Ohoonline.com provides quality service and support on:

1. Static Websites
2. Dynamic Websites
3. Content Management systems
4. Mobile Websites

A Comparison of Static and Dynamic Websites

Whilst many Internet users don't consciously think about websites as 'static' or 'dynamic', there is a clear differentiation between these two types of sites when publishing a website. The decision between a static or dynamic website can have significant consequences for a website in relation to development cost, website responsiveness, reliability, visibility through search engines and the ability to achieve more complex tasks.

Static website

A website which returns a simple file stored on a hard disk each time a web page is requested, without running a program or script to generate the web page. Examples of static websites include many people's home pages and small to medium sized business or organisational websites.

Dynamic website

A website which runs a program or script each time a web page is requested to determine/generate the contents of the web page. Examples of dynamic websites include some online shopping sites or news portals.

CMS-based website

A dynamic website built upon existing third-party software which provides a collection of features for the creation and maintenance of a website. Examples of dynamic websites include many online shopping sites or news portals.

Comparison of Static, Dynamic and CMS-Based Websites

There are important differences between static, dynamic and CMS-based websites and these differences need to be considered when planning a website, although the observations below are generalisations which may not hold true in all cases.

Time of development

Anything but the most simple dynamic sites take longer to develop than static sites. When writing pages for a static site, what you see is what you get. When writing pages for dynamic sites, the developer is writing a program that generates web pages based on a set of input values and reliant on a number of external entities, such as a web database and a collection of HTML templates. Each page must be able to handle a broad range of input values and abnormal conditions, such as web database unavailability. Comprehensive testing of these cases adds considerably to the development time for a website.

CMS-Based websites should provide a feature set which enables fast production of websites and should provide a well-tested product. These benefits are traded-off against the constraints imposed by the CMS, which provide a restricted set of options and configuration capabilities.

Ease of development

Dynamic websites are typically much more complex to write and require the developer to have a sound knowledge of a range of technologies, such as a scripting language (e.g. PHP or ASP), the web server environment (e.g. Apache or IIS) and a web database system (e.g. MySQL or MS Access). This assertion is supported by the observation that many Internet users are able to create a single web page or a small collection of web pages, however the creation of dynamic websites is typically the activity of those with suitable training in that discipline.

CMS-based websites require the developer to have familiarity with installing and configuring web server based systems. Once installed, the developer must then know how to customise the CMS for the website, customising page templates, images and other features. The content must be loaded into the CMS, typically via an administration interface. These tasks make CMS-based websites moderate in ease of development.

Cost to develop

The combination of the time and difficulty of development cause the cost of developing a dynamic website to considerably outweigh that of a static website. CMS-based websites typically cost between static and dynamic websites to publish.

Web server requirements

Almost all ISPs offer a small amount of 'web space' to their account holders, however it is rare to find an ISP who provides support for dynamic websites. Similarly, a number of services offering free space for hosting websites, such as VICNET, limit the support they provide to static websites. The decision is primarily motivated by the much heavier toll a dynamic website takes on the web server and the higher administration costs. Therefore, it you wish to have a dynamic website, you will typically need to register an account with a web hosting service.

CMS-based websites often require more resources than simpler dynamic websites, such as the amount of memory available to a website when generating a web page. Consequently, care should be taken when registering with a web hosting service to ensure they will provide suitable hosting for the intended website.

Web server configuration

Dynamic and CMS-based websites are more sensitive to the configuration of a web server than static websites. Scripts used to generate web page responses may rely on the use of certain versions of software libraries, programming languages or web database systems. When software upgrades occur on a web server, the behaviour of a dynamic website may change and possibly result in errors.

By contrast, static websites are much less dependant on the configuration of a web server and are less likely to 'break' as a result of configuration changes. This corresponds to a saving in website maintenance costs and greater reliability for a website.

Flexibility of page content

Dynamic web page allow the developer to achieve much more complicated tasks than simply returning a predetermined page. For example, you can provide input forms for data entry, execute searches of the website's content, interact with other web services, process payment details, or update the website's content. CMS-based website provide a collection of these advanced features and may often be extended to accomplish other more specific tasks.

Updating site content

The task of keeping a website up-to-date and relevant can be difficult. A dynamic website may provide an 'administration interface' allowing site administrators to update the site online, by adding new pages, changing information on existing pages or modifying underlying data stored in databases. Such administration interfaces are often expensive to develop, motivating the use of CMS software packages.

CMS software packages provide administration interfaces and often allow a great deal of flexibility in designing and configuring a site. However, these packages can be complex to understand and use, and often have requirements on the configuration of the web server which cannot be satisfied some web hosting services.

Mobile Websites

IDC say that 1.3 billion people will connect to the Internet via mobile phones by 2008. The growth of mobile use in the corporate market will continue it's expansion as the greater importance placed on being connected always and everywhere increases. The expansion of 3G services should increase the effectiveness and range, having a positive impact on the growth of mobile use in the business environment.

.mobi is a top-level domain (TLD) approved by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. .mobi is unique & is the first top level domain dedicated to delivering the internet to mobile phones. .mobi is sponsored by a consortium of companies including the most prominent mobile and Internet global entities.

Because sites can be hard to locate and can have little content when you find them, the mobile web has been a little intimidating. There are four mobile phones purchased for every one personal computer, making the mobile web a main access point to the Internet.

.Mobi is set to revolutionise the use of the Internet on mobile devices. It is designed to guide mobile users to content and services that users can trust is compatible with their mobile phone if that site's address ends in ".mobi".