How to create a database driven website
A dynamic website is distinguished from a static website. The
difference is that a static site, as the name implies, has
'flat' or unchanging content whilst a dynamic site, often with
the help of a database, constructs and serves pages on the fly.
Thus, a static page may be a piece of HTML that contains all the
menu items, the page content and links. A dynamic page however
will most likely be a template, pulling in content from various
locations: a table containing page content, the navigation links
from somewhere else, and hence each page is generated on the fly
as it does not exist in its entirety on the server.
The advantages of dynamic sites are several. First of all, they
make large sites practical and easy to maintain. If you have a
template that pulls in menu content from a database, for
instance, then you only need to update menu links in one place
for them to update across the entire site. With simple static
HTML pages, you would need to update everywhere at once.
Dynamic sites enable you to run a site primarily from a database
of content, and from just a few template files that serve all
the content. Trying to reproduce a large site using flat content
files is time consuming and very tricky.
The only potential downside of producing a dynamic site could be
with the cost, depending on what technologies you choose.
However, there are some excellent combinations out there - many
sites running off PHP in combination with mySQL