What Is a Website?
A website is a collection of interconnected webpages that are grouped under a domain name. It is accessible via Internet and allows information to be shared with billions of users worldwide. The website consists of various components like images, text, video, audio and illustrations based on the website’s purpose. Its central page is called a home page and is the first page that pops up when you type a website’s domain name on your browser’s address bar. The homepage usually provides basic overall information on what the site is about and offers links to other pages with more detailed information.
To be able to access and view the contents of a website, you need a computer with an Internet connection. This is because the website needs to be hosted on a server that is connected to the Internet network and able to format and send information requested by web users worldwide 24 hours a day.
When you type a website’s address on your web browser, it will ask the server for the requested web page. Then the server will send the required web page to your browser in its HTML format. You can then read and explore the content of the web page using your browser’s controls.
Web servers can be used for a wide variety of purposes, from hosting a simple personal or business website to a complex ecommerce or corporate web portal. Some websites are free to use, while others require user registration or subscription to access their contents. Subscription based websites include news sites, academic journals, file-sharing and social networking websites.
The relaunched Reedsy website, for example, includes a blog section where they publish new articles every few days that educate readers about book writing and editing services. The main website is a static site that remains unchanged over time, while the blog section of the website updates automatically and encourages interaction between the author and the reader.
Some websites are very large and contain huge amounts of data. They are often divided into sections that are accessed via navigation menus. The navigation structure of a website determines the order of the pages, how they are linked together and how visitors can move around the site.
There are millions of websites on the Internet today engaging billions of users worldwide. These sites are mainly managed by businesses and organizations to provide products and services to their clients or customers, while individuals have created blogs to share their knowledge or stories with the world. The Internet also hosts some very entertaining and interactive websites like online games, movies and music streaming services. All of these websites are powered by the Internet, the powerful invention that connects computers worldwide and makes information available to everyone.