Public Digital Object Record
FWX-000008
The First Website — CERN
The first website was created by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN as part of the development of the World Wide Web. Hosted at info.cern.ch, the site described the World Wide Web project and provided information concerning web software, documentation, servers, and the emerging network of hypertext resources. CERN later restored the historical website and made it accessible again at its original web address.
- Record Number
- FWX-000008
- Release
- Public
- Preservation Status
- Institutional Reconstruction
- Authority
- Forgotten Web Exchange
Visual Reference
Preserved Preview
Administrative Record
Object Registration
- Digital Object ID
- FWX-000008
- Object Type
- Website
- Classification
- Public
- Operational Status
- Reconstructed
- Preservation Status
- Institutional Reconstruction
- Creator
- Tim Berners-Lee / CERN
- First Published
- 1990
- Last Verified
- 2026-09-07
- Historical Address
- http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
- Current Address
- https://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
Historical Record
Historical Overview
The first website was created by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN as part of the development of the World Wide Web. Hosted at info.cern.ch, the site described the World Wide Web project and provided information concerning web software, documentation, servers, and the emerging network of hypertext resources. CERN later restored the historical website and made it accessible again at its original web address.
Preservation Assessment
Current Preservation Status
The Digital Object remains Publicly Accessible Reconstruction at a currently recorded network location.
Periodic Archival Review conducted by the Bureau Archives has identified the current integrity status as Institutionally Reconstructed Historical State.
Preservation status remains Institutional Reconstruction.
- Observing Office
- Bureau Archives
- Monitoring Programme
- Periodic Archival Review
- Integrity Status
- Institutionally Reconstructed Historical State
- Accessibility
- Publicly Accessible Reconstruction
Collections
Appears in Collections
Documentation
Narrative Record
Overview
The first website was developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN during the creation of the World Wide Web. By the end of 1990, Berners-Lee had implemented the first web server and browser on a NeXT computer at CERN.
The website was hosted at info.cern.ch and documented the World Wide Web project itself. It provided information concerning the principles of the Web, available software, technical documentation, and other web servers and resources as they became available.
The site formed part of the experimental infrastructure through which the fundamental technologies of the World Wide Web were developed and demonstrated. Public availability of the Web expanded during 1991 as its software and documentation were distributed beyond CERN.
For catalogue purposes, the Bureau treats the historical website as a Digital Object distinct from the physical NeXT computer that hosted the first web server, the WorldWideWeb browser and editor, and the wider World Wide Web software project.
Preservation Note
The website accessible today at info.cern.ch should not be interpreted as an uninterrupted instance of the original 1990 service.
By 2013, the first website was no longer available online in its original historical state. CERN subsequently undertook a preservation project to restore the website and associated digital assets connected with the birth of the World Wide Web.
The restored website was returned to its historical address and remains publicly accessible. The Bureau therefore records the object as an institutional reconstruction rather than as an active legacy website preserved continuously in situ.
Document Control
Publication Details
- Prepared by
- Office of Digital Preservation
- Published through
- Forgotten Web Exchange
- Issuing Authority
- Bureau of Digital Antiquities
- Document Revision
- 1.0
- Record Identifier
- FWX-000008
- Last Verification
- 2026-09-07