Website

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A website is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or more web servers, usually accessible via the Internet.

A Web page is a document, typically written in (X)HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP, a protocol that transfers information from the Web server to display in the user's Web browser.

All publicly accessible websites are seen collectively as constituting the "World Wide Web".

The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a common root URL called the homepage, and usually reside on the same physical server. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although the hyperlinks between them control how the reader perceives the overall structure and how the traffic flows between the different parts of the site.

Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription sites include many business sites, parts of many news sites, academic journal sites, gaming sites, message boards, Web-based e-mail, services, social networking websites, and sites providing real-time stock market data. Because they require authentication to view the content they are technically an Intranet site.

[edit] History

The World Wide Web was created in 1991 by CERN engineer, Tim Berners-Lee.^[1] On 30 April 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to anyone.^[2]

Before the introduction of HTML and HTTP other protocols such as file transfer protocol and the gopher protocol were used to retrieve individual files from a server. These protocols offer a simple directory structure which the user navigates and chooses files to download. Documents were most often presented as plain text files without formatting or were encoded in word processor formats.

[edit] Overview

Organized by function a website may be

It could not be the work of an individual, because its harder to do a business or other organization and is typically dedicated to some particular topic or purpose. Any website can contain a hyperlink to any other website, so the distinction between individual sites, as perceived by the user, may sometimes be blurred.

Websites are written in, or dynamically converted to, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and are accessed using a software interface classified as an user agent. Web pages can be viewed or otherwise accessed from a range of computer-based and Internet-enabled devices of various sizes, including desktop computers, laptops, PDAs and cell phones.

A website is hosted on a computer system known as a web server, also called an HTTP server, and these terms can also refer to the software that runs on these systems and that retrieves and delivers the Web pages in response to requests from the website users. Apache is the most commonly used Web server software (according to Netcraft statistics) and Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) is also commonly used.

[edit] Website styles

[edit] Static Website

A Static Website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the same form as the user will view them. It is primarily coded in HTML (Hyper-text Markup Language).

A static website is also called a Classic website, a 5-page website or a Brochure website because it simply presents pre-defined information to the user. It may include information about a company and its products and services via text, photos, Flash animation, audio/video and interactive menus and navigation.

This type of website usually displays the same information to all visitors, thus the information is static. Similar to handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a static website will generally provide consistent, standard information for an extended period of time. Although the website owner may make updates periodically, it is a manual process to edit the text, photos and other content and may require basic website design skills and software.

In summary, visitors are not able to control what information they receive via a static website, and must instead settle for whatever content the website owner has decided to offer at that time.

They are edited using four broad categories of software:

Text editors, such as Notepad or TextEdit, where the HTML is manipulated directly within the editor program
WYSIWYG offline editors, such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver (previously Macromedia Dreamweaver), where the site is edited using a GUI interface and the underlying HTML is generated automatically by the editor software
WYSIWYG Online editors, where the any media rich online presentation like websites, widgets, intro, blogs etc. are created on a flash based platform.
Template-based editors, such as Rapidweaver and iWeb, which allow users to quickly create and upload websites to a web server without having to know anything about HTML, as they just pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a DTP-like fashion without ever having to see any HTML code.

[edit] Dynamic website

Main article: Dynamic web page

A Dynamic Website is one that does not have web pages stored on the server in the same form as the user will view them. Instead, the web page content changes automatically and/or frequently based on certain criteria. It generally collates information on the hop each time a page is requested.

A website can be dynamic in one of two ways. The first is that the web page code is constructed dynamically, piece by piece. The second is that the web page content displayed varies based on certain criteria. The criteria may be pre-defined rules or may be based on variable user input.

A dynamic website is also called a Web Application, a Data-driven website or an oCRAFT website because it presents variable information that is tailored to a particular user. It may accept a user's input and respond to the request. For example, a user can enter text into a login form or keyword search, which prompts the website to fulfill the request and return a unique result. In addition, the user may be able to perform tasks that may alter the website itself, such as post a comment or update a user profile. Examples of task-based websites include, online banking, shopping, e-learning, and social networking. Furthermore, the website may be able to make instant decisions on the fly in various situations, such as online quiz scoring or credit card processing.

This type of website usually displays different information depending on the visitor, thus the information is dynamic. Similar to talking to a customer service representative on the telephone, a dynamic website will provide personalized, real-time information and take the appropriate action intended to serve the customer's needs immediately. The website usually requires advanced programming and a database, and it often includes admin tools for the website owner to update the website content frequently and easily.

In summary, visitors are able to control what information they wish to receive via a dynamic website, instead of settling for only static content that the website owner has decided to offer. In addition, a visitor may be able to manipulate the content of t

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