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A static website always looks the same for everyone, and it doesn’t change when people interact with it. The content stays put unless a web developer manually updates it.”
If you’ve been investigating the world of website design and development, you may have encountered two terms used to classify websites: “static ” and”dynamic.”
If you’re constructing your website, one of the primary early decisions you’ll face is whether to go with a static or dynamic website. This selection directly impacts how your web pages are stored and served to users on their browsers.
To facilitate a better grasp of the concept, let’s deconstruct the difference between a static and a dynamic website. We’ll delve into the merits and drawbacks of each strategy, and finally, we’ll present examples of popular dynamic websites to give you a clearer idea of their functionalities.
Static vs Dynamic website
The distinction between static and dynamic websites lies in their behaviour: static websites remain uniform across all users until developers make source file changes. In contrast, dynamic websites can customize the information they present, catering to the specific needs of different visitors.
Simplifying the seemingly intricate nature of a website, at its core, it consists of an essential HTML file viewed in a web browser. Each time you go to a website, your browser initiates a request to the web server hosting that site—subsequently, the server replies by transmitting an HTML file (alongside other related files). Your browser handles this HTML file, presenting it as a fully rendered web page.
At the core, both static and dynamic websites produce HTML files, yet what distinguishes a website as “static” or “dynamic” is the server’s method of generating this HTML file before transmitting it to you. To understand this contrast clearly, let’s first delve into the mechanics of static websites.
What is a Static Website?
A static website relies on predefined files hosted on a web server. These files utilize languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, referred to as ‘client-side’ languages, since they execute within the user’s web browser. When a user requests a specific page by entering a URL, the server responds by sending the relevant HTML file linked to that URL, along with any accompanying CSS or JavaScript files.
“While this exchange happens, the web server doesn’t change the files before sending them to users. Consequently, the web page presents an identical view to all who request it. The content stays ‘static,’ implying that the exclusive method for altering the website’s look is manually adjusting the content within the files.
Don’t be fooled by ‘static’—static websites can be interactive and engaging. They can feature clickable links, buttons, images, videos, calls-to-action (CTAs), forms, digital downloads, and animations created using CSS or JavaScript. With sufficient expertise, you can achieve an aesthetically pleasing design for a static website. Remember that a static site’s visual presentation remains unchanged for all viewers.
Static websites are commonly seen in personal blogs, portfolio websites, brochure Sites, single-page landing pages, and other sites primarily meant for providing information. These websites are compact, typically comprising three to four pages or fewer, have minimal content, and do not frequently call for personalized content updates.
Advantages:
The simplicity inherent in static websites brings forth numerous benefits. They represent the most straightforward category of websites to build and maintain from the ground up. Static sites stand out as a reliable choice if you’re seeking a quick and budget-friendly way to establish an essential website. With a solid understanding of HTML and CSS, you can create a decent static site without significant challenges or expenses.
Moreover, static websites often deliver a Swiffer browsing experience for users compared to dynamic counterparts. The reason behind this is the pre-built nature of static web pages, which minimizes the need for extensive backend processing. The server’s primary role involves retrieving the specific files requested and delivering them to the user. Additionally, the uniformity of content in static websites makes caching easier. The speed of a website, known as its performance, plays a pivotal role in ensuring a positive user journey and has implications for search engine ranking.
Disadvantages:
It’s probably clear that there are better solutions than a static website in many situations. The most prominent concern revolves around scalability: Whenever you need to update content across the entire site, such as changing page headers, you must modify each HTML file. Moreover, adding a new page entails manually creating a new HTML file. This process becomes unwieldy for large-scale websites.
Another downside of static websites is the absence of personalization options. If you can tailor content to individual visitors, you could take advantage of the opportunity to deliver a more immersive experience. While a static site can provide general information about your business, imagine the impact of showing visitors specific details based on their location. Achieving this kind of personalization calls for a dynamic site.
In conclusion, you can efficiently create certain websites with a static approach. Take e-commerce websites, for instance. They frequently include functionalities like shopping carts and checkout processes, which you can only smoothly integrate into a static site depending on external third-party tools.
Considering these aspects, it’s clear that the prevalent approach for building websites nowadays is dynamic. With this understanding, let’s move on to explore the implications.
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What is a dynamic website?
Unlike a static website, which adheres to a fixed content display for all visitors, a dynamic website delivers varied information tailored to individual users. The content a visitor sees is influenced by various factors, such as their geographical location, current time, personalized settings, preferences, and interactions on the website, such as shopping activity. This approach creates a more personalized and interactive user journey.
Dynamic websites demand a more intricate backend setup to achieve increased adaptability in the frontend experience. These websites don’t save individual pages as distinct HTML files. Instead, web servers dynamically generate pages: upon a user’s request for a page, the server extracts information from databases and constructs a personalized HTML file designed for that specific user. Once this page is crafted, the resulting HTML file is returned to the user’s browser.
Dynamic websites rely on server-side scripting languages, such as PHP, Python, Ruby, server-side JavaScript, and client-side languages (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), to construct backend pages. The level of complexity in this process varies based on the volume of data being retrieved to build the page. Nonetheless, users are completely unaware of these technical complexities; they only observe the web page loading in their browser, just as they would with static sites.
Almost every website you encounter integrates dynamic approaches to a certain extent. Online marketplaces, social networking platforms, subscription-based communities, news outlets, publishing platforms, blogs, and web applications use dynamic content to enhance functionality.
To illustrate, take the instance of an online shopping platform with a homepage that suggests products specifically tailored to each user’s potential interests. This ensures that every visitor sees a uniquely personalized homepage. Creating separate pages for each user and storing them on the server wouldn’t be impossible. Therefore, the website relies on server-side code to determine the content that suits you best, retrieves that content from various databases, and constructs a dynamically generated page.
Advantages:
The main advantage of dynamic websites has already been mentioned: They provide the capability to tailor your website’s content to suit each visitor. This, in turn, creates a more immersive user experience, leading to enhanced conversion rates and more successful transactions.
Apart from customization, server-side scripting capabilities are highly influential and offer an array of functional opportunities. Dynamic coding enables the development of web applications, SaaS platforms, and interactive experiences that static approaches simply cannot deliver.
A benefit of dynamic websites is the streamlined process for making comprehensive updates throughout the site. Site administrators can efficiently apply significant changes without manually modifying the source code for each HTML file. This functionality is especially crucial for websites that frequently adjust their content and presentation to stay relevant in their respective industries.
In summary, dynamic websites can handle growth better than static ones. Unlike static sites, they don’t keep fixed pages stored. Instead, they create pages when they’re requested. For instance, consider our e-commerce site example again. You don’t have to create individual HTML pages if you want to add new products. You just store the product info in a database, and the server uses scripts to grab this data and build the product pages automatically.
Disadvantages
Because dynamic websites are more intricate than static ones, their creation from the ground up involves more time, effort, and technical competence. If you need to be better-versed in building and managing dynamic sites, a viable solution is to consider hiring a developer or engaging a development team.
A different route is to use a website builder or a content management system (CMS) to manage the technical complexities, freeing you to concentrate on crafting your site’s content and design. A notable instance is WordPress, which employs the server-side language PHP to generate its pages dynamically.
Another factor to weigh when utilizing a dynamic website is the potential impact on performance. Dynamic sites necessitate more backend processing to deliver pages to visitors, leading to possible delays in loading. While there are strategies to enhance site speed, and website-building tools have made improvements in this area, it’s crucial to consider the speed factor when overseeing a dynamic site, as even minor delays can lead to increased bounce rates.
Static and Dynamic Websites: A Comparative Overview
Back in the early days of the web, static websites were prevalent. Websites were structured as collections of pages residing on servers, and these pages were dispatched to clients upon request.
However, this approach could have improved as users desired more website features. These desires ranged from customized displays to automatically generated content and, ultimately, to the availability of extensive software through cloud services.
In summary, a static approach is a good fit for fast viewing of small websites without personalization. Anything more complex will likely necessitate the adoption of a dynamic website.
About the Author
My name’s Semil Shah, and I pride myself on being the last digital marketer that you’ll ever need. Having worked internationally across agile and disruptive teams from San Fransico to London, I can help you take what you are doing in digital to a whole next level.