View source for Web page

A web page or "webpage" is a document in a format suitable for access through a [[web browser]]. Such documents are usually written in [[HTML]] format, and may provide navigation to other webpages via [[hypertext]] links.

==Retrieval of web pages==
Webpages are typically retrieved from a remote [[web server]] located on the public [[web|World Wide Web]]. They may also be retrieved from the user's local computer, or from a [[web server]] located on a private [[local area network]].

The [[web browser]] requests and receives a given webpage from the web server using the [[HyperText Transfer Protocol]] (HTTP). Each web page is identified by a unique [[Uniform Resource Locator]] (URL) which enables the web browser to find it on the web server.

==Static webpages and dynamic webpages==
A [[static webpage]] is a file of static [[HTML]] text stored within the [[web server]]'s file system.

A [[dynamic webpage]] is one that changes or is customized automatically, through the action of a [[scripting language]]. The script may act either client-side or server-side:
*Client-side scripting is embedded within the web page, and acts on the user's [[User Interface|computer interface]] when the webpage is read by the client's [[web browser]]
*Server-side scripting acts on the [[web server]] to modify or reconstruct the webpage automatically each time the page is requested, and the modified or reconstructed page is then sent to the user's [[web browser]]

The web server may for example use server-side scripting to construct the HTML text of each webpage by applying a standard format to changing content. The format defines the layout of page elements, and the script then fetches the appropriate contect for each element from the website's [[database]]. (In practice, however, frequently-requested pages are stored in the server's [[cache]] rather than being reconstructed at each request.)

==See also==
*[[Website]]
*[[Static web page]]
*[[Dynamic web page]]

==External links==
*Wikipedia article about web pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_page
*Wikipedia article about static web pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_Web_page
*Wikipedia article about dynamic web pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_web_page

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[[Category:Websites]]