List of types of websites

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There are many varieties of websites, each specializing in a particular type of content or use, and they may be arbitrarily classified in any number of ways.

Some websites may be included in one or more of these categories. For example, a business website may promote the business's products, but may also host informative documents, such as white papers. There are also numerous sub-categories to the ones listed above. For example, a porn site is a specific type of e-commerce site or business site (that is, it is trying to sell memberships for access to its site) or have social networking capabilities. A fansite may be a dedication from the owner to a particular celebrity. Websites are constrained by architectural limits (e.g., the computing power dedicated to the website). Very large websites, such as Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google employ many servers and load balancing equipment such as Cisco Content Services Switches to distribute visitor loads over multiple computers at multiple locations. As of early 2011, Facebook utilized 9 data centers with approximately 63,000 servers.

Type of WebsiteDescriptionExamples
Affiliate network A site, typically few in pages, whose purpose is to sell a third party's product. The seller receives a commission for facilitating the sale.
Affiliate agencyEnabled portal that renders not only its custom CMS but also syndicated content from other content providers for an agreed fee. There are usually three relationship tiers (see Affiliate Agencies). Commission Junction, advertisers like eBay, or a consumer like Yahoo!.
Archive site Used to preserve valuable electronic content threatened with extinction. Two examples are: Internet Archive, which since 1996 has preserved billions of old (and new) web pages; and Google Groups, which in early 2005 was archiving over 845,000,000 messages posted to Usenet news/discussion groups. Internet Archive, Google Groups
Malware websiteA site created specifically to attack visitors' computers on their first visit to a website by downloading a file (usually a trojan horse). These websites rely on unsuspecting users with poor anti-virus protection in their computers.
Membership websitea general term for a closed community that operates on the web using a monthly membership fee system.

It is run by individuals or multiple members who possess specialized knowledge or have excellent skills and experience in a particular field, such as writers, entrepreneurs, athletes, bloggers, etc.

In addition, there are examples of it being utilized as a fan club for artists, idols, models, TV personalities, and athletes.

Since the 2010s, there have been companies that support individuals and corporations who own membership websites as a business or hobby.

Blog (weblog)Sites generally used to post online diaries which may include discussion forums. Many bloggers use blogs like an editorial section of a newspaper to express their ideas on anything ranging from politics to religion to video games to parenting, along with anything in between. Some bloggers are professional bloggers and they are paid to blog about a certain subject, and they are usually found on news sites. WordPress
Brand-building siteA site with the purpose of creating an experience of a brand online. These sites usually do not sell anything, but focus on building the brand. Brand building sites are most common for low-value, high-volume fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
Celebrity website A website the information in which revolves around a celebrity or public figure. These sites can be official (endorsed by the celebrity) or fan-made (run by a fan or fans of the celebrity without implicit endorsement). jimcarrey.com
Comparison shopping website A website providing a vertical search engine that shoppers use to filter and compare products based on price, features, reviews, and other criteria. Shopping.com
Crowdfunding websitePlatform to fund projects by the pre-purchase of products or by asking audience members to make a donation. Kickstarter
Click-to-donate site A website that allows the visitor to donate to charity simply by clicking on a button or answering a question correctly. An advertiser usually donates to the charity for each correct answer generated. The Hunger Site, Freerice
Content aggregator siteA site that collects content from various online sources and organizes it, republishes it at a fee. wikiHow.com, About.com
Classified ads siteA site publishing classified advertisements gumtree.com, Craigslist
Corporate website Used to provide background information about a business, organization, or service.
Online dating service A site where users can find other single people looking for long-term relationships, dating, short encounters, or friendship. Many of them are pay per services, but there are many free or partially free dating sites. Most dating sites in the 2010s have the functionality of social networking websites. eHarmony, Match.com
E-commerce websiteA site offering goods and services for online sale and enabling online transactions for such sales. Amazon.com
Fake news website A site publishing fake news stories, intending to deceive visitors, and profit from advertising. The Daily Stormer
Internet forum A site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. SkyscraperCity, 4chan
Gallery website A website designed specifically for use as a gallery; these may be an art gallery or photo gallery and of commercial or non-commercial nature.
Government websiteA website made by the local, state, department, or national government of a country. Usually, these sites also operate websites that are intended to inform tourists or support tourism. USA.gov, Naenara, GOV.UK
Gripe site A site devoted to the criticism of a person, place, corporation, government, or institution.
Online game websiteWebsites where users can play online games Browser games, OGame, Travian,
Online gambling websiteA site that lets users play online games such as gambling.
Humor site Satirizes, parodies, or amuses the audience. The Onion, National Lampoon digital archive, Encyclopedia Dramatica
Information siteMost websites fit in this category to some extent. They do not necessarily have commercial purposes.Most government, educational and nonprofit institutions have an informational site.
Media-sharing siteA site that enables users to upload and view media such as pictures, music, and videos YouTube, DeviantArt
Mirror site A website that is the replication of another website. This type of website is used as a response to spikes in user visitors. Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads.
Microblog websiteA short and simple form of blogging. Microblogs are limited to certain numbers of characters and work similarly to a status update on Facebook. Twitter
News site Similar to an information site, but dedicated to dispensing news, politics, and commentary. cnn.com

bbc.com/news

Personal website Websites about an individual or a small group (such as a family) that contains information or any content that the individual wishes to include. Such a personal website is different from a celebrity website, which can be very expensive and run by a publicist or agency.
Phishing websiteA website created to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business (such as Social Security Administration, PayPal, a bank) in an electronic communication (see Phishing).
Photo sharing websiteA website created to share digital photos with the online community. (see Photo sharing). Flickr, Instagram, Imgur
p2p/Torrents website Websites that index torrent files. This type of website is different from a BitTorrent client which is usually a stand-alone software. Mininova, The Pirate Bay, IsoHunt
Political siteA site on which people may voice political views, provide political humor, campaign for elections, or provide information about a certain candidate, political party or ideology. Rhino Party of Canada website
Question and Answer (Q&A) site A site where people can ask questions and get answers. Quora, Yahoo! Answers, Stack Exchange Network (including Stack Overflow)
Religious site A site in which people may advertise a place of worship, or provide inspiration or seek to encourage the faith of a follower of that religion.
Review site A site on which people can post reviews for products or services. Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes
School website a site on which teachers, students, or administrators can post information about current events at or involving their school. U.S. elementary-high school websites generally use k12 in the URL
Scraper site a site that largely duplicates the content of another site without permission, without actually pretending to be that site, in order to capture some of that site's traffic (especially from search engines) and profit from advertising revenue or in other ways.
Search engine A website that indexes material on the Internet or an intranet (and lately on traditional media such as books and newspapers) and provides links to information as a response to a query. Google Search, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia
Shock site Includes images or other material that is intended to be offensive to most viewers Goatse.cx, rotten.com
Showcase website Web portals used by individuals and organisations to showcase things of interest or value
Social bookmarking siteA site where users share other content from the Internet and rate and comment on the content. StumbleUpon, Digg
Social networking service A site where users could communicate with one another and share media, such as pictures, videos, music, blogs, etc. with other users. These may include games and web applications. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn [1]
Social news A social news website features user-posted stories that are ranked based on popularity. Users can comment on these posts, and these comments may also be ranked. Since their emergence with the birth of web 2.0, these sites are used to link many types of information including news, humor, support, and discussion. Social news sites allegedly facilitate democratic participation on the web. Reddit, Digg, SlashDot
Warez A site designed to host or link to materials such as music, movies, and software for the user to download. The Pirate Bay
Webcomic An online comic, ranging in various styles and genres unique to the World Wide Web. Penny Arcade , xkcd , Gunnerkrigg Court
Webmail A site that provides a webmail service. Hotmail, Gmail, Protonmail, Yahoo! Mail
Web portal A site that provides a starting point or a gateway to other resources on the Internet or an intranet. msn.com, msnbc.com, Newgrounds, Yahoo!
Wiki siteA site in which users collaboratively edit its content. Wikipedia, wikiHow, Fandom

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Wide Web</span> Linked hypertext system on the Internet

The World Wide Web is an information system that enables content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond IT specialists and hobbyists. It allows documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet according to specific rules of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Website</span> Set of related web pages served from a single domain

A website is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education, commerce, entertainment, or social media. Hyperlinking between web pages guides the navigation of the site, which often starts with a home page. The most-visited sites are Google, YouTube, and Facebook.

A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displaying information ; often, the user can configure which ones to display. Variants of portals include mashups and intranet dashboards for executives and managers. The extent to which content is displayed in a "uniform way" may depend on the intended user and the intended purpose, as well as the diversity of the content. Very often design emphasis is on a certain "metaphor" for configuring and customizing the presentation of the content and the chosen implementation framework or code libraries. In addition, the role of the user in an organization may determine which content can be added to the portal or deleted from the portal configuration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proxy server</span> Computer server that makes and receives requests on behalf of a user

In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource. It improves privacy, security, and performance in the process.

A web directory or link directory is an online list or catalog of websites. That is, it is a directory on the World Wide Web of the World Wide Web. Historically, directories typically listed entries on people or businesses, and their contact information; such directories are still in use today. A web directory includes entries about websites, including links to those websites, organized into categories and subcategories. Besides a link, each entry may include the title of the website, and a description of its contents. In most web directories, the entries are about whole websites, rather than individual pages within them. Websites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories.

Social software, also known as social apps or social platform includes communications and interactive tools that are often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle capturing, storing and presenting communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a pair or group of users. They focus on establishing and maintaining a connection among users, facilitating the mechanics of conversation and talk. Social software generally refers to software that makes collaborative behaviour, the organisation and moulding of communities, self-expression, social interaction and feedback possible for individuals. Another element of the existing definition of social software is that it allows for the structured mediation of opinion between people, in a centralized or self-regulating manner. The most improved area for social software is that Web 2.0 applications can all promote co-operation between people and the creation of online communities more than ever before. The opportunities offered by social software are instant connections and opportunities to learn. An additional defining feature of social software is that apart from interaction and collaboration, it aggregates the collective behaviour of its users, allowing not only crowds to learn from an individual but individuals to learn from the crowds as well. Hence, the interactions enabled by social software can be one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of security vulnerability that can be found in some web applications. XSS attacks enable attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same-origin policy. During the second half of 2007, XSSed documented 11,253 site-specific cross-site vulnerabilities, compared to 2,134 "traditional" vulnerabilities documented by Symantec. XSS effects vary in range from petty nuisance to significant security risk, depending on the sensitivity of the data handled by the vulnerable site and the nature of any security mitigation implemented by the site's owner network.

Virtual hosting is a method for hosting multiple domain names on a single server. This allows one server to share its resources, such as memory and processor cycles, without requiring all services provided to use the same host name. The term virtual hosting is usually used in reference to web servers but the principles do carry over to other Internet services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Content delivery network</span> Layer in the internet ecosystem addressing bottlenecks

A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end users. CDNs came into existence in the late 1990s as a means for alleviating the performance bottlenecks of the Internet as the Internet was starting to become a mission-critical medium for people and enterprises. Since then, CDNs have grown to serve a large portion of the Internet content today, including web objects, downloadable objects, applications, live streaming media, on-demand streaming media, and social media sites.

Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising, and mobile advertising. Advertisements are increasingly being delivered via automated software systems operating across multiple websites, media services and platforms, known as programmatic advertising.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social networking service</span> Online platform that facilitates the building of relations

A social networking service or SNS is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media</span> Virtual online communities

Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. Social media refer to new forms of media that involve interactive participation. While challenges to the definition of social media arise due to the variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available, there are some common features:

  1. Social media apps are online platforms that enable users to create and share content and participate in social networking.
  2. User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions—is the lifeblood of social media.
  3. Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
  4. Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">SharePoint</span> Web application platform

SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft 365. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, although it is also used for sharing information through an intranet, implementing internal applications, and for implementing business processes.

Social network aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services into a unified presentation. Examples of social network aggregators include Hootsuite or FriendFeed, which may pull together information into a single location or help a user consolidate multiple social networking profiles into a single profile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Targeted advertising</span> Form of advertising

Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting.

Social network advertising, also known as social media targeting, is a group of terms used to describe forms of online advertising and digital marketing focusing on social networking services. A significant aspect of this type of advertising is that advertisers can take advantage of users' demographic information, psychographics, and other data points to target their ads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media marketing</span> Promotion of products or services on social media

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gender differences in social network service use</span> Differences between genders with regard to use of social media and social network service

Men and women use social network services (SNSs) differently and with different frequencies. In general, several researchers have found that women tend to use SNSs more than men and for different and more social purposes.

Social media and political communication in the United States refers to how political institutions, politicians, private entities, and the general public use social media platforms to communicate and interact in the United States.

The use of social media in political campaigning was made popular by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential elections and the impact of social media in deciding the 2008 presidential elections was evident in the research and analysis produced. The 2008 elections and 2012 elections exist in different landscapes, during the 2008 elections Obama's campaign was considered "an experimental innovator" but by 2012 the merits of social media had been repeatedly proven.

References

  1. Perrin, Andrew; Anderson, Monica (10 April 2019). "Social media usage in the U.S. in 2019 | Pew Research Center". PewResearch.Org. Pew Research. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019. Study was quoted in Forbes.