The term website is thrown around all the time. Everyone needs a website, everybody’s company needs a website, everyone’s family needs a website. But what the hell is a website in the first place? I’ll try to clear this up for you a bit.

Anyone reading this article probably feels that she’s got a good idea what a website is. You’re looking at one right now!

But what makes up a website? Is is simply just a place you can access via the internet and a web browser? Is it just a place where you can share information of all sorts? Do you really need a website? Do you have to sell something on your website?

Questions like the above are key to understanding what a website is. Technically speaking, a website is nothing more than a minimum of one file, served from some computer, that you can access simply because you’re connected to the internet. That being said, the blog you’re viewing right now is a website.

But there’s a hundred thousand times a hundred thousand raised to the hundred thousands power number of websites out there. And why are they websites?

A website should provide some sort of useful task, be it a repository of informative or tutorial posts, a catalog of products available for purchase, or one picture of something funny, abstract, entertaining, or otherwise of some interest.

A website is not merely just a collection of pages or posts or products. Rather, if you think of a website as a place that exists solely for those who use the website, your assumptions begin to fade, and your opinions or impressions begin to shift.

Again a website should be a place to serve the needs of those who use the website. Most web users don’t realize that there are thousands of websites that don’t provide much of a service if viewed in regular web browser.

An example

For example, there are sites that allow other websites to perform queries. Take a small airline company. The airline has a website that exists to provide users with a way to book flights and learn more about the company, its policies, etc. Behind the scenes, this airline’s website actually relies very heavily on other websites for accessing and retrieving very important data. When booking a flight, an external website is queried; this external website is a central repository for all flights, prices, available seats, etc. for thousands of small airlines. If the external website goes down, nobody can book a flight. Nearly complete dependence.

But if you were to visit the website from which the airline example gets its information, you wouldn’t see anything, shy of an access denied or get the hell out of here message.

So my point here is that the external website on which the airline relies for flight data is a website from which normal web users can’t get much information. In fact without the proper access this external website will only tell you to go away, if it even says that much. Again, I’m stressing that a website needn’t be a place for people to read articles, view pictures or video, or communicate with each other. But now we’re getting into an area called web services.

What are you saying?

So what am I saying? Your impressions of what a website is and what a website should be are limited to your experience, your scope, your perspective. Just keep in mind that the web is far more vast than you ever could’ve imagined. Even if you were to come close to that level of vastness, go ahead and multiply your level by a googolplex, and just trust me that your new number still isn’t even close to the vastness of today’s internet.

A website should serve its users

Back to the airline website example, the airline that requests flight data from the external site is, in a perfectly acceptable and relevant sense, a web user, just like you. Just because a website is not a human doesn’t mean it’s not a web user.

Take another example, Google.com. Google (what a great company, by the way!) serves its users. Its home page is simple and meets the needs of its users. Google limits its use of graphics, extraneous text, and third-party ads. It simply exists to provide users with a reliable, powerful, and effective way to search and find relevant content of interest on the internet. It does nothing more.

Of course Google has found many ways of expanding their company, and they do so with additional web services and websites. Take Adsense as another example. Google Adsense exists to serve customers of all types. Adsense allows hapless bloggers (like myself!) to place advertisements on their websites, in hopes of generating ad revenue as a reward for providing useful information. On my blog you’ll notice advertisements listed throughout, but generally you’re aware they actually are ads and that I don’t provide merchant accounts directly. I’m not trying to trick you into clicking or visiting my sponsors. Rather, I’m hoping to provide you with useful information and useful or relevant ads in which you may be interested. By supplying you with more resources than you had before you visited my site, I’m providing a valuable service to you. Any revenue I accumulate from my advertising efforts is simply a reward for the time I’ve invested in providing informative, helpful, interesting, or otherwise useless content.

As another example, take Facebook. I’m fairly new to Facebook, but I’ve managed to make over 100 friends in less than a month. My friends range from people I went to high school with (including people that I probably never spoke with in the past, but who at the minimum recognize my name!) to people I’ve never met but have heard about via other people I know. Facebook is what’s known as a social networking website.

What does Facebook provide? Well as a human, it provides me with a great way to keep in touch with old friends and acquaintances without having to travel. Shit, if you think about it, a lot of these people probably don’t want to sit down and have dinner with me; instead they’d prefer to simply say hi, glad to see you’re well, and have a good day. They’d prefer to communicate with me via an informal website rather than the me the real thing. That’s fine; I feel the same way in most cases.

But again Facebook is providing a valuable service to me, one of its users. It also provides a valuable service to others like me, i.e. my ‘friends’.

Shouldn’t my company have a website?

I don’t know if your company should have a website; hell, it’s your company. I don’t know your company’s goals, drives, motives, and target market and audience. Maybe your company could use one page with an email address listed on it, just in case someone comes across your company online.

But what if you sell ketchup popsicles to women in white gloves? Do white-gloved women really spend that much time online? Who knows? Should you even be generalizing that broadly, assuming that all white-gloved women spend the same amount of time online? Well, now we’re into demographics and such, but my point still stands firmly. Your company’s web presence isn’t up to me, nor should I be the one to make that decision for you. Of course, I’m glad to offer consulting services to help you make that decision. But again, it’s your company!

Are you done yet?

Yeah, I’m pretty much done by now. If you leave this article with one thing, I hope it’s similar to this key concept:

A website exists to serve its users. Bottom line. If a website is running and meeting its users’ needs, then you’ve got yourself a website.