Yes, I know for many this is going to be obvious but it is always worth covering. There are two types of website, dynamic and static.

Static websites are the more traditional type in which every page is its own individual and unique file usually with the extension .html or .htm, for example MyPage.html. Dynamic websites contain pages that change according to the individual user or the moment in time. An example is a homepage that says ‘Hello, John’ because it knows that the user’s name is John. If Jane were to visit that page it would say ‘Hello, Jane’, the rest of the page may stay the same but that one part changes based on the user. Dynamic pages are usually more complex whereby the entire contents of the page change.

An ecommerce site such as Amazon will have a product page (a single script file) that shows different data depending on the product being viewed by the user. The benefit is that the website developer only has to create a single page to show any number of products as opposed to a static website where they would have to create an individual page for every product. Just imagine having to build a page for every product on Amazon? Well, there was a time when that was the only option.