When you click a link on a web page, or when you type an address in the address bar of your browser, you are sending a message to a computer somewhere. That message is telling that computer to send a web page to your computer. The page it sends to you may have been created last week, last year, or just at the instant you asked for it. If it was created before you asked for it, it is a static page. If it was created because you asked for it, it is a dynamic page.
While everyone who publishes web sites wants all of the pages to be dynamic in the marketing sense, there is a technical meaning to these terms that is important for the purchaser of web site development to understand.
A static page is much like a physically printed page. Once the words are chosen, and the layout is chosen, the page is then committed to the medium and does not change.
Dynamic pages use computer programming to create the web page at the exact instant the user wants to see the page. The general nature of the page is determined, but the specific content is taken from the context of what the user has requested. Some examples:
On a real estate site I designed, users can click on a link to a description of a particular property. No matter which property they select, the page they see will show a description, price, address, and other property features. But which property is displayed depends on which the visitor selected. When the request is made, the website uses computer programs to select the specific property for a database of all the properties, and fill in the details for the