Many web sites are composed of "static" pages. This means that for every "page" on the site, a separate file exists on the server that contains the information for that page. To make changes to the site, the individual pages need to be edited. Where pages contain links to each other, the process of modifing the site can become quite complicated, time consuming and expensive.

A more intelligent way of constructing a web site utilizes one or more databases to hold and manage the site's conent. Individual web "pages" are then dynamically generated based on templates and requests to the database to display certain information. This approach, combined with sophisticated software tools, allows for much easier management of data as well as enabling the site for E-commerce and other more comprehensive functionality.