Database Driven Websites
Large websites, or small sites that grow organically to become large, usually have logistical problems that need to be solved. Often this is done through using a database to serve content on the site dynamically, and therefore make it easy to have thousands of pages on the website, as the data for the pages is stored in the database rather than thousands of individual files.The first choice to consider is what sort of set up to go for at the backend. For small business sites and some medium business sites, a combination of PHP and mySQL is the most popular, as these are free, well supported through excellent documentation and busy user websites and reliable - and also very widespread.
Of course there are many other options and for databases with particularly valuable data, or security considerations and so on, or for a very large company there will be serious debate needed with regard the best technology solution to go for.
One important aspect of a database driven web site is of course defining the actual structure of the tables that serve the site, and also how many tables are needed and how the site will be built to reflect these, or vice versa.
An important process to go through is normalisation, whereby you reduce the data held in each table to that which is absolutely necessary, in other words you try to eliminate any duplication. This is not as easy as it seems and can require a lot of thought.
Investing time into getting the database structure just right up front can save a lot of problems and issues down the line, so it is one of the key steps of creating any database driven website.
Clarity Media has particularly specialised in building large, dynamic sites that are database driven.
If you have any questions with regard database design or require a quote for a database driven website, please do Contact Us to discuss what you need in more detail.
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