# Website chat for developers > How the Message24 website chat widget works, what the channel key is, and how allowed origins protect a channel. Source: https://docs.message24.net/developers/website-chat/overview/ The website chat widget puts a chat bubble on your site. Visitors' messages land in the business's Message24 inbox next to Instagram, WhatsApp and the other channels, and replies from the team or the AI agent appear in the widget in real time. This section covers embedding the widget, configuring it from your page, and building your own chat client on the same HTTP API. If you are the business owner setting up the channel, start with [Website chat](/owners/channels/website-chat/) instead. ## How it works 1. A business admin creates a Web Chat channel in Message24. The channel gets a **channel key** and an embed snippet. 2. You add the snippet to your site. It loads `https://message24.net/widget.js`, which reads `data-channel-key` from its own `