A portal is a web site which offers many different services. These may include such things as email, search engines, directories and online malls. The concept is you can go to this web site and use it as a jumping off point to many other services and sites. The portal makes it's money from advertising (banners), click-thrus and sometimes directly from sales of products.
Portals are very popular on the web. They provide a way to give visitors a reason to visit a site again and again. This is the reason why the huge portals such as Yahoo exist - to attract people time after time. Why is this important? Because portals sell advertising (usually) and advertisers demand eyeballs. An advertisement is not useful if it is not at least seen by someone.
Quite often your ISP will host a portal of it's own (Earthlink is a good example). Some of these are quite good and I've found it a good idea to check them out once in a while. The idea here is simple. The ISP wants you to use their web site to add value to their offering. This is inexpensive for them and yet gives them a presence with their users.
Perhaps the best know
is Yahoo, which has become huge in the past few years. In fact, Yahoo is a
classic example of a portal. They have dozens (perhaps hundreds) of
features which give their visitors lots and lots of options. You can read
your email, create a web site, look at headlines and stock quotes, and
surf their directory to find sites of interest. While you are doing all of
this you are looking at advertisements, which is how Yahoo pays for it
all.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.