From PIE *webh- (to braid) — one of English's oldest craft words, living on in 'web,' the digital network.
To interlace threads or strips of material to form cloth or a fabric; to make or construct in this way; the particular pattern or method of interlacing.
From Old English 'wefan' (to weave), from Proto-Germanic *webaną (to weave, to move back and forth), from PIE *webh- (to weave, to braid). The same root produced 'web' (a woven structure), 'weft' (the crosswise threads), 'wafer' (a thin cake baked between irons, from a woven pattern), and German 'weben' (to weave). The PIE root reflects one of the oldest human technologies — textile production predates metallurgy, pottery, and even agriculture in some regions. Key
The World Wide Web takes its name from a spider's web, and 'web' is simply the noun form of 'weave' — a web is something that has been woven. Tim Berners-Lee's choice of the name 'World Wide Web' in 1989 unwittingly connected the newest information technology to one of humanity's oldest crafts. The metaphor is precise: both the web and woven cloth are structures created by interlacing individual strands into a interconnected whole.