Static site

The traditional website of the past is what we would consider a static site. It contains a fixed amount of pages and the information is presented in HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language). This type of site is used mostly by clients who wish to show a finite amount of information to users online. A good application would be an online version of your printed marketing literature.

The content on a static webpage will never change unless the change is applied manually and the new version is uploaded onto the Web Hosting Server. The capacity of a static page is to simply display the information it contains on the screen every time it is loaded onto a web browser.

Dynamic site

Server side Dynamic websites

A dynamic web page will perform its functions exactly the opposite of a static page. In the case of a server side dynamic site, the dynamic activities are performed on the server and the content generally changes every time the page loads with you having to manually make those changes. This change in content will directly be related to the latest updated information present on the database as well as the user’s request for specific information.

One of the most common types of dynamic web pages is the database driven type (link to resource on database driven websites). In a server-side dynamic website, the server will construct an HTML page according to the information the user has requested to view. A good example is inventory on an online store. Once an item has been sold the information is updated on the server and when the next user creates a request, he/she will view the updated information.

Usually the server will be either a Microsoft server or LAMP server.

Microsoft server technology usually consists of ASP, .NET, or MSSQL technologies. Microsoft, being proprietary software, is an added cost that must be considered when deciding the platform on which your website will run.

LAMP server technology is based on the Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL technologies. The main advantage in using this system is that it is open source and freely available software therefore there is no added cost. LAMP servers are extremely powerful servers that are highly stable and very secure.

For more information regarding Microsoft and LAMP services please read our resources here: Microsoft, LAMP

Client Side Dynamic Websites

Client side dynamic content is normally referred to as DHTML (Dynamic HTML). DHTML is usually combining HTML and JavaScript (sometimes Visual Basic Script) to change the content on the page without it being reloaded. This is named client side dynamic because the dynamic portion of this process takes place at the browser and not on the server prior to the page being loaded. A good example of DHTML is the JavaScript drop down menus.