A4 People design website

Web and Multimedia Applications (OTHM/04/03-L4DIT)

Learner name: Noel Planel

Student ID: 15777

Centre: LSIB

Unit Reference Number: J/617/2267

Qualification Number: 603/3613/4

Task 1 of 2 – Written report

1. An analysis of modern web development technologies and their impact on traditional website design.

Several technologies emerged to fit traffic and needs; especially responsive design adapted to smartphones. Ben Frain, (Responsive Web Design using HTML5 and CSS3, 2012 p.7) mentioned that ‘responsive web design, built with HTML5 and CSS3, allows a website to 'just work' across multiple devices and screens.’

Moreover, security and privacy also shaped the design of websites and are today a vital aspect to integrate prior development.

• JavaScript: used widely by Facebook and Twitter. It creates dynamic Web pages, where users can interact with Web content in real-time. It is today considered an essential language to create a website, similarly to HTML, CSS and PHP. Like Java, JavaScript is an object-oriented programming language but can be only run in a browser.

This language also gained popularity with frameworks such as jQuery and MooTools. A framework is a platform to develop applications. They are adding more functions and are simplifying the developments of scripts.

• SQL: Structured Query Language and is the most famous database language in the world.

A database is a collection of related data, organized and sorted by the basic “CRUD” operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete) via SQL requests. A database connected to a website can significantly enhance its features by storing all kind of data, such as surveys, inventories management, leave management… The data is accessed via a DMBS (Database Management Software). The most famous ones are Oracle, MySQL, and Microsoft Access.

• Java: object-oriented programming language launched from a virtual machine before being executed. A virtual machine allows a greater potability through different operating systems. Java technology can create Web applets and directly transmit data from the user to the server. Java made also possible the concept of forms management where a traditional website can collect data from a user and store it into a database. Using the GET and POST methods , it can generate specific HTML pages to a user.

• C#: developed by Microsoft and inspired by C and C++ languages, C# is the programming language from the ASP.NET framework technology to create dynamic websites. Using a framework pre-loaded with libraries and generic functionalities. It simplifies website development by assisting with code-writing and eliminates the need to write repetitive code.

• C++: Bjarne Stroustrup developed classes, improving the C language in order to create objects. This allowed programs to be more complex and have virtual functions to inherit values.

The C++ language can also be used to communicate with a server and is still used today by many major companies such as Amazon and Google in web and desktop applications.

• Python: powerful language containing many libraries, helpful for project creation. Python can create web apps as well as software, games, email clients.

Coupled with frameworks, such as Django or Pyramid, it can help to create amazing connected programs like Instagram which was entirely coded in Python as well as Dropbox, Quora and Reddit.

Python is a trending language today for data science and machine learning, thanks to its numerous libraries containing mathematical formulas.

• PHP: (PHP Hypertext Pre-processor) is a programming language. Its main application is for designing and managing dynamic web pages. It can generate specific and unique HTML content, according to the user interaction and data collected.

PHP has also the capacity to manipulate images, create PDF files, connect to a database (usually MySQL) and servers.

• Ruby on rails: is a framework to create websites or web applications written in the Ruby language. Its framework makes coding easier and has several useful resources such as libraries, web services and structures for databases.

Websites using it can be fully responsive and dynamic. 

Many successful websites were entirely written using Ruby on rails: Airbnb, Twitter and GitHub.

1. A review of search engines and SEO influence

A performant SEO ranking depends on some specific techniques where a search engine will analyse several contents of the website: structure, traffic, codes and texts.

The data collected by the crawlers (a program browsing the web 24/7) of search engines will form an index and rank websites according to relevant keywords and search requests.

Here are some techniques and tools available to improve the SEO rank:

Here are some tools available to optimize the SEO. Most of them are coming with a free version, usually limited as well as a paid one which provides a dashboard of enhanced functions:

The negative impact of a poorly managed SEO: