Member-only story
How Has the Web Has Changed Over the Last 30 Years?
We’re going to look at the major shifts over the years with layouts, so you can really see how far things have come — by Craig Godden-Payne@beardy.digital
Website layouts change all the time, and there are more ways than ever to style a layout, with many frameworks available to help simplify the code, whilst keeping sites looking fancy.
1. The first website (1991)
Back in August 1991, the first website was a simple text-based page with a few links. The first ever webpage served only to tell people what the World Wide Web was all about.
Web pages that followed after this were very similar, and were entirely text based, with links to other pages and always featured single column designs. A basic version of html was born, but was not very widely used.
The single column was popular for the next few years. At this point, the web was just used for sharing information, and styling was not even a thought. As long as the content was readable and accessible it was deemed quality.

Here is a sample of what the html looked like, you can really see how things have come since the beginning!
You can view the original page here
<HEADER>
<TITLE>The World Wide Web project</TITLE>
<NEXTID N="55">
</HEADER>
<BODY>
<H1>World Wide Web</H1>The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area
<A NAME=0 HREF="WhatIs.html">hypermedia</A> information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.
<P>
Everything there is online about W3 is linked directly or indirectly to this document, including an <A NAME=24 HREF="Summary.html">executive summary</A> of the project, <A NAME=29 HREF="Administration/Mailing/Overview.html">Mailing lists</A> ,<A NAME=30 HREF="Policy.html">Policy</A> , November's <A NAME=34 HREF="News/9211.html">W3 news</A>