CGI

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CGI stands for

Common
Gateway
Interface

One of the first ways that web documents were made more dynamic and no longer simply static pages was with the introduction of CGI scripts.

When a browser fetches a document from a server it sends a URL, which is a specification of the required document. When this is a static page the server simply reads the file and sends it back.

If it's a CGI script (more correctly "program" since it may be compiled) the browser runs the program, and then sends the output back, as if that is what was read from a static page.

Components of the URL can be made available to the CGI program as input, as can auxilliary data sent in a POST request. Thus the CGI program can respond to contents of fields in forms, etc.