Note: Many topics at this site are reduced versions of the text in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications." Search results will not be as extensive as a search of the book's CD-ROM.

If you've accessed the Web, you've no doubt been to a portal, so it seems odd to define it here. The simplest definition of a portal is a Web site with a lot of hyperlinks to other places. But portals may also host their own content such as news, sports, and weather, as do portal sites such as AltaVista, America Online, MSN (Microsoft Network), Yahoo!, or MSNBC. A portal is a place to hang out on the Web and jump off to other locations. Portals have been called "on-ramps" to the rest of the Web. One of the best examples of a portal front page is at http://www.yahoo.com. It's simple and to the point, and helps people get to where they want to go in a hurry. This interface has remained nearly unchanged for years.

This topic continues in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications" with a discussion of the following:

• Hubs: an advanced type of portal
• Intranet portals and intranet hubs
• EIPs (enterprise information portals)
• Push and pull
• Types of portals, including
• Enterprise information portals
• Enterprise collaborative portals
• Enterprise expertise portals
• Enterprise knowledge portals

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