What is a web component?
Have you ever heard of an HTML element? If not you can find out more about them here. In essence, an HTML element is something that allows developers to structure webpages. This brings us to a web component, which is a bundle of code that allows users to create and customize their own elements to match their individual webpage. Web components have been around since 2011 and in the coding world, we consider that new. Because it is "new", a lot of websites or companies haven't updated their HTML structure with web components yet. The silver lining here is that some have and are starting to normalize them. In this blog, I will be delving deeper into what companies are utilizing web components and why that is helping them out so much.
Why web components?
If you're reading this and you've never developed, worked on, or inspected a site, it can be very complicated and embedded. Web components allow for these complicated sites to be organized and designed in a way that allows for effortless readability and accessibility. Let's look at an example to give you some context. You know how when you go to a site like YouTube, there are a bunch of squares, all with thumbnails, and evenly spaced? That's a web component. "Well, how do you know?" Look here: 
Normally when you go to a webpage there are standard HTML elements loaded to the page. Here we can see that this HTML element is styled specifically for YouTube. Basically, YouTube branded HTML. This makes it seamless for YouTube developers to go in and change or style something because they have customized element names that style their entire site.
If We're Being Real
"What is the correct approach going forward with web components" is a question that has been floating around the internet for quite some time and no one really knows the answer. In a perfect world, every company that has a high-functioning website would have someone develop a web component that is customized to their respective site. This would take time, money, and resources and because we live in an "old person" world, the likeliness of that happening is around 0%. That's why as of now, it is best to look at the companies that have done it successfully and how that has benefitted them since reformatting. Here is a look at pre-web-component YouTube: 
Gross right? That's because it was a jumbled mess of code that displayed videos in a fumbled mess. As time passed, Google acquired YouTube, and with that came a lot of funding. With this funding, they didn't just make slides at their HQ, they had someone reformat the website to make it more appealing and easier to work with. Because of this updated site, YouTube became unmatched (it already kind of was but this was the nail in the coffin). It is now the kingpin in the video uploading space and the next closest thing (Vimeo) isn't even in the conversation as of now. This shows just how powerful web components can be, especially if they are implemented correctly and sooner rather than later. Other sites that have started to use web components are Xfinity, Nintendo, and EA-Games, to name a few.
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