Website

From ArticleWorld

Websites are the building blocks of the internet. They simply are a collection of webpages linked together by the same domain or subdomain accessible through an HTTP request. The pages returned are usually in HTML or XHTML file format. Typically the pages themselves reside on the same physical server and are ordered on a hierarchy realized through the use of hyperlinks. The page that shows up first when you type the website’s address into a web browser is typically called the homepage. Its role is to act as a portal for the website’s content and control the traffic flow.

Trends

Basically websites have two types of pages: static and dynamic. The most important shift nowadays is from basic static HTML pages to dynamic generated pages created mostly through different types of software such as: Java Script Pages (JSP), Active Server Pages (ASP) and of course MySQL/PHP programming language. More recent trends tend to use the XML derived technology of RSS (used for web feeds) and even real-time change by using Java, Flash or QuickTime platforms. The gap between static and dynamic webpages also begins to blur as static pages are more and more updated via automatic software, although at greater time intervals.

Types of websites

The web has a large array of types of websites. Among the most common are:

• Commercial sites or ecommerce sites aimed at selling goods and services using the Internet medium. These include sites that are subscription based.
• Personal websites which are basically sites designed by a single user or a very small group with a very few, limited interests.
• News/ information sites – are sites that provide information to the users. They can provide this information free of charge or require payment. Almost always though they will require some type of registration.
• Gaming sites – which serves such as some type of virtual playground. Examples include gameknot.com or MMORPG sites like www.runescape.com.
• Portals or search engines – they provide a starting point to the common user for accessing other web resources.
• Blog type of website – site used by a specific user to post a personal diary

Of course this classification is not a very strict one as many websites offer many services that can be included in many categories. For example yahoo.com, a commercial site is also a gaming site, a web portal and a search engine, or even still small personal websites have most of the time a blog attached.