What is a Website and how does it work?

What is a Web Page?

A web page consists of an HTML page with various other files, such as CSS and JavaScript.

Examples: Home page, about page, contact page, login page.

A web page can be created using only HTML (which provides content and structure of the web page) and CSS (which styles the HTML content). In addition, JavaScript is used to add interactivity of the web page (e.g., form validation, slides, animations, and other interactive elements).

 What is a Static Web Page?

A static web page shows the same content that users can view and read from anywhere in the world until someone changes it manually. It is written in languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and there is no interaction in the database.
Examples: portfolio page, landing page, instructional page, etc.

 

What is a Dynamic Web Page?

A dynamic web page updates information frequently and provides different information to different users depending on their location, local time, and so on. It uses a database and server-side scripting languages like PHP, Python, or JavaScript (Node.js).

Examples: login and signup page, form submission page, shopping cart page, weather information, and so on.

 

What is a Web Site?

A Web site is a collection of web pages. It can contain both static and dynamic web pages.

Example: brotodev.com, youtube.com, amazon.com. 

What is a Web Application?

A web application (or web app) is a software program that can be accessed by a web browser and runs on a web server. It is interactive and allows users to perform tasks such as filling out online forms, making purchases, or playing games. It is dynamic. It provides different information to different users depending on their location, local time, and so on. That is why web applications are also often more complex than websites and require more server resources.

Example: online stores, news sites, socials media.

  

How a website or a web application works:

Step1. Open a browser (ex. Google Chrome) write a website name (such as youtube.com) in the search bar option in the browser and hit enter.

Step2. The browser sends an HTTP request to the server that hosts the website. 

Step3. The web server in the server responds to the HTTP request.

 

a.  If the website is static, the web server processes and delivers an HTML file along with CSS, JavaScript, and images to the requesting browser. No interaction in the database.

 

b.  If the website is dynamic, the web server sends it to the application server. The application server extracts data from the database server and back to the web server. The web server inserts that data into an HTML file along with CSS, JavaScript, and images and then delivers the HTML file to the requesting browser.

Step4. The browser processes this HTML file using DOM and shows it to us as a web page.

What is a Web Browser?

A web browser is a software or application to display websites. It gives a means to control web pages.  

List of some web browsers:

 

A browser or web browser consists of five parts on the screen:

1. 1. Menu bar – you can open new tabs, new browser windows, zoom pages, and so on.

2. Tab bar – you can navigate different pages when you view more than one at a time. To view page content, you only click its tab bar. Click the ‘+’ button on the tab bar to open a new page.

3. Navigation button – you can move the page backward, forward, and reload/stop.

               Button             Action

                   ←               go back one page  

                   →               go forward one page  

                   ↻                reload the current page 

4. Address or search bar – you type the website address to view and read it.

5. Web view or view port – here shows the content of a page.

You can see the main parts of the Google Chrome browser: 

What is a server?

A server is a computer running somewhere on the internet whose job is to serve us something. A server provides hosting that stores pages, images, or documents used for a website so that Internet users can access them.

There are many types of servers: Web server, Application server, Database server, DNS server, Email server, File server, Print server, and so on.

A web server processes and delivers static web content—e.g., HTML pages, files, images, video—in response to hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) requests from a web browser.

Ex: Apache.

An application server generates and delivers dynamic content and deals with several protocols including HTTP protocols.