A home page (also written as homepage) can be considered any of the following:
A bookmark that opens when the home button is pressed The primary/root page of a website (also called the welcome page) The start page that a web browser opens upon launch Someone’s personal blog
Home Page Button
A home page button is a feature in a web browser that acts as a special bookmark. When you select the home button, the URL you pre-chose opens just like any other bookmark. The only difference between a home page button bookmark and a regular bookmark is that the home button is an actual home-looking button that sits in a different area of the browser Home buttons aren’t enabled by default in all browsers, and some don’t even use a home button. You can learn how to set the home page button URL here if you want to use the home page in this way.
Home Page in a Web Browser
Another way to use the term home page is to refer to it as a web browser’s start page or pages. A browser can be configured to open a specific set of pages when it first opens. It could be a blank page, your favorite sites, a search engine, a personalized start page, or even the same pages you had open when you closed the browser. Regardless of what you’ve chosen to open along with the browser, it’s considered the browser’s home page.
A Website’s Home Page
The main page of a website is also called its home page. This is considered the starting point, or welcome page for the site. It’s there that you’ll usually find crucial links such as a “Contact” page, search bar, social media links, an “About” page, etc. This kind of home page is what someone sees when they first open the website, so there might also be featured articles, news headlines, recent blog posts, a list of recent comments, and anything else that the website wants you to see when you visit. Another way to think of a site’s home page is as an anchor point from which visitors can explore the rest of the site. This home page is usually whatever is closest to the domain name in the URL. To take Lifewire as an example, the page you’re on right now isn’t the home page, but Lifewire.com is. The same is true for other sites, such as Apple.com. There are numerous pages on that website, but they’re not considered the home page. Some websites have multiple versions of the home page to accommodate different languages or devices. Wikipedia, for example, has a different home page for the English mobile version (en.m.wikipedia.org), the desktop language-selection version (wikipedia.org), and the Italian version (it.wikipedia.org). You can get to the home page on most websites by selecting the logo at the top of the page, or a home button if there is one. Another way is to erase everything in the address bar except for the domain name.
Personal Websites Are Home Pages
You might hear some people refer to their personal website as a home page. What this normally means is that they’ve designated a specific website or web page as their online presence. A personal home page could be a blog, social media profile, or something else. For example, if you purchased a domain name to post updates about your life, share links to your Facebook and Twitter, and to showcase your resume, you might refer to the whole website as your home page.
