Do you say content is in a website or on a website?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
“On website” or “at website”?
Which of these is correct: “Sheila is now in Facebook” or “Sheila is now on Facebook”?

Which is best in your opinion?

"You can find this content on the X website." "You can find this content in the X website."

"I posted the comment on FB." "I posted the comment in FB."

Thanks for your opinions and advice!

Related http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4419/in-the-internet-vs-on-the-internet — , Sep 17 '12 at 15:15
I don't see a previous question that combines the words “in”, “on”, and “website”, but the two suggestions above plus Search this website or search in this website, On website or at website, and This question has been asked at stack overflow vs on stack overflow cover the bases. Current question duplicates effect of previous questions. — James Waldby - jwpat7, Sep 17 '12 at 15:49

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 17 '12 at 15:17

13

Both appear to be grammatically and logically correct. Something can be in the text of a site or appear in the images of a site. Similarly something can appear on the screen of your device showing the website.

However, usage seems to strongly favor on a website.

website ngram

answered Sep 17 '12 at 15:17

bib

72,782

I don't think that Something can be in the text of a site being correct means that Something can be on the site is correct as well, because the text and the site are two different concepts. As an analogy, I can be in my car, but that doesn't mean that I am in the highway. Neither is the car. We are both on the highway. – Supr Sep 17 '12 at 20:15
2

@Supr I have often heard discussions about material that is not on the first page being described as buried deep in* the website, that is a portion of the website that you must dig* to get to. There are a number of digging and mining analogies that are used in connection with web-based data. There is also the logical analysis that recognizes that all material the website displays is contained in the code. Notwithstanding, I think on is more common. – bib Sep 17 '12 at 22:13
That I have to agree with, but your original argument still doesn't sound right to me ;) – Supr Sep 17 '12 at 22:31

Barrie England · Answer 2 · 2012-09-17T15:21:06.167

1

I think on the website and on Facebook are what you would normally find.

edited Sep 17 '12 at 15:21

answered Sep 17 '12 at 15:12

Barrie England

140,205

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

For normal usage, "on the website" sounds more correct to me, because you're reading information off of the user interface. For usage in A pplication P rogramming I nterfaces, there's a solid argument to be made for there being information "in a website", because you're making requests that go into a server to fetch content, instead of having it displayed for your consumption. I answered this related question similarly.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 17 '12 at 15:19

Websites seem to be treated in standard English as equivalent to notice-boards, rather than books.

So where you would say "I found that handy fact in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.", it is more normal to say that "I found the answer to that on Wikipedia." This could perhaps follow from the term web-page - after all, content which is (admittedly) in a book can be found on a page.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 17 '12 at 22:15

1

Don't forgot about another two-letter preposition that could be used: at.

The information can be found on the website.
The information can be found at the website.
The information can be found in the website.

These are all in use, apparently.

Oftentimes, more than one preposition is suitable to convey something like this.

That's all I have time to post for now – supper's at the table.

enter image description here

answered Sep 17 '12 at 22:15

J.R.

58,828
5
95
196

Hmmm. Looks like neither "in" nor "on" is right or wrong (sorry, I just can't get my head around "at"!) Maybe I'll just keep using "in" till enough people follow my lead :-) – Fiona Sep 18 '12 at 15:11

Do you say content is in a website or on a website?

5 Answers5

Linked

Related