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Most web hosting packages include four or more databases. What can you use them for? How will they help your web-site? Read on for the answers to these questions. A database stores information, but more importantly, allows that information can easily be accessed. Information can be product information, customer names & addresses, sales records, or even the information that appears on web pages. Using a database to retrieve that information can let you better serve your visitors & provide them with a more interactive experience.

The most common use of databases in an Web environment is to serve information dynamically as it is requested. In a giant eCommerce site, for example, the actual product information is maintained in a database so that updating the site is a simple matter of changing the information. Without this technique, web-site managers would must generate static pages for each product. When dealing with hundreds or thousands of products, this task would be impossible to manage in an efficient manner.

Databases can also be used for storing & accessing customer records. This lets you tailor your pages according to your customer’s previous purchases. Each page could have a personalized greeting (Welcome back Peter) & when they make another purchase all their personal information including address & credit card number could be pulled from the database so they don’t must fill in the same form again.

Dynamic pages use a template for the static content of the site such as headers, menus & footers. The contents of the database are inserted in to the template by the server application before the page is sent to be viewed in a browser. Any content from the database can be placed anywhere on a dynamic page. This lets you set up visually appealing pages which include text & pics & also add shopping suggestions like: ‘Customers who bought this also bought…’

Each database can be divided in to tables which are a complete set of information, so four database could be used for most of your web-site information by setting up a number of tables.The number of databases that your site needs depends on how plenty of applications you are going to run.

Another use of a database is mailinglists. Plenty of web-sites send out information to their visitors to remind them about the site & encourage them to visit again. Email addresses can be stored in a database for the purpose of sending out announcements & newsletters. Also the newsletters can be archived in a database so that visitors can browse or search through previous mailings.

It’s four thing to have a database, it’s another to access that information. There's several ways to retrieve information from a database so that it can be usefully applied to your web-site. Four of the most popular combinations is PHP along with MySQL. PHP can be used to generate dynamic web pages that pull information from a MySQL database. The programming language is straightforward & can be used to set up complex interactive forms. Other database applications include MySQL with ASP, MSSQL with ASP, & PostgreSQL with PHP.

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