Web Page
Web page also written as Webpage, is a simple document displayable by a web browser. The webpage documents are written in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). A webpage can contain a variety of different types of resources such as:
- Style information (CSS); Used for controlling a page appearance and feel,
- Scripts (JS-javascript); Which adds behavior and interactivity to the page, and
- Media; Which includes images, sounds, and videos for more appealing.
All web pages available on the Internet are reachable through a unique address called URL. To visit a web page, just type its address (URL) in the browser application address bar. The webpage documents and the associated files are normally stored in a computer called Server machine/Computer, for global access.
Client/Server Computer
The protocol used to access a webpage from the Server computer is called Hypertext Transfer protocol (HTTP). It is used to establishes the transaction between the user’s web browser app and the web server computer.
In this type of communication, the browser sends HTTP request to the server computer, the server sends back a HTTP response to the browser application software with HTML page and then, the communication between them ends. As for the client-server transaction, this is the basic method of transaction between the computing devices. There are other more advanced client-server transaction, which deals with frequents update on the contents of the page that uses other technologies before the server can send back the response of a HTML page to the client.
WebSite
A web site also written as website, is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server.
Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education, commerce, entertainment, or social networking. For example, a product-specific website can have various web pages such as home, about us, contact us, products, services and others. Hyperlinking between web pages guides the navigation of the site, which often starts with a home page.
A website can be accessed on a range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones by typing its domain name in the browser app address bar, the browser will display the website's main web page, called homepage or index page (commonly referred to as "the home").
The ideas of a web page and a website are especially easy to confuse for a website that contains only one web page. Such a website is sometimes called a single-page website.
Websites cannot be indexed in terms of searching. Search engine crawlers crawl web pages and index web pages rather than a website. A website is navigated from one webpage to another.
Web Server
A web server is the set of computer and software program, hosting one or more websites. "Hosting" means that all the web pages, resources and other supporting files are stored on that computer. The web server will send any web page from the website it is hosting to any user's browser, as per the user request.
Static and Dynamic Website
Static Website
Static web pages are simple and are written in the HTML language, and stored in web server. Whenever the web server receives a request regarding a web page, it sends a response along with the requested web page to the client without performing any additional processing. It just locates that page on its storage disk and add HTTP headers, then reply back a HTTP response, and the communication between them ends.
HTTP Request/Response
The peculiar thing in a static web page is that the content in this type of the web page does not change depending on the request. They are always the same unless the content is changed physically on the server’s storage disk. Similar to handing out a printed flyers to audience 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. Contents on a static website are globally viewed, remains same for the different individuals. So, these types of web pages are known as static web pages.
Dynamic Website
Consider a scenario where the contents of a website such as a news or any social media websites that require updates after every few seconds. Static website could not handle such tasks effectively, hence the reason for creating a dynamic website. A dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently and automatically. Server-side dynamic pages are generated "on the fly" by computer code that produces the HTML. The dynamic web page content can vary depending on the number of parameters, it did not just simply send HTML page in response. The web server calls a program located on the disk storage which can access a database, perform transaction procedure, etcetera.
The dynamic web pages are employed where the information changes very often such as n stock prices, weather information, news and sports updates. For example, let’s assume a person has to physically change a Web page every 10 or so seconds to show the latest update of the Soccer results, which would be impractical to physically alter the HTML pages very often. So, in this case, a dynamic web page techniques would be used.
Dynamic HTTP Request/Response
There are a wide range of server software systems, such as CGI (Common Gateway Interface), Java Server Pages (JSP), Active Server Pages (ASP), PHP, and ColdFusion (CFML) that are available used in generating dynamic web systems and dynamic sites.
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