What is a Website?

What is a website?

A website means you have files hosted on a computer that is always connected and available on the internet. This computer is which is known as a server. The server sends web pages over the internet so that anyone connected can view them. When a user goes to Amazon.com, Amazon's server sends Amazon’s homepage to the user. Technically, any computer can be turned into a server, but practically, you will want to use a web host to host your files on their servers.

So a website is just a collection of files?

This depends on what type of site you have – static or dynamic. A static site doesn’t do much, it can just display text, images, links and videos. The files are stored on a server and sent over to the user when requested. This may be enough for your site if all you need is a simple online presence for yourself or your business. The pages just consist of simple pages made with HTML and CSS. You can’t run any code from the server, but you can run Javascript code on the users’ computers. However, if you need a site that can ‘do stuff’ such as storing user information in databases or running scripts, you’ll need a dynamic site, which will be covered later on.

The easiest way to create simple website is to use a DIY-service such as Google Sites or Weebly.com. They offer easy-to-use interfaces for creating simple sites. However, if you want to be able to customize more aspects of your site and have more control over the actual HTML, you’ll need a web host that lets you upload your own web files. On the next page, you'll see how to use a quick and free option.