Line Mode Browser 2013, lets visitors read the first website the way terminal users did, typing everything at the keyboard.23

In February 2019, for the 30th anniversary, developers and designers met at CERN to rebuild the original WorldWideWeb browser so that it runs inside a modern browser.24 CERN marked 30 years since Berners-Lee’s 1989 proposal at Web@30 on March 12, 2019, with speakers including Berners-Lee and Cailliau.25

The restoration project’s own website has since been retired. CERN’s notice says it was archived on October 2, 2026, and no longer receives updates.26

Visiting it today

As of October 22, 2026, info.cern.ch opens on a short CERN page with four choices: browse the first website, browse it with the line-mode browser simulator, learn about the birth of the web, or learn about CERN.27 The links on that page use plain http addresses rather than https.27

The restored home page is still plain HTML: a heading, one sentence and a list of links.12 Most of its links point to other pages on info.cern.ch, so a visitor can follow the same paths early users did, from the project summary to the list of servers and the people page.1213

Timeline

  1. CERN archives the restoration project's website26
  2. CERN marks 30 years since the web proposal at Web@3025
  3. Team at CERN rebuilds the WorldWideWeb browser to run in modern browsers24
  4. Designers and developers at CERN build a line-mode browser simulator21
  5. Restoration team records info.cern.ch's original IP address, 128.141.201.7419
  6. CERN announces the project to restore the first website1
  7. The first URL works again, using a 1992 copy6
  8. CERN releases the web software royalty-free17
  9. W3C snapshot of the site lists 26 reasonably reliable servers4
  10. Poster and demo at the Hypertext '91 conference8
  11. Anonymous telnet service opens the web to remote terminal users8
  12. Berners-Lee announces the project and offers code by FTP from info.cern.ch7
  13. Web software generally released on CERN's central computers4
  14. WorldWideWeb and the line-mode browser can be demonstrated by Christmas8
  15. First web server, nxoc01.cern.ch, and first web page go online4

What it means for your website

The first website is still readable at its original address in 2026, and the way it survived holds practical lessons for any small business site.

  • Simple pages last. The restored home page is plain HTML text and links, and it still works in current browsers.1227 A site built from simple HTML pages, such as a static site, has fewer parts that can break when software changes.
  • Keep your own backups. The original 1990 files were lost. The copy CERN restored came from an archive W3C happened to keep.36 Do not rely on your host alone: keep dated copies of your pages, images and database. Our glossary entry on website backups explains the options.
  • Keep your addresses working. For years the first URL only sent visitors to the home page, until CERN put the page back.6 When you redesign or move platforms, map each old address to its new page with a redirect. Our redesign checklist covers this step.
  • Say what the site is for, first. The first page opened with one sentence on what the project was, then linked to help, software and people.12 A home page that says plainly who you are, what you offer and how to reach you does the same job.
  • Control your domain. An address can only be restored by whoever controls its domain name. Keep yours registered in your own account, with renewal turned on.

See also

References

  1. CERN celebrates 20 years of a free, open web (press release). CERN. 2013-04-30. accessed October 22, 2026.
  2. NeXT server (Computer Centre visit point display). CERN IT Department. accessed October 22, 2026.
  3. Frequently asked questions by the Press. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C. accessed October 22, 2026.
  4. A Little History of the World Wide Web (created by Robert Cailliau, maintained by Dan Connolly). W3C. accessed October 22, 2026.
  5. Where the web was born. CERN. accessed October 22, 2026.
  6. First URL active once more (Dan Noyes). CERN, Restoring the first website project (archived). 2013-04-29. accessed October 22, 2026.
  7. Re: Qualifiers on Hypertext links… (alt.hypertext post, archived). Tim Berners-Lee, via W3C. 1991-08-06. accessed October 22, 2026.
  8. History to date (November 1992 snapshot of the first website). W3C. 1992. accessed October 22, 2026.
  9. WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project. Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau, CERN (copy hosted by W3C). 1990-11-12. accessed October 22, 2026.
  10. The WorldWideWeb browser. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C. accessed October 22, 2026.
  11. A short history of the Web. CERN. accessed October 22, 2026.
  12. The World Wide Web project (restored copy of the first website). CERN. accessed October 22, 2026.
  13. The World Wide Web project (November 1992 snapshot of the first website). W3C. 1992. accessed October 22, 2026.
  14. W3 servers (November 1992 snapshot of the first website). W3C. 1992. accessed October 22, 2026.
  15. People involved in the WorldWideWeb project (November 1992 snapshot of the first website). W3C. 1992. accessed October 22, 2026.
  16. Webpage demonstrated at Hypertext 91 surfaces (Dan Noyes). CERN, Restoring the first website project (archived). 2013-05-23. accessed October 22, 2026.
  17. 30 years of a free and open Web (Naomi Dinmore). CERN. 2023-04-30. accessed October 22, 2026.
  18. About this project (Restoring the first website). CERN (archived). 2013. accessed October 22, 2026.
  19. Original IP address for info.cern.ch (Dan Noyes). CERN, Restoring the first website project (archived). 2013-05-27. accessed October 22, 2026.
  20. Images of TBL's NeXT being serviced in 2009. CERN, Restoring the first website project (archived). 2013. accessed October 22, 2026.
  21. Recreating one of the web's first browsers. CERN. 2013. accessed October 22, 2026.
  22. The birth of the Web. CERN. accessed October 22, 2026.
  23. Line Mode Browser 2013. CERN. 2013. accessed October 22, 2026.
  24. CERN 2019 WorldWideWeb Rebuild. CERN. 2019-02. accessed October 22, 2026.
  25. Web@30 at CERN. CERN. 2019-03-12. accessed October 22, 2026.
  26. Restoring the first website (archive notice). CERN. 2026-10-02. accessed October 22, 2026.
  27. info.cern.ch: home of the first website. CERN. accessed October 22, 2026.

Web Building Encyclopedia. First published October 22, 2026. Last reviewed October 22, 2026. Every fact on this page is linked to a source we opened. Spotted an error? Write to [email protected].