What is a homepage? Easily explained
There are now well over a billion websites on the Internet. In this practical tip, we explain what exactly a homepage is and what the word is colloquially used for.
Homepage - that is behind the term
What a homepage actually is can be explained in just a few words.
- Strictly speaking, the term homepage refers to the main or start page of an Internet presence. This is usually the page you see when you visit a website.
- Often the word "homepage" is also used as a synonym for the entire website. This makes it a, possibly interactive, document that can be called up from any computer via the browser.
Building a homepage
A homepage is created with different markup and scripting languages. The content can be found in a large number of HTML documents, while images and videos are stored as separate files in the web space and are integrated into the pages via HTML tags.
- By default, a homepage is made up of the languages HTML and CSS. With HTML you define the structure of the homepage and with CSS you design this framework.
- You can of course expand this standard framework with other markup languages. With JavaScript you can add animation to your homepage, for example.
- In some cases, PHP elements can also be found on websites. These enable more complex, dynamic applications and are necessary, for example, to operate content management systems.
In another practical tip, we explain in detail how to create your own homepage.