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The Web Services Description Language  is an XML-based language that provides a model for describing Web services. Version 1.1 has not been endorsed by the W3C. Version 2.0, for which several drafts have been released, is a W3C recommendation.

WSDL is an XML-based service description on how to communicate using web services. The WSDL defines services as collections of network endpoints, or ports. WSDL specification provides an XML format for documents for this purpose.

The abstract definition of ports and messages is separated from their concrete use or instance, allowing the reuse of these definitions. A port is defined by associating a network address with a reusable binding, and a collection of ports define a service. Messages are abstract descriptions of the data being exchanged, and port types are abstract collections of supported operations. The concrete protocol and data format specifications for a particular port type constitutes a reusable binding, where the messages and operations are then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format. In this way, WSDL describes the public interface to the web service.

WSDL is often used in combination with SOAP and XML Schema to provide web services over the Internet. A client program connecting to a web service can read the WSDL to determine what functions are available on the server. Any special datatypes used are embedded in the WSDL file in the form of XML Schema. The client can then use SOAP to actually call one of the functions listed in the WSDL.

XLang is an extension of the WSDL such that "an XLANG service description is a WSDL service description with an extension element that describes the behavior of the service as a part of a business process".

Resources or services are exposed using WSDL by both Web Services Interoperability (WS-I Basic Profile) and WSRF framework.

World Wide Web or "the Web", a hypertext system that operates over the Internet, used for serving Web pages and transferring files

Web 2.0, a perceived transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of Web sites to a full-fledged computing platform serving Web applications

Web.com, a public company that offers websites and other services for small businesses and consumers

WEB, a computer programming system created by Donald Knuth to implement literate programming

WorldWideWeb, the world's first Web browser

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web (W3). It is arranged as a consortium where member organizations maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the W3. As of March 2007, the W3C had 441 members. It is always open for new organizations to join.

W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web.

The Consortium is headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the primary author of the original URL (Uniform Resource Locator), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) specifications, the principal technologies that form the basis of the World Wide Web.