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It almost goes without saying that you will want your business website to be compelling, interactive, and secure. All of these characteristics will make your website more effective at bringing in and keeping customers. But how to go about it in a way that is stable, cost-effective, and easy to manage? One popular solution is to use the server-side scripting language PHP to help you solve those problems.
What is PHP?
Founded in 1995, PHP originally stood for
PHP was originally designed for web site development to use, but quickly grow into a more powerful language. PHP's main use is as an "embedded" scripting language, which means that the actual PHP code embedded in HTML code. When used in this way to make your PHP for Web server processing prior to their site in the user's web browser displays web pages.
Benefits of PHP
PHP is popular because it can be embedded directly into HTML coding.
PHP can be used on all major operating systems and is supported on most web servers.
PHP’s main focus is development for the web, so it has a quick development time and can solve scenarios much quicker than some of the other web design languages.
The latest version of PHP is a very stable and mature language used for web programming much like Java and Microsoft C#.
It is open source so it is free!
Database: It is very easy to write simple scripts which allow your Web site to interact with a database.
Cross-Platform: Both the PHP engine and the PHP code can be used on almost any platform, making it extremely versatile.
Development Tools: You only need a text editor to work on PHP; you do not need any development environment or compilers.
What can you do with PHP?
PHP generally runs on Web servers to PHP code as its input and output to create the page, but you can also use the command-line scripting and client-side GUI applications it. PHP is a very common language that enables you to create high-end, stable websites and a lot of bells and whistles. Here are a few things you can use PHP to:
Make HTML Web Forms
Store Information in Databases
Remember Web site visitors (cookies and sessions)
Work with Arrays
Work with Files (File Management and downloads)
Parsing and Generating XML (also useful for large quantities of products on e-commerce)
Check which browser your visitor is using
How does PHP Work?
As its name (“PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor”) suggests, PHP derives its power by “preprocessing” hypertext on the server side. This generally means that when the PHP script (saved as a .php file) runs on your web server, it performs the programmed actions, and returns HTML code that will then be sent back to your customer’s web browser. The PHP script itself is not included in the HTML that is sent to the browser, so the PHP code is invisible and secure to the user.
For example, let’s consider the following simple PHP statement. (This example is merely to show the basic syntax of PHP in action. Any detailed discussion of PHP code is beyond the scope of this article.)

[Remove the space(s) after ]
In this statement, is the closing tag, and echo is a PHP instruction that tells PHP to output the text that follows it as plain HTML code. The PHP software processes the PHP statement and outputs the following:
Hello World
[Remove the space(s) after ]
This is a regular HTML statement that is delivered to the user?s browser. The PHP statement itself is not delivered to the browser, so the user never sees any PHP statements.
Using PHP to Improve Your Website.
PHP has many capabilities features designed specifically for use in Web sites, including the following:
1. Securing Your Website.
PHP Web site (or a particular region), so to secure your website, customers can use you must enter a valid user name and password. This allows your business to reward good customers
2. Working with Web Forms.
PHP can display an HTML form and process the information that the user types in. This can be an excellent way to learn more about your customers by asking them to provide profile information, and to collect information about their specific interests.
3. Communicate with Your Databases.
PHP is particularly adept at dealing with databases and the storage of information from the user or the retrieval of information is displayed to the user. PHP handles connecting to the database and communicating with him, so it is not necessary to know all the technical details for the connection or the exchange of messages with the database. You tell PHP the name of the database and where it is, PHP, and the details. All major databases are currently supported by PHP.
4. Customer Loyalty Functions.
You can also use PHP to create a number of different functionalities on your website that will further help you to build customer loyalty, including interactive polls, a guestbook, and a message board.
The popularity of PHP continues to grow rapidly because it has many advantages over other technical solutions. PHP is fast (because it’s embedded in the HTML code, the time to process and load a Web page is relatively short), PHP is free (it is open-source software), and PHP is versatile (is runs on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and most Unix variants).
Perhaps most important is that PHP is a very well-established language. There are many user-run Internet communities, the very large amounts of information (and scripts) are available. With so much experience behind them to PHP for certain dynamic properties of a cost-effective and easy way to increase the stability of your website.