What are static and dynamic websites?

Whether you’ve come across these terms online or have heard it thrown around by your web designer, it is important to know the difference so that you can determine the best solution for your website.

A static site is a website that is written entirely using HTML. Each web page is a separate document and there are no databases or external files that are drawn upon. This means that the only way to edit this type of website is to go into each page and edit the HTML. So you would have to do it yourself using a web page editor such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, or pay your web developer to make updates for you.

Advantages of static websites:-

No programming skills are required to create a static page.
Inherently publicly cacheable (i.e. a cached copy can be shown to anyone).
No particular hosting requirements are necessary.
Can be viewed directly by a web browser without needing a web server or application server, for example directly from a CD-ROM or USB Drive.

Disadvantages of static websites:-

Any personalization or interactivity has to run client-side (ie. in the browser), which is restricting.
Maintaining large numbers of static pages as files can be impractical without automated tools.

A dynamic website is a website that uses a scripting language to accept user input and do something with it. A dynamic web page is a kind of web page that has been prepared with fresh information (content and/or layout), for each individual viewing. It is not static because it changes with the time (e.g. news content), the user (e.g. preferences in a login session), the user interaction (e.g. web page game), the context (e.g. parametric customization), or any combination thereof. For example, news and events could be posted to the site through a simple browser interface. Dynamic features of a site are only limited by imagination. Some examples of dynamic website features could be: content management system, e-commerce system, bulletin / discussion boards, intranet or extranet facilities, ability for clients or users to upload documents, ability for administrators or users to create content or add information to a site (dynamic publishing). Two types of dynamic web sites:- Client-side scripting and content creation, Server-side scripting and content creation. Combining client and server side, “Ajax is a web development technique for dynamically interchanging content with the server-side, without reloading the web page. Google Maps is an example of a web application that uses Ajax techniques and database”.

Advantages of dynamic websites:-

Much more functional website
Much easier to update
New content brings people back to the site and helps in the search engines
Can work as a system to allow staff or users to collaborate

Disadvantages of dynamic websites:-

Search engines work by creating indexes of published HTML web pages that were, initially, “static”. With the advent of dynamic web pages, often created from a private database, the content is less visible. Unless this content is duplicated in some way (for example, as a series of extra static pages on the same site), a search may not find the information it is looking for. It is unreasonable to expect generalized web search engines to be able to access complex database structures, some of which in any case may be secure.