Database-driven web site
Most web sites consist of a set of individual web pages, connected to each other or to a table of contents page through the use of hyperlinks. Updating data must be done on the individual pages.

A different way of organizing and maintaining web sites is through the use of data bases of information. Such a database-driven web site would then access specific information from the database after the user has filled out a form or asked for specific information.

This is different than having static pages where that the user can access from an index or search. Instead, the page is dynamically created from information requested from the database.

This also has the advantage in that the owner of the data only needs to update the database and not worry about updating individual web pages.

Applications
Database-driven web sites have numerous applications and possibilities.

Information on products
A company doing e-commerce can have all their goods for sale in a data-base on their web server. When a customer accesses the web site and asks for information on a specific type of product, a web page will display the information desired.

This is how many search engines work, but the capabilities in this case are greater, because the information can be formatted in other ways that a simple list.

When new products are introduced or information on them changes, only the database needs to be updated.

Education courses
When a student accesses an online course, he or she may be able to selected the level or the type of information needed. Since the course material is in a database, only what is requested will be displayed.

Also, updating the education or training material can be done without having to worry about HTML coding issues. The information is simply put in the database.