Web page

A web page (or webpage) is a document on the World Wide Web "with its own address".^[1] Web pages are delivered by a web server to the user and displayed in a web browser^[2] to act as a "retrieval unit" for the information stored within it.^[3] A website consists of many web pages linked together under a common domain name. The name "web page" is a metaphor of paper pages bound together into a book.

A screenshot of a web page on Wikipedia describing a Web page.

Elements

A web page is a structured document. The core element of a web page is a text file written in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML)^[4] which specifies the content of the web page (including links called hyperlinks) to other web resources, primarily other web pages, and to different sections of the same web page). Multimedia content on the web, such as images, videos, and other web pages, can be directly embedded in a web page to form a compound document.

An HTML document can include separate files called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) documents (which are also text files) which specify the presentation of content on a web page. This is in principle an alternative to including that information directly in the HTML code.

The document can also include JavaScript or WebAssembly programs, which are executed by the web browser to add dynamic behavior to the web page:^[4][5] for example, a form which accepts input from the user. Web pages with dynamic behavior can function as application software, referred to as web applications.

Navigation

Main article: Web navigation

Each web page is identified by a distinct Uniform Resource Locator (URL). When the user inputs the URL for a web page into their browser, the browser downloads an HTML file from a web server and transforms all of its elements into an interactive visual representation on the user's device.^[6]

If the user clicks, taps, or otherwise activates a hyperlink, the browser repeats this process to load the page pointed to by the hyperlink, which could be part of the current website or a different one. The browser has user interface features that indicate which page is displayed.

Deployment

From the perspective of server-side website deployment, there are two types of web pages: static and dynamic. Static pages are retrieved from the web server's file system without any modification,^[7] while dynamic pages must be created by the server on the fly, typically reading from a database to fill out a template, before being sent to the user's browser.^[8]

It is common for web pages to be created by "companies, [other] organizations, and individuals" looking to explain what they do to Internet users and offer various services.^[1]

See also

• Single-page application
• Progressive web application
• Web Components

References

1. Hirsch, Eric Donald (2002). The New Dictionary Of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (3rd ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 606. ISBN 0-618-22647-8.
2. "Web page – definition of web page by The Free Dictionary". from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
3. Hemmendinger, David (2023-10-01). "HTML". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
4. Flanagan, David. JavaScript – The definitive guide (6 ed.). p. 1. JavaScript is part of the triad of technologies that all Web developers must learn: HTML to specify the content of web pages, CSS to specify the presentation of web pages and JavaScript to specify the behaviour of web pages.
5. "Introduction to WebAssembly 1.1". webassembly.github.io. from the original on 2021-11-22. Retrieved 2021-05-13.
6. "Behind the scenes of modern web browsers". Tali Garsiel. from the original on 2018-04-18. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
7. Melendez, Steven (10 August 2018). . Chron. Archived from the original on 20 March 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2019. Static by definition means something that does not change. The first pages on the World Wide Web were largely static and unchanged, delivering the same information about a particular topic to anyone who visited. In some cases, sites may evolve slightly over time but are still largely static, meaning that they only change when manually changed by their creators, not on a regular and automated basis.
8. . PC Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 January 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2019. A Web page that provides custom content for the user based on the results of a search or some other request.