What is a Website?
A website is a collection of interlinked pages on the internet grouped under a unique name and online address. These web pages contain text, images and other content. They are connected by hyperlinks (or simply ‘links’) that allow users to jump from one page to another. Many websites also include a navigation bar or menus that allow users to move around the site’s structure easily.
Most websites are designed and built using web design software that enables anyone with basic computer skills to create a professional-looking site. This software can run on any computer and is usually free to use. The most popular software programs are WordPress and Joomla, which both offer user-friendly interfaces that enable users to build sites with minimal coding knowledge.
Websites are powered by powerful inventions called the internet and world wide web, which make it possible to share information worldwide in ways that were previously impossible. The world wide web is a network of computers that connects people with information in much the same way as physical roads and highways link cities.
Unlike printed books that have one central location for all copies of a title, the internet lets people create and display information in many different places on remote servers. These servers are often located in countries all over the world. The information on a website is stored in files on these computers.
These files are written in special languages known as hypertext markup language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP). HTML allows browsers to display webpage elements, CSS defines webpage styles and PHP can pull in data from databases and do other things.
When someone types a website address into their browser, the computer sends a request to the server that hosts the website. The server checks the website’s domain to ensure it is legitimate and then processes the requested files so that the browser can display them on the screen.
A website can be used for business or personal reasons, and it can provide information about a company, products and services, or it may be a place to post an obituary or blog. Businesses can also use a website to promote themselves and communicate with customers, suppliers and employees.
There are also personal websites, which can range from online diaries to photo galleries and blogs. These are typically updated frequently and often feature the latest content at the top of the homepage, with older content below that. Personal websites can also be a platform for sharing opinions, activism or social causes. Increasingly, people are choosing to use a website as their main form of communication with the outside world. In the past, most websites were created using a computer programming language, but nowadays it is easier to use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, which powers over 40% of the world’s websites. These platforms take care of generating the code that makes a website work, but they require a user to have some basic computer skills.
