Website Terminology

A glossary of website and Internet related terminology, listed alphabetically.

Adsense / Google Adsense
A form of relevant advertising on a website in which the owner of the site is paid a small amount when a viewer clicks a link on the ad, taking them to the vendor's website. If the viewer then makes a purchase, the owner of the host site earns an additional amount.

Affiliate Program
An arrangement in which a website owner advertises/markets a vendor's products on his/her website, often through a third party company. When a visitor purchases a product (by clicking on a "buy" link with a special affiliate code), the website owner receives a prior agreed upon commission. Transactions are actually handled by either the vendor or the third party company.

Banner Ad
Typically, a horizontally oriented, rectangular graphic advertisement with or without animation.

Browser
A client-side software program that is used to display web pages. Examples are: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Netscape.

Content Management
Basically, the ongoing process of updating, adding to, or removing a website's contents (articles, images, etc).

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets. A simple method of adding style such as colors, fonts, layout, etc. to web pages. One or more pointers can be embedded into the HTML code relating to the appropriate CSS file, allowing for elements on the web page to be shown differently. The purpose of CSS is to allow page content, such as HTML, to be kept separately from document appearance.

DHTML
Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language. A method of producing dynamic or interactive web site elements by using a combination of languages such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc.

Domain Name
An original, distinctive name chosen to identify your website; for example, "yourwebsite.com". The most used domain name extensions are .com (commercial), .net (network), and .org (organization). Two newer and increasingly popular domain extensions that are recognized by ICANN are .biz (business) and .info (information).

Flash
An authoring environment used to create dynamic, interactive, multimedia websites. Flash content cannot be indexed properly by search engines, thus requiring that a separate, text based (HTML) website be stored on the web server with it. Flash requires a plug-in to be installed on the viewer's computer before it can be viewed in most browsers.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol. A standardized method of transferring files to a web server. This is the procedure used by a website designer or administrator to upload new or changed pages onto the web host's server. The transfer is secure, thus requiring a username and password to access the folder on the web server.

Graphics
Generally, pictures, photographs and images of compressed bitmap formats that are widely used on webpages. The most popular of these are .jpg (.jpeg), .gif, and more recently .png.

Hosting / Web Hosting
A service offered by a company in which a website's files (pages, images, etc.) are stored or "hosted" in a folder on a web server. The server is connected to the Web and made available to the public through HTTP access.

HTML
HyperText Markup Language. The programming or authoring language used in the creation of documents or web pages for the Internet.

HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol. The fundamental procedure used by the World Wide Web that characterizes how web files are formatted and moved across it. HTTP also determines the actions of Browsers and Web Servers in response to specific commands.

HTTPS
Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol. A method of using the HTTP protocol to transmit data securely.

Hyperlinks / Links
A section of text or a graphic on a web page which, when clicked, will redirect to another page of the same website or to a different website.

ICANN
International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is the international body that controls and manages the distribution of top-level domains.

ISP
Internet Service Provider. An ISP provides others access to the World Wide Web through their server, either by dial-up or direct connection. ISP's typically provide e-mail and web hosting services as well.

PDF
Portable Document Format. Created and developed by Adobe Systems, PDF documents have a relatively small file size and as such are extremely popular for ebooks or other downloadable documents, retaining their original formatting and font types.

PHP
Hypertext Reprocessor. PHP is an open-source, general-purpose programming language. It was originally designed as a tool for producing dynamic web content, and it can be embedded into HTML code.

Search Engine
In general, a huge database with accompanying tools that, when prompted by typing in key words, will search for and retrieve relevant web pages. Examples are: Google, MSN, Alta Vista, All the Web and Yahoo! Search.

SEO
Search Engine Optimization. One or more methods of optimizing a webpage to make it appear more valuable to search engines. There are two categories or "factors" of SEO. On-page factors are contained within the HTML document and its meta information. Off-page factors generally consist of external link building strategies.

SSL
Secure Socket Layer. A method of encrytping information sent over the internet. SSL is used in purchases or other instances where valuable information is being transmitted.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator. Simply put, this is a website's address and is what you type into a browser's address bar when you want to access that site, for example, "whatever. com". The "www" prefix is no longer necessary.

WWW
World Wide Web. Although the term is used synonymously with the word Internet, it's more correctly described as a global information service that operates over the Internet, containing all the (web) documents located on servers throughout the world that are available for user access through the HTTP protocol.

WYSIWYG
What You See Is What You Get. A term that's used for software programs such as the website design and editing software featured on this site. As you apply specific components (such as text or graphics) to a work area, you see the results in real-time and can make any necessary changes accordingly.

XML
Extensible Markup Language. Extensible Markup Language is a simple text format use to describe, and in some instances contain, data. A Google XML sitemap, stored on a website, contains data on each page of the site, making it easy for Google's crawler to index the pages when it visits that site.

Website Terminology

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