The Difference Between a "Website" and a "Homepage" | Which Is Correct: Website or Homepage?

Have you ever been confused about the meaning of a word you use casually every day? "Homepage" and "website" are often used as synonyms, but they actually mean different things. This article explains the definitions of a website and a homepage, and the difference between the two.

What Is a Website

A website is a collection of many web pages, and a web page is a digital file written using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). For a website to be accessible to everyone around the world, it must be stored, or hosted, on a computer that stays connected to the internet 24 hours a day. Such a computer is called a web server.

What Is a Homepage

A homepage is the name for the main page of a website, where visitors can find hyperlinks to other pages on the site. By default, the homepage of every web server is index.html, though it can also be index.htm, index.php, or whatever the developer decides. A homepage is sometimes also called a "front page," "welcome page," or "landing page."

For web users, the homepage is the first web page displayed after launching a web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Browsers are usually preset so that the homepage is the browser maker's own first page. However, this can be set to open any website — for example, "http://www.yahoo.com" or "https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/" can be specified as the homepage. It's also possible to configure the browser to display no homepage (a blank page instead). In that case, you would select the first page from your bookmark list or type in a web address.

For website developers, the homepage is the first page displayed when a user chooses a site or presence on the World Wide Web. The usual address of a website is the address of its homepage, but you can also enter the address (Uniform Resource Locator) of any page to go directly to that page.

Why Does a Website Need a Homepage?

On most websites, the majority of visitors never actually visit the homepage. Even so, it remains an important part of the website, since the visitors who do land on it need a way to understand what the site offers. Ideally, a website's homepage should include links to every page, or, for a large website (100+ pages), links to every section. Other important things to consider include the company's phone number, contact information, and the site's most popular pages.

The Difference Between "Website" and "Homepage"

The terms "homepage" and "website" mean different things depending on what they refer to. In everyday conversation, the two are often used interchangeably, but they actually have distinct meanings. A website is a single site made up of web pages. A homepage is the page that appears first when you open your browser. There is a clear difference between a website and a homepage: a "website" is a collection of pages containing text, music, video, and more, much like a book.

A homepage, on the other hand, refers to the first page of a "website," or the page opened in a browser. In practice, the two terms are often used interchangeably to mean the website as a whole. So as long as you understand the difference between them, there's no problem using them interchangeably.

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