ECommerce Business Technology Series, Part III – From Client To Server, A Division Of Labor

In, ECommerce Business Technology Series, Part II – The Building Blocks Of A Web Page,  I introduced you to HTML, XHTML, and CSS and how they construct the basic elements that make up a web page.  Together, they define the structure and presentation of your web page.  If you have not read the previous posts in this ecommerce business technology series, I highly recommend going back and reading those first.  Having a basic understanding of how web pages work, will make it easier to understand some of the technologies that make up an ecommerce website and how to apply them.  Today, I want to introduce you to client-side and server-side scripting and programming.

Client-side web scripting
Client-side web scripting is any code that operates within the control of the browser. Client-side scripting enables interaction within a webpage.  Examples of client-side scripting include functions to show the date, provide image rollover functions, create pop-ups,  and javascript is the most common client-side language in use. AJAX is another technology used with client side programming, but we will cover that another time as it is an advanced topic.

Server-Side programming
In server-side programming a user’s request is fulfilled by running a script/code directly on the web server to generate and return dynamic web pages (think of the type of data returned in blog posts, product catalogues, reports, etc).  (X)HTML is rendered on the server and returned back to the browser for display.

Some examples of server side scripting/programming languages include:

ASP/ASP.NET
PHP
Java via JavaServer Pages (JSP)
Perl
Python
ColdFusion Markup Language

When a user requests a web page, that communication is made using HTTP or HTTPS.   HTTP(S) is a common internet protocol that all browsers and web servers understand.  HTTPS is an encrypted HTTP protocol and is most commonly used when submitting personal data (like personal information, banking data, credit card data) etc.

As an online retailer, you must ensure that your online store supports encrypted communication between a customer’s browser and your store.  Most ecommerce websites use a mix of HTTP and HTTPS to send data back and forth between the server. (HTTP for general communication, and HTTPS for submitting orders and credit card data.  Most shopping carts are set up to use a SSL (Secured Socket Layer) certificate which is used to encrypt/decrypt the card data during transmission.  Think of it as a secret handshake between the browser and the server.  Both sides need to know the secret and the SSL certificate contains part of the secret.  We’ll save SSL and encryption for a later topic, but keep in mind it is mandatory to do so.  Never collect credit card numbers using standard web forms that do not have embedded encryption. Any traffic that travels over non-encrypted means can be intercepted at any point along its travel across the web and viewed by anyone.

When it comes to client or server-side programming it is important to know that most websites split duties between the two sides and that ideally you want to minimize client-side scripting to the best of your ability.  With the power of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) we talked about last time, many things that were previously done in client side scripting can now be done using CSS.  A best practice is to keep your use of client-side scripting to a minimum to ensure faster page loading, and support search bots like Google or Yahoo’s ability to accurately crawl your page.  In today’s world, the search engine bots have gotten more sophisticated and can now recognize most client-side scripting.  However, the search engines do not interpret what the scripts are doing and in many case will skip over them, or in really bad cases, get confused and leave your site.  So if you are using client side scripting to get fancy with your links or navigation, it can hurt you when it comes to your site getting crawled by blocking the search bots.  If you do decide to use client side scripting, you should also make sure your page contains standard links in other locations to allow the bots to find your inner pages.

So up to this point we have covered some of the things that happen on the browser side as well as on the server.  In my next post, ECommerce Business Technology Series, Part IV – Shopping Carts And Your Online Store, I will cover shopping carts.  I’ll briefly cover what they are, but also give you some insight as to what they are made up of from a technical perspective.  I’ll also cover some of the choices you should consider when it comes to integrating a shopping cart into your site, versus using a hosted solution.  Up to this point we have described fundamentally what makes up web pages and how browsers communicate with a web server.  Going forward, we will primarily be looking at server-side technologies and specifically how they tie in with your ecommerce website.