Web Site:
A web site is a collection of web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A web page is a document, typically written in HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP, a protocol that transfers information from the web server to display in the user’s web browser. All publicity accessible websites are seen collectively as constituting the “World Wide Web”.
The pages of websites can usually be accessed from a common root URL called the homepage, and usually reside on the same physical server. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although the hyperlinks between them control how the reader perceives the overall structure and how the traffic flows between the different parts of the sites. Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription sites include many business sites, parts of many news sites, academic journal sites, gaming sites, message boards, Web-based e-mail, services, social networking website and sites providing real-time stock market data.
Organized by the function, a website may be-
» A personal website
» A commercial website
» A government website
» A non-profit organization website
It could be the work of an individual, a business or other organization and is typically dedicated to some particular topic or purpose.
Web The New Arena:
Life was just going on fine, when along came the Internet and just about everything changed. You just have to look back over the past five year or six and think of different things were before that. Today, everyone’s young, smart and online. Oh yes, we are well into the Net Age. Whether you are working in a high-tech corporation or setting up your home office, trying to learn or two at college or having a whale of a time at school, life’s on the Internet.
Content Is The King:
No matter how great a site looks, no amount of design ever makes up for poor content. This is a fact that many web author lose sight of. That’s why we have so many sites around us that offer the visitor the same old thing – a bit of this a bit of that. A really good site must have solid unique content. That’s why as experts recommend we started with strategy and purpose first – no with design. First off you must quite clear of the purpose of your site. This holds true for any type of web sites, whether it’s a personal web sites, a small business set up, a hobbyist’s page or e- commerce or anything else. A web site without purpose just takes space and please no one but its own author. So unless you are just using your site for storage, start with putting down your purpose, your objectives, and message.
Types Of Web Site:
There are many variety of web sites, each specializing in a particular type of content or use and they may be arbitrarily classified in any number of ways. A few such classifications might include:-
Affiliated Sites: Enabled portal that renders not only its custom CMS but also syndicated content from other content providers for an agreed fee. There are usually three relationship tiers. Affiliate Agencies ( e.g. Commission Junction), Advertisers ( e.g. Ebay) and consumer ( e.g. Yahoo).
Archive Site: Used to preserve valuable electronic content threatened with extinction. Two examples are – Internet Archive which since 1996 has preserved billions of old ( and new ) web pages and Google Groups which in early 2005 was archiving over 845,000,000 messages posted to Usenet news / discussion groups.
Blog Site: Sites generally used to post online diaries which may include discussion forums ( e.g. blogger, xanga).
Content Site: Sites whose business is the creation and distribution of original content ( e.g. Slant, About.com).
Corporate Site: Used to provide background information about a business, organization or service.
E-Commerce Site: For purchasing goods such as Amazon.com.
Community Site: A site where persons with similar interests communicate with each other usually by chat or message boards such as MySpace.
Database Site: A site whose main use is the search and display of a specific database’s content such as the Internet Movie Database or the Political Graveyard.
Development Site: A site whose purpose is to provide information and resources related to software development, web design and the like.
Directory Site: A site that contains varied contents which are divided into categories and subcategories such as Yahoo! directory, Google directory and open directory project.
Download Site: Strictly used for downloading electronic content such as software, game demos or computer wall paper.
Employment Site: Allows employers to post job requirements for a position or positions and prospective employees to fill an application.
Erotica Websites: Shows sexual videos and images.
Fan Site: A web site created and maintained by fans of and for a particular celebrity as opposed to a web site created, maintained and controlled by a celebrity through their own paid webmaster. May also be known as a Shine in the case of certain subjects such as anime and manga characters.
Game Site: A site that is itself a game or “playground” where many people come to play such as MSN Games, POGO.com and Newgrounds.com.
Gripe Site: A site devoted to the critique of a person, place, corporation, government or institution.
Humor Site: Satirizes, parodies or otherwise exists solely to amuse.
Information Site: Contains content that is intended to inform visitors but not necessarily for commercial purposes such as: RateMyProfessors.com, free internet lexicon and encyclopedia. Most government, educational and non-profit institutions have an informational site.
Java Applet Site: Contains software to run over the web as a web application.
Mirror ( Computing ) Site: A complete reproduction of a website.
News Site: Similar to an information site but dedicated to dispensing news and commentary.
Personal Homepage: Run by an individual or a small group ( such as a family ) that contains information or any content that the individual wishes to include.
Political Site: A site on which people may voice political views.
Pornography ( porn ) Site: Site that shows pornographic images & videos.
Rating Site: Site on which people can praise or disparage what is featured.
Review Site: Site on which people can post reviews for product or service.
Search Engine Site: A site that provides general information and is intended as a gateway or lookup for other sites. A pure example is Google and the most widely known extended type is Yahoo! .
Shock Site: Includes images or other material that is intended to be offensive to most viewers ( e.g. Rotten.com ).
Phish Site: Website created to fraudulently acquire sensitive information such as passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business ( such as social security administration, paypal ) in an electronic communication.
Warez: A site filled with illegal downloads.
Web Portal: A site that provides a starting point or a gateway to other resources on the internet or an intranet.
Wiki Site: A site which users collaboratively edit ( such as Wikipedia ).
World Wide Web:
The letters “www” are commonly found at the beginning of Web addresses because of the long-standing practice if naming Internet hosts ( servers ) according to the services they provide. So for example, the host name for a Web server is often “www” for an FTP server, “ftp”; and for a USENET news server, “news” or “nntp” ( after the news protocol NNTP). These host names appear as DNS subdomain names as in www.example.com. This use of such prefix is not require by any technical standard; indeed, the web server was at “ nxoc01.cern.ch”, [ 15 ] and even today many web sites exist without a “ www ” prefix has no meaning in the way the main web site is shown. The “ www ” prefix is simply one choice for a web site’s subdomain name. Some web browsers will automatically try adding “ www ” to the beginning and possibly “ .com ” to the end of typed URLs if no host is found without them. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and opera will also prefix “ http://www” and append “ .com ” to the address bar contents if the Control and Enter keys are pressed simulteniously. For example, entering “ example ” in the address bar and then press either just Enter or Control+Enter will usually resolve to “ http://www.example.com ” depending on the exact browser version and its settings.
The World Wide Web ( commonly shortened to the web ) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, a user views web pages that contain text, images, videos and other multimedia and navigates between them using hyperlinks. The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners Lee, working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, Berners Lee has played an active role in guiding the development of web standards ( such as the markup languages in which web pages are composed), and in recent years has advocated his vision of a Semantic Web. Robert Cailliau, also at CERN, was an early evangelist for the project.
How The Web Works:
Viewing a web page on the World Wide Web normally begins either by typing the URL of the page into a web browser or by following a hyperlink to that page or resource. The web browser then initiates a series of communication messages behind the scenes in order to fetch and display it.
First the server-name portion of the URL is resolved into an IP address using the global, distributed Internet database known as the domain name system or DNS. This IP address is necessary to contact and send data packets to the web server.
The browser then requests the resource by sending an HTTP request to the web server at that particular address. In the case of a typical web page the HTML text of the page is requested first and parsed immediately by the web browser which will then make additional requests for images and any other files that form a part of the page. Statistics measuring a website’s popularity are usually based on the number of ‘ page views’ or associated server ‘ hits’ or requests which take place.
Having received the require files from the web server the browser renders the page onto the screen as specified by its HTML, CSS and other web languages. Any images and other resources are incorporated to produce the on-screen web page that the user sees.
Contents Of Web Site:
No matter how great a site looks, no amount of design ever makes up for poor content. This is a fact that many web author lose sight of. That’s why we have so many sites around us that offer the visitor the same old thing – a bit of this, a bit of that. A really good site must have solid unique content. That’s why as exports recommend we started with strategy and purpose first – no with design. First off you must quite clear of the purpose of your site. This hold true for any type of websites, whether it’s a personal websites, a small business setup, a hobbyist’s page or e-commerce or anything else. A website without purpose just takes space and please no one but its own author. So unless you are just using your site for storage, start with putting down your purpose, your objectives, and the message.
Writing Web Site:
Writing for the web is in many ways different form writing for print. For one, the reader’s purpose in reading may be different. His attention span is different. The reading experience online and the way the reader’s eye moves across a page are different. With a printed page, there is only one sort of navigation-turn the page. But on a web page, there can be dozens and dozens of options all visible at once. And there’s your reader, finger poised over the mouse button, ready to be interactive. But with a web page, interactivity is important because readers want to do something. All this means that information has to be tailored and arranged specially for online reading. Writing for the web skillfully involves learning how to keep in mind new online reading habits and patterns. It means being able to put forward information in a way that draws the reader in quickly and keeps him at the website or at least that it gives him what he wants so that he comes back again and again.
Web Site Styles:
A static web site is one that has web pages stored on the server in the same form as the user will view them. They are edited using three broad categories of software:
Text editor such as notepad or text editor, where the HTML is manipulated directly within the editor program.
Editor such as Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver where the site is edited using a GUI interface and the underlying HTML is generated automatically by the editor software. Template-based editors such as Rapidweaver and iWeb which allow users to quickly create and upload websites to a web server without having to know anything about HTML as they just pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a DTP-like fashion without ever having to see any HTML code. A dynamic website is one that has frequently changing information or collates information on the hop each time a page is requested. For example- it would call various bits of information from a database and put them together in a pre-defined format to present the reader with a coherent page. It interacts with users in a variety of ways including by reading cookies recognizing user’s previous history, session variables, server side variables etc, or by using direct interaction ( form elements, mouseovers, etc ). A site can display the current state of a dialog between users, monitor a changing situation or provide information in some way personalized to the requirements of the individual users.
What makes the World Wide Web so exciting is the limitless ways in which information and content can be put up. Using color, picture, sounds, movie clips, animation and interactivity, you can make sure your site is compelling enough to draw visitors again and again which is what every website wants. Naturally, this makes the site’s design, its layout, navigation and general look and feel an important aspect to work on. What usually tends to happen is that people over-design a website, filling it with bright starting colors, a feast of different fonts and too many pictures for its own good. Many resource sites have design is term that is used rather loosely sometimes it can include usability issues, navigation, browser compatibility and so on. If your page is about a regional specific topic, then make sure you include that.
Preferably right in the title of the page. Put the region in the keywords and page description as well. Remember too that even if your topic is regional, it has value to global viewers. What if someone from Germany is visiting your home town and needs any information there? You also might want to expand your site to give more generic information that would appeal to a more global audience.
Language On the Web:
Right now, most of the pages on the web are in English but just because you’re writing your page in English in Australia does not mean that a Canadian would understand it or find it useful. Make sure that you avoid slang on your site as that is the most non-translatable element of a page. When you list a price, indicate what currency you’re using. And when you list sizes or measurements, it helps if you list conversions or link to a conversion web site.
Static Versus Dynamic: Static HTML sites have not changed much since their development and the advent of the web. Essentially websites are presented using a wide array of tags that offer means for usually laying out a site. Search engines have become very good at recognizing static websites. In general search engines can navigate through a static website very easily and thus locate information. However, there is one significant disadvantage of static sites, you may need a separate page ( file ) for every page on your site. For example, if you want to make a design change that affects the entire site you may need to adjust all pages. For small sites this is not a problem but for large content or e-commerce sites creating new pages or updating existing pages can be time consuming and expensive. Certainly there is web development software that makes this a little easier but in the end static sites take time to manage. Interaction with visitors is a key feature of the best sites on the web. After all the most popular computer operating systems in the world may be the ones used for game playing machines. It seems that people hate the pickiness and precision of computer that allow them to do the things they do. On the other hand they love the illusion of the computer as another person with dynamism comes interaction. Dynamic websites means that different actions by the visitor cause different behaviors i.e. outputs by the site. That means pages are created as the user views the site. In most cases this requires the use of a database which contains the site’s information and some kind of scripting setup that is programmed to retrieve the information from the database.
What A Dynamic web Site can do?:
building a database driven web site is one of the best ways to insure that your site will grow into the future. Here are some of the reasons why – – –
Manage Your Own Content: A database-backed website brings unprecedented flexibility to how information is stored and displayed on the web. That means you can add and manage stories, information, schedules and photographs without having to calla web master. It’s a great way to take control of your site while saving money on maintenance.
Keep Your Visitors Coming Back: With fresh content that you can update at your site will always be relevant. So instead of finding the same stories and information on your site, returning visitors will find information that’s new and current. Its easy, inexpensive and will keep your visitors coming back time and time again.
Grow into The Future: Building a dynamic, database-driven site is strategically superior because changes to the site are incredibly easy to make. Want a new look on the site? No problem, since design ( presentation ) is separated from the site’s content. Need to change content, that’s only a few keystrokes away with easy-to-use administrative interfaces. Want to add new pages or section’s? not a problem when you have built your site on a foundation that’s both solid and flexible.
Manage Visitors Securely: With a data driven site you can let visitors see only information that you want them to see. Build member’s-only sections, handle passwords, lockout unwanted requests, handle subscription services, allow your staff access to areas where others are not allowed. A database-backed site can perform these secure functions with ease.
Be Searchable: letting visitors find the information they need quickly and easily is a snap with a dynamic site. Whether you are a publisher hosting thousands of articles or a merchant selling hundreds of widgets, a dynamic site allows your visitors to find what they need in a heartbeat.
Harness Your Site’s potential: Unlike traditional “ static ” sites, a dynamic site is far more than useful than simple “ brochure ware”. With dynamic architecture, your site can be put to an infinite variety of valuable uses. For example: you can easily connect a visitor with a near by distributor, connect a specific salesperson to a customer or deliver an instant response customer service request. In short, a dynamic site delivers more than a “ static ” site ever could.
Spend Less Time Managing Your Site: A dynamic site can reduce or eliminate many of the most time-consuming functions facing your staffs. That’s because many administrative functions can now be automated. For example: if a deadline has passed or an inventory sold-out, the site can automatically remove those items from display. It could notify automatically and update product pages on its own. Now your staff can spend less time on the web managing our site and more time doing the things they do best.
Handle Complex Tasks: while dynamic sites are superb for publishing and e-commerce, they can also be used far complex tasks such as quoting, estimating and presenting customized sales information anywhere, any time. Handling complex tasks is par for the course with a dynamic site.
Connect To Your customers: When visitors come to your site, do you gather information that can help you serve them better? With a built-in database, a dynamic site is a natural for gathering customer preferences. Ask them if they want to subscribe to news letters or if they are interested in new products. Test market new products. Survey them for valuable feedback. A dynamic web site can help you connect to customers in ways you were never able to before.
Customize your message: is it possible to respond on an individual basis to an infinite number of site visitors? If you build a dynamic site, it is. From greeting customers individually after log-in to sending carefully-crafted customized emails, a dynamic site will help you send the message that your customers are more than just numbers.
Developing A Dynamic Site:
In most cases this requires the use of a database which contains the site’s information and some kind of scripting setup that is programmed to retrieve the information from the database. Some popular scripting languages are ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, Pearl, ColdFusion, JavaScript. Some popular databases are MySql, MS SQL Server, Oracle etc.
ASP: Active Server Pages, Microsoft’s technology to enables HTML pages to be dynamic and interactive by embedding scripts i.e. either VBScript or Jscript, Microsoft’s alternative of JavaScript. Since the scripts in ASP pages ( suffix asp ) are processed by the server, any browser can work with ASP pages regardless of its Support for the scripting language used there in.
ASP.Net: Microsoft ASP.Net is a set of technologies in the Microsoft .NET Framework for building web applications and XML web services. ASP.Net pages execute on the server and generate markup such as HTML, WML or XML that is sent to a desktop or mobile browser. ASP.Net pages use a compiled, event-driven programming model that improves performance and enables the separation of application logic and user interface. ASP.Net pages and ASP.Net XML web services files contain server-side logic ( as opposed to client-side logic ) written in Microsoft Visual Basic.NET, Microsoft Visual C#.NET or any Microsoft.NET framework-compatible language.
PHP: A recursive acronym for “ hypertext Preprocessor ” is an open source server side scripting language designed for creating robust and reliable dynamic web pages for e-commerce and other mission critical web applications.
Perl: Practical Extraction and Reporting Language A robust programming language frequently used for creating CGI programs on web servers because it is faster than UNIX shell script programs, it can read and write binary files and it can process very large files.
Cold Fusion: It is an advanced website program that runs on our servers here at Thelix. Cold Fusion works in conjunction with a database of information that it draws from. You can use Cold Fusion to create dynamic web pages that display a variety of data, depending on what the viewer clicks on.
JavaScript: a scripting language from Netscape that is only marginally related to java. Java and JavaScript are not the same thing. JavaScript was designed to resemble Java which in turn looks a lot like C and C++. The difference is that java was built as a general-purpose object language while JavaScript is intended to provide a quicker and simpler language in a web page that is interpreted and executed by the web client. The script writer controls from within a web document, often executed by mouse function, buttons or other actions from the user. JavaScript can be used to fully control Netscape and Microsoft web browsers including all the familiar browser attributes.
MySQL: The MySQL database server is the world’s most popular open source database. Over six million installations use MySQL to power high-volume websites and other critical business systems – including industry- leaders like the associated press, Yahoo, NASA, Sabre Holdings and Suzuki. MySQL is an attractive alternative to higher-cost, more complex database technology. Its award-winning speed, scalability and reliability make it the right choice for corporate IT departments, web developers and packaged software vendors.
Microsoft SQL: Microsoft SQL server is a relation database management system produced by Microsoft. It supports a dialect of SQL, the most common database language. It is commonly used by governments and businesses for small to medium sized databases and completes with other SQL databases for this market segment.
Oracle database: An Oracle database, strictly speaking, is a collection of data, is sometimes imprecisely used to refer to the DBMS software itself. This error is made in the title of this article and below. The oracle managed by an Oracle database management system or DBMS. The term ” Oracle database management system” can be referred to without ambiguity as Oracle DBMS or the databases which it manages being relational in character, as oracle RDBMS. The very useful distinction between data managed by Oracle, an Oracle database and the Oracle RDBMS is blurred by Oracle Corporation itself when they refer now a days to the Oracle RDBMS, the software they sell to manage databases as the Oracle Database. The distinction between the managed data ( the database ) and the software which manages the ( DBMS / RDBMS ) relies, in Oracle’s marketing literature. On the capitalization of the world database. The Oracle DBMS is produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation. The Oracle DBMS is extensively used by many database applications on most popular computing platforms.
Scripts & Database:
We used PHP as scripting language and MySQL as backend Database. In the upcoming chapter we will discuss briefly about PHP and MySQL and their beneficiary side over others similar tools.
Publishing Web Page:
Web page production is available to individuals outside the mass media. In order to publish a web page, one does not have to go through a publisher or other media institution and potential readers could be found in all corners of the globe. Many different kinds of information are available on the web and for those who wish to know other societies, cultures and peoples, it has become easier. The increased opportunity to publish materials is observable in the countless personal and social networking pages, as well as sites by families, small shops etc. facilitated by the emergence of free web hosting services.
Web Analytics:
Web analytics is the study of the behavior of website visitors. In a commercial context, web analytics especially refers to the use of data collected from a web site to determine which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives for example which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase.
Data collected almost always includes web traffic reports. It may also include e-mail response rates, direct mail campaign data, sales and lead information, user performance data such as click heat mapping or other custom metrics as needed. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign’s audience response. Many different vendors provide web analyt
