Website: Difference between revisions

▲The [[World Wide Web]] (WWW) was created in 1989 by the British CERN computer scientist [[Tim Berners-Lee]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tim Berners-Lee|url=https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Overview.html|access-date=2021-11-17|website=www.w3.org|archive-date=27 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927100010/https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Overview.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="First page">{{cite web | url=http://info.cern.ch/ | title=The website of the world's first-ever web server | access-date=30 August 2008 | archive-date=10 June 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170610063709/http://info.cern.ch/ | url-status=live }}</ref> On 30 April 1993, [[CERN]] announced that the World Wide Web would be free to use for anyone, contributing to the immense growth of the Web.<ref name="w3c">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/History.html |title=A Little History of the World Wide Web |access-date=16 February 2007 |last=Cailliau |first=Robert |archive-date=6 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130506021750/http://www.w3.org/History.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Before the introduction of the [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol]] (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]] in which the user navigates and where they choose files to download. Documents were most often presented as plain text files without formatting or were encoded in [[word processor]] formats.

▲== History ==

▲While "web site" was the original spelling (sometimes capitalized "Web site", since "Web" is a proper noun when referring to the [[World Wide Web]]), this variant has become rarely used, and "website" has become the standard spelling. All major style guides, such as ''[[The Chicago Manual of Style]]''<ref>{{cite web |title=Internet, Web, and Other Post-Watergate Concerns |url=http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/InternetWebandOtherPost-WatergateConcerns/InternetWebandOtherPost-WatergateConcerns13.html |access-date=18 September 2010 |publisher=University of Chicago |archive-date=20 February 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100220163158/http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/InternetWebandOtherPost-WatergateConcerns/InternetWebandOtherPost-WatergateConcerns13.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and the ''[[AP Stylebook]]'',<ref name="AP tweet">{{Cite tweet|number=12296505018|user=APStylebook|title=Responding to reader input, we are changing Web site to website. This appears on Stylebook Online today and in the 2010 book next month.|author=AP Stylebook|author-link=AP Stylebook|date=16 April 2010|access-date=18 March 2019}}</ref> have reflected this change.

▲In February 2009, [[Netcraft]], an [[Website monitoring|Internet monitoring]] company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, reported that there were 215,675,903 websites with domain names and content on them in 2009, compared to just 19,732 websites in August 1995.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Web Server Survey |url=http://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-survey/ |access-date=13 March 2017 |website=[[Netcraft]] |language=en-US |archive-date=20 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110820181833/http://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-survey/ |url-status=live }}</ref> After reaching 1 billion websites in September 2014, a milestone confirmed by Netcraft in its October 2014 Web Server Survey and that Internet Live Stats was the first to announce—as attested by this tweet from the inventor of the World Wide Web himself, Tim Berners-Lee—the number of websites in the world have subsequently declined, reverting to a level below 1 billion. This is due to the monthly fluctuations in the count of inactive websites. The number of websites continued growing to over 1 billion by March 2016 and has continued growing since.<ref>[http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/ A total number of Websites | Internet live stats] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170720110402/http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/ |date=20 July 2017 }}. internetlivestats.com. Retrieved on 14 April 2015.</ref> Netcraft Web Server Survey in January 2020 reported that there are 1,295,973,827 websites and in April 2021 reported that there are 1,212,139,815 sites across 10,939,637 web-facing computers, and 264,469,666 unique domains.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Web Server Survey |url=https://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-survey/ |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=Netcraft News |language=en-gb |archive-date=24 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180724033250/https://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-survey/ |url-status=live }}</ref> An estimated 85 percent of all websites are inactive.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Deon |date=2020-05-26 |title=How Many Websites Are There Around the World? [2021] |url=https://siteefy.com/how-many-websites-are-there/ |access-date=2021-05-17 |website=Siteefy |language=en-US |archive-date=17 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517211328/https://siteefy.com/how-many-websites-are-there/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

▲{{Main|Dynamic web page|Web application|Progressive web app}}

▲A dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently and automatically. Server-side dynamic pages are generated "on the fly" by computer code that produces the HTML (CSS are responsible for appearance and thus, are static files). There are a wide range of software systems, such as [[Common Gateway Interface|CGI]], [[Java Servlets]] and [[Java Server Pages]] (JSP), [[Active Server Pages]] and [[ColdFusion]] (CFML) that are available to generate [[Programming languages used in most popular websites|dynamic Web systems and dynamic sites]]. Various [[Web application framework]]s and [[Web template system]]s are available for general-use [[programming language]]s like [[Perl]], [[PHP]], [[Python (programming language)|Python]] and [[Ruby (programming language)|Ruby]] to make it faster and easier to create complex dynamic websites.

▲Websites can be divided into two broad categories—static and interactive. Interactive sites are part of the [[Web 2.0]] community of sites and allow for interactivity between the site owner and site visitors or users. Static sites serve or capture information but do not allow engagement with the audience or users directly. Some websites are informational or produced by enthusiasts or for personal use or entertainment. Many websites do aim to make money using one or more business models, including: