A website has a header, body content, and footer. Hyperlinks (usually colored and underlined) let you jump between pages. Understanding website layout helps you navigate efficiently and find information.
Visit different websites and identify the header, body, footer, and navigation links. Notice which text is hyperlinked. Click links to see how they move you to new pages.
Every website you visit in your browser has a predictable structure, much like how buildings often have a lobby, floors in the middle, and a ground floor with utilities. The header sits at the top of the page and typically contains the site's logo, the main navigation menu, and sometimes a search bar. This is the part that usually stays the same no matter which page of the site you're on — it's your constant landmark. The footer anchors the bottom of the page and usually holds secondary information: legal notices, contact links, and site maps. In between is the body, which is where the actual content lives and changes from page to page.
Hyperlinks are the connective tissue of the web — they're what make it a "web" rather than a collection of isolated documents. A hyperlink is a piece of text or an image that, when clicked, takes your browser to a different location. That location might be another page on the same site, or a completely different site. Visually, hyperlinks are usually colored (often blue by default) and underlined, though modern sites style them in many ways. The reliable test: if your cursor changes to a pointing hand when you hover over something, it's a link.
Navigation links, usually found in the header or a sidebar, form the skeleton of how a site is organized. They function like a table of contents — clicking "About" takes you to the about page, clicking "Products" takes you to products. These are internal links because they stay within the same website. When a link opens a page on a completely different domain (like clicking a news article that sends you to another outlet's site), that's an external link. You can usually tell because the URL in the address bar changes to a new domain.
An important intuition to build: navigating a website is non-destructive and reversible. Clicking a link doesn't alter anything — it just moves your view. The browser's back button is always available to return you to where you were. This means you can explore a site freely, following links that interest you, without any risk of getting "stuck." Developing comfort with this explore-and-backtrack pattern is the core skill that makes browsing efficient.