A website is an online publication. It can be a book, a newspaper, a catalog, a way to share information with friends, or all of the above at the same time.

In order to have a website, you need a name for it. This is called a domain. You pay for the domain and renew it annually just like a magazine subscription. There are many companies that sell these domains. Your registered domain It is the only one in existence and you own it for a set period of time. If you don’t pay your renewal fee, the company will delete it the domain and your website no longer works. Your domain then goes up for auction and anyone can purchase it and enter different content.

Example:  (hypothetical).  A vendor had a website called “Good-Stuff.com, which sold homemade jewelry. She/He didn’t renew.  So it cancelled and went back into the pool of names and was purchased by another person who is now selling chewable cannabis gummies! The first person is furious, because old customers now think she/he is a drug pusher! Make sure you have chosen a domain name that is very clear as to what your are doing, or make sure, absolutely, that you renew. Be careful who you purchase your domain from.  Not all are ethical!

When you domain is registered, it is filed with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

A website can have pages, posts or blogs. A page is usually static. That means it is much like a page in a book. Thus a website designed on a page concept is an online book. Pages can be updated with new or corrected content.

Posts are dynamic. The usually provide current material. They are dated and like a newspaper are published frequently. A good example is providing information about an upcoming event – perhaps registration names or numbers, or telling who has signed up to entertain.

A blog is information usually about a specific topic, and is often interactive, with readers making comments. There are over 600,000 blogs. Many are about controversial topics such as politics, religion, medical procedures, and social movements. Many people make a living authoring and managing blogs. Twitter is full of blogs.

A website can have multiple topics, even if it a book type. I could write separate websites called “History of England”, “History of Scotland”, History of Wales”, and “History of Ireland”.  Or, I could publish one website called “History of the British Isles”.  Why one, instead of several, yet having the same exact information?  If I published with separate websites, I would be purchasing multiple domains.  Much cheaper to just have one and combine the four books into one.

My own website could actually be over 90 separate websites.  There is no way I could afford that, so my website is what we call an encyclopedic website, with many topics.