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Site and Page Types: Static or Dynamic

Prior to getting into optimization, firstly it is vital to know not all websites are equal (the same). That’s the reason many users have issues, because it is not possible to tackle every problem the identical way. There are 2 types of websites: static or dynamic. We use only static one page sites in our online page speed experiment. Consequently let’s firstly look at what is different between the two site types.

Static webpages and sites

Websites like blogs, small business websites, news sites with a lower volume, as well as personal sites, photography galleries and so on most frequently are static. What does it mean here by ‘static’? It is meant that the data on the websites does not change often, likely only a few times daily. Therefore, the majority of websites and their pages are static.

That end up extremely vital since a lot of requests could get served right from a server cache at a whirlwind fast speed!

Highly dynamic websites

Then there are the sites that are highly dynamic, like eCommerce shops, community and membership websites, forums, as well as LMS or learning management systems. Here ‘dynamic’ means the data on the websites changes very frequently and the transactions with the server take place as fast as one per second. That means some of the server requests can’t be done right from a cache and instead need to use server resources as well as queries to the site’s database. These websites usually have lots of concurrent guests and sessions.

Someone may remain on an informational or business site that’s mainly static for 5 to 10 minutes till they get whatever they needed, and that’s really not a big number as bounce rates can be a lot higher. With a dynamic site, there is the opposite reaction. Guests normally access the website so they can engage with either something or someone. For example, they might be doing a course online and that activity could have them remaining online for several hours.