A website, also written as a Web site or simply site, is a set of related web pages containing text, images, video, audio, etc. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible through a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform Resource Locator. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web.
A webpage is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with Hypertext Markup Language formatting instructions (HTML, XHTML). A webpage may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors.
Webpages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption to provide security and privacy for the user of the webpage content. The user’s application, often a web browser, renders the page content onto a display terminal according to its HTML markup instructions.
The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the web address. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy. However, hyperlinking between them conveys the reader’s perceived site structure. It guides the reader’s navigation of the site, which generally includes a home page with most of the links to the site’s web content and a supplementary about, contact and link page.
Organized by function, a website may be
- A personal website
- A commercial website
- A government website
- A nonprofit organization website.
It could be the work of an individual, a business or another 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 a 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 retrieves and delivers the web pages in response to requests from the website users. Apache is the most commonly used web server software, and Microsoft’s IIS is also widely used. Some alternatives, such as Hiawatha or Cherokee, are fully functional and lightweight.
There are 2 types of websites: static and dynamic websites.
A static website has web pages stored on the server in the format sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as a classic, five-page, or brochure, are often static websites because they present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information about a company and its products and services through text, photos, animations, audio/video, interactive menus, and navigation.
A dynamic website changes or customizes itself frequently and automatically based on specific criteria.
Dynamic websites can have two types of vigorous activity: Code and Content. Active code is invisible or behind the scenes, and dynamic content is visible or fully displayed.
They are edited using four broad categories of software:
Text editors, such as Notepad or Text Edit, where content and HTML markup are manipulated directly within the editor program
WYSIWYG offline editors, such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver, with which the site is edited using a GUI interface and the final HTML markup is generated automatically by the editor software
WYSIWYG editors create media-rich online presentations like web pages, widgets, intros, blogs, and other documents.
Template-based editors, such as RapidWeaver and iWeb, allow users to quickly create and upload web pages to a web server without detailed HTML knowledge, as they pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a desktop publishing fashion without direct manipulation of HTML code.
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Subscription websites include many business sites, news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message boards, web-based email, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, and websites providing various other services.
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