Website Basics

Website Basics

Before you start building your website it is a good idea to make sure you have a grasp of the basics.

 I will try to explain, in as simple a way as possible, some of the common terms that you will encounter. A more comprehensive list is given in website FAQs.

What is a Website ?

            This is probably the most fundamental and basic question, and it is surprising how many existing site owners don't really understand exactly what a web site actually is.

 
 

 A Web site is a collection of web pages place in a folder on a web server. The website has a unique identity otherwise known as its domain name. The website maybe the only site on the web server or they may be many others on the same server.

What is a Web Server?

A web server is the physical machine, and looks very much like the machine you are currently using. An analogy may be useful in order to distinguish between a website from a web server. If we compare them to normal  shops.

Shops are located in physical buildings and each shop can either have its own physical building or share a single physical building with other shops (shopping mall). In our analogy a server is equivalent to the physical building. A physical server can host multiple Websites or a single Website.

For large companies that have many visitors to their Website then the Website is located on one or more physical servers. For smaller companies that have fewer visitors, then their Website can be located on a server which also hosts Websites for other companies .i.e. the server is shared.

 This is the most common form of website hosting
and undoubtedly the one you will be using.

What is a Domain Name

You domain name is effectively your address. If you compare it to where you live your house is equivalent to your web site and your house address is equivalent to your domain name.

 However unlike in the physical world this isn't a permanent relationship between the two, as it's possible to link your domain name to a new web site.

For more details see  domain names .

 
 

What is a Web page?

             A Web page is like a page in a book or newspaper and is created using the same tools as you would create a book or newspaper i.e. by using a word processor or similar tool.

So what is the difference between the page you are currently reading and a Web Page – The answer is in the Formatting and structure. Web pages are formatted and structured using a special Language called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).

HTML (XHTML) formatted pages are meant to be read by a special program called a Web Browser e.g. Internet Explorer. An HTML page is a text page containing special tags which tell the Web browser how to format and display the text. We will examine HTML in more detail a little later.

You can create HTML pages with any text editor like notepad but doing so require detailed knowledge of HTML itself. Most Website developers use special Web editing tools like Microsoft FrontPage which require no or very little real knowledge of HTML.

Web pages are in fact the building blocks of a web site, and the first thing you need to do is to make web pages and understand how they are structured and linked together .

See starting HTML/XHTML and how to make your own web page for more details.

What is a Home Page?

            The home page is the first web page you go to on a Website. Its purpose is to make it easy for visitors to find the information they want from your site; it is in effect a kind of guide.

You can think of it as being the equivalent of a receptionist in a large office. He/she has the first contact with visitors and assists them to locate whoever they have come to visit. A bad receptionist can have a negative impact on new visitors- likewise for a bad Homepage.

What is a Hyperlink?

            A Web page can contain references to other Web pages in the same way a book can contain references to other books or articles. If you are reading a book and see a reference to another book or article you must go to the library and get the book or article in order to read it.

On the Web this is much easier as the references on a Web page are actually links to the article and when clicked the Web browser displays the article. These links or references are called hyperlinks and are normally shown underlined in Web browsers.

When you move the cursor over these links the cursor icon changes (to a hand on Internet explorer) and you  see the location of the destination page displayed in the lower left bar of the browser.

Links that are unvisited are normally shown in blue and go black when they have been visited (viewed). Figure 5 shows how the browser displays hyperlinks all of the links in this example are unvisited.

 
 

 

See website links for more details

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