The content component (com_content) is what you use to write articles. It is extremely flexible and has the largest number of built in views. Articles can be created and edited from the front end, making content the easiest component to use to create your site content. Help

The search component proviedes basic search functionality for the information contained in your core components. Many third party extensions also can be searched by the search component. Help

News Feeds (com_newsfeeds) provides a way to organize and present news feeds. News feeds are a way that you present information from another site on your site. For example, the joomla.org website has numerous feeds that you can incorporate on your site. You an use menus to present a single feed, a list of feeds in a category, or or a list of all feed categories. Help

The users extension lets your site visitors register, login and logout, change their passwords and other information, and recover lost passwords. In the administrator it allows you to create, block and manage users and create user groups and access levels. Help Please note that some of the user views will not display if you are not logged in to the site.

Weblinks (com_weblinks) is a component that provides a structured way to organize external links and present them in a visually attractive, consistent and informative way. Help

All components also are used in the administrator area of your website. In addition to the ones listed here, there are components in the administrator that do not have direct front end displays, but do help shape your site. The most important ones for most users are Media Manager Extensions Manager Menu Manager Global Configuration Banners Redirect   Media Manager The media manager component lets you upload and insert images into content throughout your site. Optionally, you can enable the flash uploader which will allow you to to upload multiple images. Help Extensions Manager The extensions manager lets you install, update, uninstall and manage all of your extensions. The extensions manager has been extensively redesigned for Joomla! 1.6, although the core install and uninstall functionality remains the same as in Joomla 1.5. Help Menu Manager The menu manager lets you create the menus you see displayed on your site. It also allows you to assign modules and template styles to specific menu links. Help Global Configuration The global configuration is where the site administrator configures things such as whether search engine friendly urls are enabled, the site meta data (descriptive text used by search engines and indexers) and other functions. For many beginning users simply leaving the settings on default is a good way to begin, although when your site is ready for the public you will want to change the meta data to match its content. Help Banners The banners component provides a simple way to display a rotating image in a module and, if you wish to have advertising, a way to track the number of times an image is viewed and clicked. Help Redirect The redirect component is used to manage broken links that produce Page Not Found (404) errors. If enabled it will allow you to redirect broken links to specific pages. It can also be used to manage migration related URL changes. Help