Websites, Web Pages, Web Servers and Hosting

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. You type a school website address, and the page appears in two seconds. But where was that page stored, and how did it reach your phone? Today we will learn website versus web page, static and dynamic pages, and web servers and hosting. Then we will follow a page to your screen.

First, a web page. A web page is one single document on the World Wide Web. It is written mainly in HTML, the language that tells the browser what to show. A page can hold text, images, videos and hyperlinks to other pages. You open it in a web browser by typing or clicking its URL, which is its address.

Now let us compare a web page with a website. A web page is one document, while a website is a group of related pages joined by links. Each page has its own URL, but the whole website shares one domain name. For example, the admission form is a web page, and the full school site is the website. So a website is like a book, and a web page is one page of it.

Every website has a special page called the home page. It is the first page you see when you open the website's domain name. It links to all the main sections, just like the contents page of a textbook. On many servers, the home page file is named index dot html.

Web pages come in two kinds, static and dynamic. A static page has fixed content, decided when the developer wrote the file. Every visitor sees exactly the same page, like a printed notice on a board. It is usually built with just HTML and CSS. Static pages load fast and cost little, but to change them, someone must edit the file.

A dynamic page is different. Its content is created at the moment you ask for it. It changes with who you are, the time, or the data you type. A program on the server reads a database, which is an organised store of data, and builds the page. Board exam result pages, a train PNR status and a shopping cart are all dynamic pages.

Let us compare the two side by side. A static page has fixed content, while a dynamic page is built on request. A static page is the same for every visitor, but a dynamic page can differ. Static pages do not need a database, while dynamic pages usually do. Static pages are faster and cheaper, while dynamic pages need more work from the server. Pause and predict. Your marksheet on a result website, static or dynamic? Dynamic, because it is built from your roll number.

Now, where do websites live? They live on a web server. A web server is a computer that stores all the files of a website. It runs special software, such as Apache or Nginx, that answers requests. It stays switched on and connected to the Internet all day and night. When a browser asks for a page, the web server sends it back.

Most schools and shops do not run their own servers, because it is costly and needs experts. Instead, they use web hosting, which means renting space on someone else's web server. The company that provides this space is called a web hosting provider, or web host. The web host keeps the servers running, secure and backed up. The website owner also registers a domain name, and points it to the hosting server.

There are four common types of hosting. In shared hosting, many websites share one server, so it is cheap and good for small sites. VPS means virtual private server, where one server is split into private sections with fixed resources. Dedicated hosting gives one whole server to a single website. Cloud hosting spreads a site over many servers, so it can handle sudden crowds, like on result day.

Now let us join everything together. DNS turns the domain name into the web server's IP address. The browser sends an HTTP or HTTPS request to that server, asking for the page. The server checks, is this page available? If yes, it sends back the page files, or builds the page if it is dynamic. If not, it sends back an error, like four zero four, Not Found. Finally, the browser shows the page, or the error, on your screen.

The journey has one last step, inside your browser. The browser reads the HTML to build the structure of the page. The HTML mentions images and style files, so the browser asks the server for those too. It then applies the CSS, which controls colours, fonts and layout. Finally, it runs any scripts and paints the finished page on your screen.

Let us revise what we learned today. A web page is one document, and a website is a group of linked pages under one domain. A static page is fixed, and a dynamic page is built when you ask for it. A web server is an always-on computer that stores and sends web pages. Web hosting means renting space on such a server from a web host. And a page reaches you through the URL, DNS, an HTTP request, the server's response and the browser.