Every website has its own unique address, called a URL, like www.google.com or www.wikipedia.org. To visit a website, you click in the address bar at the top of the browser and type the website's address. Then you press Enter and the website loads.
Open a browser with children and show them the address bar. Together, type a familiar website address and watch it load.
Now that you know how to open a browser and use a keyboard, you have everything you need to visit any website in the world. The key is knowing where to type. At the very top of every browser window, there is a long rectangular box — this is the address bar (also called the URL bar). It shows the address of whatever page you're currently on. To go somewhere new, you click inside it, type the address, and press Enter.
Every website has a unique address called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A typical address looks like `www.wikipedia.org`. The part after the last dot — like `.com`, `.org`, or `.edu` — is called the domain extension, and it gives a clue about the type of site (commercial, organization, educational). When you type an address and press Enter, your browser sends a request across the internet to find that website and load it for you, usually in just a second or two.
The most common confusion is mixing up the address bar with the search bar. On many browsers, these look similar and are both at the top of the window — but they do different things. The address bar takes you directly to a specific website if you type its exact address. A search bar (or searching in the address bar) finds pages based on keywords. For example, typing `www.bbc.com` in the address bar takes you straight to the BBC's website. Typing `BBC news` would search for it instead. Modern browsers are smart enough to handle both from the address bar — if what you type doesn't look like a web address, it automatically searches for it.
You don't need to memorize or perfectly type every part of a web address. If you know the main part — like `wikipedia.org` — your browser will usually figure out the rest. Practice builds confidence: start with a few familiar sites, notice how the address bar updates as you navigate, and soon visiting a website will feel as natural as dialing a phone number.