TYPES OF WEBSITES

TYPES OF WEBSITES

A website (Web site or simply site) is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address also called URL.

History

The World Wide Web (WWW) was created in 1989 by CERN physicist Tim Berners-Lee.  On 30 April 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to use for anyone. Before the introduction of HTML and HTTP, other protocols such as file transfer protocol and the gopher protocol were used to retrieve individual files from a server. These protocols offer a simple directory structure which the user navigates and chooses files to download. Documents were most often presented as plain text files without formatting, or were encoded in word processor formats.

Types of websites

There are many varieties of websites, 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:

Basic types of websites on the internet

Commercial Website
The purpose of this type of website is to sell products or services. Commercial websites are used for promoting a business or service and are among the most common type of website on the internet. The Internet address often ends with .com.

Personal Website
The purpose of this type of website is to provide information about an individual or group. This type of website is run by an individual or a small group (such as a family) that contains information or any content that the individual wishes to include. The Internet address has a variety of endings.
Organizational Website
The purpose of this type of website is to advocate an individuals opinion or a group’s point of view. A website where persons with similar interests communicate with each other, usually by chat or message boards. The Internet address often ends with .org.
Educational Website
The purpose of this type of website is to provide information about an educational establishment or to present information in an educational manner. The Internet address ends in .edu.
Entertainment Website
The purpose of this type of website is to entertain and provide amusement. The Internet address often ends with .com.
News Website
The purpose of this type of website is to provide information about current events, dedicated to dispensing news and commentary. The Internet address often ends with .com.
Blog
A website that is used to log online readings or to post online diaries; may include discussion forums or chat rooms. The Internet address has a variety of endings.

Hybrid Website
Many websites are a mixture of types. For example, a business web site may promote the businesses products, but may also host informative documents, such as white papers or provide news for it's visitors. Remember, information is the soul of the internet and if used wisely articles and informational pieces are a good hook to bring in visitors.

There are also numerous sub-categories to the ones listed above. For example, a fan site may be a vanity site on which the administrator is paying homage to a celebrity. Another example would be a hobby site where the webmaster shares their knowledge with other like minded individuals and through forums or chat rooms creates a dialogue with them.

Some websites act as vehicles to communicate with other people via web-chat or in the form of a blog. These personal sites are among the most popular on the web.
    Many business websites have the appearance of brochures. They are simple and without frills, communicating some simple message or product.
   Large websites are constrained by architectural limits (e.g. the computing power dedicated to the website).

   Very large websites, such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and most other very large sites employ several servers and load balancing equipment, such as Cisco Content Services.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator

Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. The first part of the address is called a protocol identifier and it indicates what protocol to use, and the second part is called a resource name and it specifies the IP address or the domain name where the resource is located. The protocol identifier and the resource name are separated by a colon and two forward slashes.

For example, the two URLs below point to two different files at the domain pcwebopedia.com. The first specifies an executable file that should be fetched using the FTP protocol; the second specifies a Web page that should be fetched using the HTTP protocol.