Hands up if you prefer the world's first website to what's come since

You find your moments of clarity in funny places on the internet, but the restoration of the world’s first website and its url is one of those moments that simultaneously makes you realise both how far we’ve come and that we may have been going in the wrong direction all along.

Just look at it. Those simple blue links, gazing at you provocatively, daring you to hover your mouse over them and click through to the mysteries they contain. That bold, steadfast <h1> - “Technical Details” it proclaims, with an intoxicating simplicity that belies its historic status. Somewhere in our journey from there to here, we managed to go through flashing gifs, flashing ads, swooshing effects and wizzy responsive design (and then back to flashing gifs again) with all the untrammelled and ultimately graceless enthusiasm of a toddler taking his first steps.

It might do us good to remember that when it comes to the web, as with elsewhere in life, sometimes less is more.