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Explain Websites and Webshops To Me, Please |
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Building a Websites or Webshop is not entirely different to printing information, or selling goods through a shop in the offline ‘real’ world.
Websites (or web sites) began life in the mid-to-late 90s as HTML documents. If you wanted to make information available on the World Wide Web, you converted the text and documents into HTML and stored them on a web server (usually running Apache). When a user clicks on the link for a website, the browser (e.g. Internet Explorer) sends a request to the Web server for the HTML page. The browser converts that HTML into a page with text, pictures or video, which the user can view. This essentially has not changed, though there are several problems associated with it.
HTML is a mixture of ‘content’ (words, pictures, etc.) and presentation information HTML) which describes what the text looks like, how large it is, the font, colour, where the pictures are, where a link leads to – and so on. The problem is that information regularly changes, so every time the text and pictures are changed, the HTML has to be ‘unpicked’ and recoded with the new information. Which is both time consuming, and subject to error. Content Management Systems were a way of combating this issue. The words are stored in a database table, the pictures in another table (in simplistic terms) and the HTML presentation information is also stored elsewhere. When a page is requested in the browser – the HTML is mixed with the words and pictures ‘dynamically’ to create the page. The user cannot see any noticeable difference in the way the page appears, but the site owners and administrators have a much easier time altering the content. Now all the text is stored as separate articles which are easy to edit and change. The result is that sites that employ a CMS are much easier and cheaper to update.
Webstores
and Webshops – explainedWebstores and Webshops arrived later. Often called eCommerce in broader terms, much of what the user sees is actually B2C (Business to Consumer) eCommerce. With the introduction of a database connected to the Web server (as seen in a Content Management System), there was scope to further increase the sophistication of Web sites. Buying through electronic means had existed since the 1970s (EDI), though was largely the preserve of corporations, due to the expense of leasing the lines. When the World Wide Web opened up to ordinary users, it took some time for security protocols to become established, that would permit the exchange of sensitive account information across a public network (Secure Sockets Layer). With a database to store products, transactions, customers, etc. it took very little time for the first Webshops to become established. eCommerce was a buzz-word at the turn of the millennium, though very few retailers were able to extract a profit from the process. This in part, led to the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2001. Since then, Webstores such as Amazon have continued to strengthen.
 The Amazon Webstore: a global brand for successful Internet retail.
In the recent global downturn, many Webshops (such as ASOS – online clothing) have shown remarkable growth in a depressed marketplace. It is often commonplace for a non-chain, high street store to also have an online Webshop to supplement their customer base. Webstores can attract interest on different continents, which is a valuable asset in a tough economic climate.
The rise of Google, has also had a profound affect on the development of the Web. A full 71% of all users start their online experience through Google, so listing favourably on the search engine is very important to retailers. Knowing quite how Google ranks sites, is considered a dark art and open to continual debate amongst SEO practitioners. What is fairly certain, is that merely injecting capital into your Web project, will not ensure a high ranking. Google apparently favours sites which ‘give back’ and attempt to improve the online experience, by developing Wikis, Blogs and linking closely to form communities. Despite some corporate thinking to the contrary, the Internet is not - ‘all about making money.’
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