A database driven website is a website that has most of its webpage content stored in a database. Therefore, while a typical website with its content stored on the file system is often referred to as a static, a database driven website is often referred to as a dynamic.
A website with dynamic content usually has a CMS (Content Management System) to assist the content providers in updating the website.
A CMS is usually provided in the form of an administration area where you can create, update and delete website content. All of this content can be stored in the database.
Blogs have become a popular feature for many websites. Most, if not all, forums and blogs are database driven. Users can register their details, then add content. When the user clicks the “Submit” button, their details/content is inserted into the database.
Some websites have a combination of static content and dynamic content. There could be any number of reasons for this. Often, smaller websites will be static. There’s little need to configure a database just to store a handful of webpages – much easier and cheaper to keep them as files on the server. Even websites like this might contain some added functionality such as a discussion forum, or a blog. In this case, the discussion forum or blog would be database driven while the primary site would be static.
Benefits of a Database Driven Website
Database driven websites can provide much more functionality than a static site can. Extended functionality could include:
- Enabling many (potentially non-technical) users to provide content for the website. Users can publish articles on the website without needing to FTP them to a web server.
- Shopping cart
- You can provide advanced search functionality that enables users to filter the results based on a given field. They can then sort those results by a field – say “Price” or “Date”.
- Customized homepage
- You can allow your users to perform tasks such as registering for a newsletter, post questions to your forums, provide comments on a blog, update their profile, etc.
- Integration with corporate applications such as CRM systems, HR systems etc
- Much more