While the Internet began with a U.S. Government research project in the late 1950s, the web in its present form did not appear on the Internet until after
Tim Berners-LeeSir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA , is a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web, making the first proposal for it in March 1989...
and his colleagues at the European laboratory (
CERNThe European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , , is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border, established in 1954...
) proposed the concept of linking documents with
hypertextHypertext is text, displayed on a computer, with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices...
. But it was not until
MosaicMosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, Usenet, and Gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that...
, the forerunner of the famous
Netscape NavigatorNetscape Navigator and Netscape are the names for the proprietary web browser popular in the 1990s, and the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation, and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share. Yet by 2002 its users had almost disappeared...
, appeared that the Internet become more than a file serving system.
The use of
hypertextHypertext is text, displayed on a computer, with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices...
, hyperlinks and a page-based model of sharing information, introduced with
MosaicMosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
and later
NetscapeNetscape Communications was a US computer services company, best known for its web browser. The browser was once dominant in terms of usage share, but lost most of that share to Internet Explorer during the first browser war...
, helped to define web content, and the formation of websites. Largely, today we categorize websites as being a particular type of website according to the content a website contains.
The page concept
Web content is dominated by the "page" concept. Having its beginnings in an academic settings, and in a setting dominated by type-written pages, the idea of the web was to link directly from one academic paper to another academic paper. This was a completely revolutionary idea in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the best a link could be made was to cite a reference in the midst of a type written paper and name that reference either at the bottom of the page or on the last page of the academic paper.
When it was possible for any person to write and own a Mosaic page, the concept of a "Home Page" blurred the idea of a page. It was possible for anyone to own a "
Web pageA webpage or web page is a document or resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a computer screen....
" or a "Home Page" which in many cases the website contained many physical pages in spite of being called "a page". People often cited their "Home Page" to provide credentials, links to anything that a person supported, or any other individual content a person wanted to publish.
Even though "the web" may be the resource we commonly use to "get to" particular locations online, many different protocols are invoked to access embedded information. When we are given an
addressAddress may refer to:*Address , a code and abstract concept expressing a location on the Earth's surface *A speech *Style , honorifics*In computing and telecommunication:...
, such as http://www.youtube.com, we expect to see a range of web pages, but in each page we have embedded tools to watch "video clips".
HTML web content
Even though we may embed various protocols within web pages, the "web page" composed of "
htmlHTML, which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images...
" (or some variation) content is still the dominant way whereby we share content. And while there are many web pages with localized proprietary structure (most usually, business websites), many millions of websites abound that are structured according to a common core idea.
Search engine sites are composed mainly of html content, but also has a typically structured approach to revealing information. A Search Engine Results Page (SERP) displays a heading, usually the name of the
Search EngineA web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data...
, and then a list of Websites and their addresses. What is being listed are the results from a query that may be defined as keywords. The results page lists webpages that are connected in some way with those keywords used in the query.
Discussion boards are sites composed of "textual" content organized by html or some variation that can be viewed in a
web browserA web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
. The driving mechanism of a discussion board is the fact that users are registered and once registered can write posts. Often a discussion board is made up of posts asking some type of question to which other users may provide answers to those questions.
Ecommerce sites are largely composed of textual material and embedded with
graphicsGraphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings, or...
displaying a picture of the item(s) for sale. However, there are extremely few sites that are composed page-by-page using some variant of HTML. Generally, webpages are composed as they are being served from a database to a customer using a web browser. However, the user sees the mainly text document arriving as a webpage to be viewed in a web browser. Ecommerce sites are usually organized by software we identify as a "
shopping cartShopping cart software is software used in e-commerce to assist people making purchases online, analogous to the American English term 'shopping cart'...
".
A wider view of web content
While there are many millions of pages that are predominantly composed of HTML, or some variation, in general we view
dataThe term data means groups of information that represent the qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables...
, applications,
E-Servicese-Services or "eServices" is a highly general/generic term usually referring to the provision of services via the Internet . It is true Web jargon, meaning just about anything done online...
, images (graphics), audio and video files,
personal Web pagesPersonal web pages are World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature. The content can be about that person or about something he or she is interested in...
,
archived e-mail messagesElectronic mail, often abbreviated as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages, designed primarily for human use...
, and many more forms of file and data systems as belonging to websites and web pages.
While there are many hundreds of ways to deliver information on a website, there is a
common body of knowledge of
Search engine optimizationSearch engine optimization is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid search results as opposed to search engine marketing which deals with paid inclusion...
that needs to be read as an advisory of ways that anything but text should be delivered. Currently search engines are text based and are one of the common ways people using a browser locate sites of interest.
Content is king
The phrase can be interpreted to mean that - without original and desirable content, or consideration for the rights and commercial interests of content creators - any media venture is likely to fail through lack of appealing content, regardless of other design factors.
Content can mean any creative work, such as text, graphics, images or video.
"Content is King" is a current
memeA meme is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena...
when organizing or building a website (although
Andrew OdlyzkoAndrew Michael Odlyzko is a mathematician who is the head of the University of Minnesota's Digital Technology Center.In the field of mathematics he has published extensively on analytic number theory, computational number theory, cryptography, algorithms and computational complexity, combinatorics,...
in "Content is Not King" argues otherwise). Text content is particularly important for search engine placement. Without original text content, most search engines will be unable to match search terms to the content of a site.
Content management
Because websites are often complex, a term "
content managementContent management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...
" appeared in the late 1990s identifying a method or in some cases a tool to organize all the diverse elements to be contained on a website. Content management often means that within a business there is a range of people who have distinct roles to do with content management, such as
content author,
editorEditing is the process of selecting and preparing language, images, sound, video, or film through processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications in various media...
,
publisher, and
administrator. But it also means there may be a
content management systemA content management system such as a document management system is a computer application used to manage work flow needed to collaboratively create, edit, review, index, search, publish and archive various kinds of digital media and electronic text.CMSs are frequently used for storing,...
whereby each of the different roles are organized whereby to provide their assistance in operating the system and organizing the information for a website.
Even though a business may organize to collect, contain and represent that information online, content needs organization in such a manner to provide the reader (browser) with an overall "customer experience" that is easy to use, the site can be navigated with ease, and the website can fulfill the role assigned to it by the business, that is, to sell to customers, or to market products and services, or to inform customers.
Geo targeting of web content
Geo targetingGeo targeting in geomarketing and internet marketing is the method of determining the geolocation of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, Internet Protocol address,...
of web content in internet marketing and
geo marketingAs a general term, Geomarketing is the integration of Geographical intelligence into all marketing aspects including sales and distribution. Geomarketing Research is the use of geographic parameters in research methodology starting from sampling, data collection, analysis, and...
is the method of determining the
geolocationGeolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other. IP address geolocation data can include information such as country, region, city, postal/zip code, latitude, longitude and timezone...
(the physical location) of a website visitor with
geolocation softwareIn computing, geolocation software is used to deduce the geolocation of another party. For example, on the Internet, one geolocation approach is to identify the subject party's IP address, then determine what country, organization, and/or user the IP address has been assigned to, and finally,...
and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/
zip codeThe ZIP code is the system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service . The letters ZIP, a backronym for Zone Improvement Plan, are properly written in capital letters and were chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
, organization,
Internet ProtocolThe Internet Protocol is a protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite, also referred to as TCP/IP....
(IP) address, ISP or other criteria.
Different content by choice
A typical example for different content by choice in geo targeting is the FedEx website at FedEx.com where users have the choice to select their country location first and are then presented with different site or article content depending on their selection.
Automated different content
With automated different content in
internet marketingInternet marketing, also referred to as i-marketing, web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products, or, services over the Internet.The Internet has brought media to a global audience...
and
geomarketingAs a general term, Geomarketing is the integration of Geographical intelligence into all marketing aspects including sales and distribution. Geomarketing Research is the use of geographic parameters in research methodology starting from sampling, data collection, analysis, and...
the delivery of different content based on the geographical
geolocationGeolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other. IP address geolocation data can include information such as country, region, city, postal/zip code, latitude, longitude and timezone...
and other personal information is automated.
See also
- Article marketing
Article marketing is a type of advertising in which businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace. Each article contains a bio box and byline that include references and contact...
- Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
- Content (media and publishing)
In media production and publishing, content is information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. Content may be delivered via any medium such as the internet, television, and audio CDs, as well as live events such as conferences and stage performances...
- Digital marketing
Digital Marketing is the promoting of brands using the Internet, mobile and other interactive channels.Digital Marketing is the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.Whilst digital...
- Dynamic web page
Classical hypertext navigation, with HTML or XHTML alone, provides "static" content, meaning that the user requests a web page and simply views the page and the information on that page....
- Groupware
- Media transparency
Media transparency is the concept of determining how and why information is conveyed through various means.This is a specific case of the topic, Transparency . As used in the humanities, it implies openness and accountability...
- Mobile content
Mobile content is any type of media which is viewed or used on mobile phones, like ringtones, graphics, discount offers, games, and movies. As mobile phone use has grown since the mid 1990s, the significance of the devices in everyday life has grown accordingly...
- Separation of presentation and content
Separation of presentation and content is a common idiom, a design philosophy, and a methodology applied in the context of various publishing technology disciplines, including information retrieval, template processing, web design, web development, word processing, desktop publishing, and...
- Social software
Social software encompasses a range of software systems that allow users to interact and share data. This computer-mediated communication has become very popular with social sites like MySpace and Facebook, media sites like Flickr and YouTube as well as commercial sites like Amazon.com and eBay...
- Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA , is a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web, making the first proposal for it in March 1989...
- Web content management
- Web design
Web design is the skill of creating presentations of content that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients, microblogging clients and RSS readers.Web design is a kind of graphic design intended...
- Web development
Web development is a broad term for any activity to developing a web site for the World Wide Web or an internet. This can include e-commerce business development, web design, web content development, client-side/server-side scripting, and web server configuration...
- Web document
Web document is a similar concept to web page, except it is a broader termwith the following distinctions: - Example :A PDF document requested from SFTP or SMTP protocols, for example, is a web document, but not a web page.- Motivations :...
- Web service
A Web service is defined by the W3C as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
- Web syndication
Web syndication is a form of syndication in which website material is made available to multiple other sites. Most commonly, web syndication refers to making web feeds available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary of the website's recently added content...
- Web template
A web template is a tool used to separate content from presentation in web design, and for mass-production of web documents. It is a basic component of a web template system.Web templates can be used to set up any type of website...
- Webmaster
A webmaster , also called a web architect, web developer, site author, website administrator, or webmeister, is a person responsible for maintaining a website...
- World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for...
(Web standards)