Static and Dynamic Website Design: What is the Difference

A static website is one that is more like a HTML signpost or catalog on a domain. It is your more traditional website where every link leads to the same place and there is very little variation between user’s experiences. A dynamic website will give slightly different user experiences depending upon the viewer/reader. It uses multiple web coding techniques, databases and cookies to do its job. Sadly, this means that it is less cache memory friendly, and potentially less search engine friendly.

The Difference Static and Dynamic Website Design

Dynamic websites were not really such a big deal until Smartphones started to make mobile websites more popular. A dynamic website may be able to change its appearance and content depending upon what web browser is being used to view it. It can change its appearance to suit a Smartphone, tablet, or desktop screen and interface. This is also known as having a responsive website, but a dynamic website has a little more to it as it may also respond to the web cookies that a person has on their computer.

A dynamic website may see that you are using a Smartphone so changes its screen size to suit. It knows you are using a touch screen so its content becomes touch-screen friendly. It also knows you have cookies regarding its gardening section, so it offers you page recommendations at the bottom of your landing page that lead right to gardening sections. It also has an affiliate advert, and (as if by magic) it is also advertising gardening products.

The Dynamic Website

As you can imagine, it takes a lot of programming knowledge to make a dynamic website, as the responsive side alone is pretty difficult. But, even if you do not make your website responsive you can still make it mildly dynamic. You can affect what the search engine shows first and what suggested pages come up. Updating a dynamic website is done by various means, often because different programming codes and techniques are used to make dynamic pages. Here are the pros and cons of a dynamic website.

The cons of a dynamic website

  • It takes a lot longer to create
  • Development progress is often very slow
  • It is more likely to have bugs than a static website
  • Hosting costs are very often more expensive
  • It requires more programming work and expertise than static websites

The pros of a dynamic website

  • They may be easier to update than static websites
  • They have more functions than static websites
  • They have more uses and benefits for a user than static websites
  • They work on more platforms than static websites

A Static Website

They are the most common websites on the Internet, and they may be difficult to update, but there are so many content management system programs that it is far easier these days. The tools that alter dynamic websites are pretty good, but a good content management system can make a static website very easy to create and develop. A static website may be nothing more than a HTML document. If you want to change something on that HTML document then you make the change offline and then upload the new amended HTML page in place of the old one. Here are a few pros and cons of a static website.

The cons of a static website

  • It is easier for content the be viewed as stagnant by search engines
  • The site is not as user friendly as dynamic websites
  • It can be tricky to update the site without any tools

The pros of a static website

  • You can create one very quickly compared to dynamic websites
  • They are a lot cheaper to host compared to dynamic websites
  • They are cheaper to develop because there is less work to be done

Do all web-pages need to be dynamic?

They do not have to be dynamic, but it is handy if they are responsive. Being dynamic in order to make navigation better or to make the website more saleable is a good idea, but it is not vital to the success of your website. People can find their own way around your website and buy things without being pushed.

However, being responsive is part of being a dynamic website. A responsive website is going to adapt so that is may be seen and used more easily on mobile devices. Given the popularity of mobile devices it seems a very good idea to become mobile friendly. So, does a website need to be dynamic? No, but it is probably a better idea if it is.

This article is written by Sonia Jackson from www.homework-desk.com

3 Comments to “Static and Dynamic Website Design: What is the Difference”

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  1. Rob says:

    We are just moving our company website to a responsive theme.. Hopefully this should have a knock on effect improving our average time on site and hence websites ranking..

    Regards

    Rob

  2. Peter says:

    I must say that in this blog you clear all my issues with static and dynamic website design services. In fact, both are have some differences but I always confuse when I am doing designing. After reading this blog I clear my all doubts. It’s very nice blog to better understand these two techniques.

  3. Thanks for such a nice post. that called a brief ontro between two and its easy to understand the basic difference.

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