homepage

With the term homepage the start page of a website is the name given to it. This home page primarily serves as a landing page that visitors reach via a search engine, for example. Each homepage is accessible via a unique URL address (example: www.beispiel.de). The homepage can be accessed without any additional information, such as www.beispiel.de/start. For all other pages of a website, additional information is required (for example, www.beispiel.de/AGB). In everyday language, the term homepage is mistakenly equated with the terms website, Internet page or even online presence and Internet presence. Strictly speaking, however, a website consists of several subpages, one of which is the homepage. A homepage contains initial information about the site operator (company or private individual), links to further subpages and often also current news or notes. A menu takes visitors from the homepage to other subpages of the website, for example, to the blog, the GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONSor the imprint. There, visitors can find out more details or, in the case of an online store, get an overview of the product range offered.

The history of the homepage

Especially the younger generation seems to think that the Internet has always been there. In fact, the Internet as we know it today only came into existence relatively recently. The first homepage was developed in 1990 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. The technology was invented by the scientist Tim Berners-Lee as early as 1989. The first homepage went online in 1990, but the operation was stopped in 1991. At that time, the Internet was not yet accessible to the public at all, it was only released to the public in 1993. If you want to know what a homepage from the early days of the Internet looks like, you can go to the original by clicking on the URL http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. In 2013, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Internet, the homepage was put back online by the CERN research centre. At that time a white background with black writing and blue links were modern. There were no photos on the first homepage.

Text as a decisive element of every homepage

Anyone who surfs to a new page, examines the homepage closely. Pictures and photos play a certain role, but the text is decisive in several ways. On the one hand, the text on the landing page provides the visitor with initial information about the website operator or company. This is not only about what's going on, but also about the seriousness of the website. If there are several obvious mistakes in the text, this is not exactly a sign of quality and the visitor may click away. On the other hand, the text on the homepage is also essential for the search engines. For most companies and website operators, a good ranking (to appear as high up as possible in the search results and thus have a good findability by search engines) is of great importance. Because a lot of traffic usually leads to a lot of profit. In order for a homepage to appear high up in the search engine ranking, there should be an adequate amount of keywords with a high search volume in the text. From the visitors' point of view, a homepage should not only be textually appealing, but also clearly arranged and easy to use. Elaborate graphics or even music are nice gimmicks, but for most internet users such things are associated with long loading times. Therefore it is better to avoid them when designing a homepage.