website

A website is a collection of related web pages that share a common domain name and are hosted on at least one web server and accessible via the Internet. Each page is typically identified by a URL and rendered by a web browser using a combination of HTML for structure, CSS for presentation, and JavaScript for interactivity. Websites may be static, delivering fixed content, or dynamic, generating content on the server in response to user actions or data from a database.

A website's pages are linked together through hyperlinks and may be organized into sections such as home, about, products, and contact. Servers store the site’s files and respond to client requests using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or its encrypted version HTTPS. Domains are registered names that point to the server’s address, and hosting services provide the infrastructure to store and serve the pages. Large sites may use content delivery networks to improve performance and reliability.

Design and implementation practices include responsive design to work on desktops and mobile devices; accessibility considerations to support users with disabilities; search engine optimization; and performance optimization. Modern websites often rely on content management systems or web frameworks to manage content, user accounts, and interactive features, and may incorporate server-side languages (for example, Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, or JavaScript on Node.js) together with databases.

Historically, websites began in the early 1990s and evolved from static pages to dynamic, interactive platforms. They span many purposes, including informational sites, blogs, news portals, e-commerce stores, and web applications. Security and privacy concerns—such as encryption, authentication, and secure coding—are central to responsible website management.