Portals are web based applications that commonly provide personalization, single sign on, and content aggregation from different sources as well as provide hosting of the presentation layer of Information Systems. Aggregation is the act of integrating content from different sources within a web page. Portals may have sophisticated personalization features that provide customized content to users. Portal pages may also have different sets of portlets creating content for different types of users.
Perhaps a definition of "Portals" from Javaworld.com might also be useful -
A portal is a Web-based application that provides personalization, single sign-on, and content aggregation from different sources, and hosts the presentation layer of information systems. Aggregation is the process of integrating content from different sources within a Webpage. A portal may have sophisticated personalization features to provide customized content to users. Portal pages may have different sets of portlets creating content for different users.
