Web Site Terms or Glossary
Accessibility
Relates to web design/coding standards and refers to how easy it is for everyone to use your website, including people who are visually impaired or in any way physically handicapped, or limited by older or less common computers and software.
Address Bar
The white bar towards the top of your computer screen. It will normally have something typed in it that starts with "http://" This is where you type in the address of a website that you want to visit.
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A code that represents English characters as numbers, ranging from 0 to 127. Commonly used by computers and or browsers, ASCII codes make it possible to transfer data from one computer to another computer.
ASP
A coding language that is compatible with Windows servers. Normally used for increased functionality on a website or to work with a database. It works in conjunction with html and html variants.
Back/Forward
Buttons in most browsers tool button bar, upper left. Back returns you to the document previously viewed. Forward goes to the next document, after you go back. If it seems like the back button does not work, check whether you are in a new browser window; some links are programmed to open in a new window.
Backlinks
Links from other websites to yours. Used to increase a site's popularity with search engines and to get more people to visit your site.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth relates to how much a resource is used. The wider the freeway, the more traffic (users) it can handle. The narrower it is, the less people can use it at once (without problems). When a website gets a lot of visitors at once, it will use a lot of bandwidth.
BCC
Blind Carbon Copy. Email feature. If you send someone a BCC email, their email address will not show in the "to" field.
BETA
A term used for software that is in a testing phase. People can use it but can expect some glitches.
Binary
A numbering system that consists of only two numbers, 0 and 1. Everything that you type or input into a computer is converted into binary - a unique combination of the zeros and ones. Screens and printers then convert this binary code back into what you inputted. When uploading or transferring information or files from a computer to a server, certain files need to be transferred as binary in order to be correctly interpreted and rendered.
Blog or Weblog
A blog short for web log is a type of web page that offers a series of posted short articles, photos, diary entries, etc. Blogs usually include a searchable archive of old postings. Blogs have become a common medium for communication in professional, political, news, trendy, and other specialized web communities. Many blogs provide RSS Feeds so you can subscribe and receive alerts to new postings in selected blogs.
Bookmark/Favorites
All major web browsers include a way to store links to sites you wish to return to. Netscape, Mozilla, and Firefox use the term Bookmarks. The equivalent in Internet Explorer (IE) is called a "Favorite." To create a bookmark, click on BOOKMARKS or FAVORITES, then ADD. Or left-click on and drag the little bookmark icon to the place you want a new bookmark filed. To visit a bookmarked site, click on BOOKMARKS and select the site from the list. Most browsers also include commands to Import and Export lists of bookmarks. An alternative method is to store your bookmarks on a website, such as delicious or digg, that lets you access them from any computer on the Internet and see what others have bookmarked.
Boolean Logic
A system of standardized words or operators used to connect search terms. These include AND, OR, NOT and sometimes NEAR. AND requires all terms appear in a record. OR retrieves records with either term. NOT excludes terms. Parentheses may be used to sequence operations and group words. Always enclose terms joined by OR with parentheses.
Broadband
Relates to a type of internet connection. Connecting using a service that provides greater speed. ADSL is one example of a broadband connection. It also often means greater reliability because you will not experience as many timeouts and also because more people can use a broadband connection at the same time without it causing traffic congestion.
Browse
To browse through a page, exploring what's there and seeing where the links take you, is a bit like window shopping. When you browse, you have to guess which words and links on the page pertain to your interests. The opposite of browsing is searching.
Browsers
A Software programs that enable you to view web pages and other documents on the Internet. They translate HTML encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see. The most commonly used browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer (often called IE), Firefox and Mozilla.
Cable Modem
A device that allows a computer to connect to a cable television system and connect to a computer network – They usually work at speeds approaching Ethernet connections.
Cache
In browsers, "cache" is used to identify a space where web pages you have visited are stored in your computer. A copy of documents you retrieve is stored in cache. When you use GO, BACK, or any other means to revisit a document, the browser first checks to see if it is in cache and will retrieve it from there because it is much faster than retrieving it from the server.
Cached Link
In search results from Google, Yahoo! Search, and some other search engines, there is usually a Cached link which allows you to view the version of a page that the search engine has stored in its database. The live page on the web might differ from this cached copy, because the cached copy dates from whenever the search engine's spider last visited the page and detected modified content. Use the cached link to see when a page was last crawled and, in Google, where your terms are and why you got a page when all of your search terms are not in it.
Case Sensitive
Capital letters (upper case) retrieve only upper case. Most search tools are not case sensitive or only respond to initial capitals, as in proper names. It is always safe to key all lower case (no capitals), because lower case will always retrieve upper case.
Catchall
This refers to an email folder that will catch any and all emails sent to your domain, even if there is no such address there. For example, you only have one email address on your domain, which is smith@company.com. Now if someone sends an email to john@company.com, the catchall will accept this email and store it, even though the address is invalid. Catchall's used to be a great idea in case someone spelled you name incorrectly - you would still get the email. Unfortunately, spammers use them now and it collects large volumes of junk mail.
CC
Means "Carbon Copy". An email feature. Use this to send a copy of an email to one or more other people at the same time that you are sending it to the main recipient.
CGI
Common Gateway Interface The most common way Web programs interact dynamically with users. Many search boxes and other applications that result in a page with content tailored to the user's search terms rely on CGI to process the data once it's submitted, to pass it to a background program in JAVA, JAVASCRIP, or another programming language, and then to integrate the response into a display using HTML.
Chat
In the context of the internet chat is a feature that allows users from all over the globe to communicate in real time or almost real time. Chat is communication via typing which then appears on the recipient's screen. This is done via a piece of software that exists on a server.
CMS
Content Management System. A dynamic website that is normally database driven and which enables the owner/user to manage the content of their own website (make changes) without needing to know any coding at all.
Code
Nothing that you see on the internet is what it appears to be. Everything is coded in one way or another to achieve the exact look, layout and functions. There are different types of code and coding languages that are used to develop websites as well as all computer programs and software.
Cookie
A message from a Web Server computer, sent to and stored by your browser on your computer. When your computer consults the originating server computer, the cookie is sent back to the server, allowing it to respond to you according to the cookie's contents. The main use for cookies is to provide customized Web pages according to a profile of your interests. When you log onto a "customize" type of invitation on a Web page and fill in your name and other information, this may result in a cookie on your computer which that Web page will access to appear to "know" you and provide what you want. If you fill out these forms, you may also receive e-mail and other solicitation independent of cookies.
Connection
You cannot make a phone call without a telephone service provider to give you the use of their cables or towers, you cannot connect to the internet without an internet service provider to give you a connection to the internet. There are different types of connections: dial-up, ISDN, ADSL and wireless. Depending on the type of connection you choose, who you get your connection through and many other factors, you could end up with a slow or fast connection and a reliable or unreliable connection.
Crawler or Webcrawler
Computer robot programs that are used by search engines to roam the World Wide Web via the Internet, visit sites and databases, and keep the search engine database of web pages up to date. They obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete obsolete ones. Their findings are then integrated into the "home" database. Most large search engines operate several robots all the time. The Web is so enormous that it can take six months for spiders to cover it, resulting in a certain degree of outdated information in all the search engines.
Custom Search Engine (CSE)
A Google Service in which individuals can create a Google account (free) and create a search engine directed to search within up to 5,000 URL’s or websites they select.
Database Driven
With a normal static website, the information that you see is on the page itself. It does not change unless someone manually edits the page. On a database driven website, the information is not stored on the page, but in a database. Every time someone visits a particular page, the information is drawn from the database in order to display it on the page. Information can therefore be easily cross-referenced and the same information applied in many different ways, using formulas and different variables.
Dial-up
a computer connection dialing in to a service provider over a modem
Directory or Search Engine Directory
Like the Yellow pages, a directory is a place where information about hundreds, thousands and millions of websites is stored to allow people to easily and quickly find information and/or resources. Yahoo is an example of a search engine directory and Google.
Domain, Top Level Domain (TLD)
Hierarchical scheme for indicating logical and sometimes geographical venue of a web-page from the network. In the US, common domains are .edu, .gov, .net, .com, .org. Outside the US, domains indicate country: ca (Canada), uk (United Kingdom), au (Australia), jp (Japan), fr (France), etc.
Domain
A domain is a person or organization’s unique space on the internet. In layman's terms, it is commonly used to mean the name of your website.
DNS
The Domain Name System which identifies each computer as a network node on the Internet using an internet protocol address system to translate from domain names to IP numbers and vice-versa.
DNS Server
The computer you use to access the DNS to allow you to contact other computers on the Internet.
Domain Name, Domain Name Server (DNS) Entry
Any of these terms refers to the initial part of a URL, down to the first /, where the domain and name of the host or server computer are listed, often in reversed order, name first, then domain. The domain name gives you who published a page, made it public by putting it on the Web. A domain name is translated in huge tables standardized across the Internet into a numeric IP Address unique to what the host computer sought. These tables are maintained on computers called Domain Name Servers. Whenever you ask the browser to find a URL, the browser must consult the table on the domain name server that particular computer is networked to consult.
Domain Registration
In the same way that you have to register a business name, so you need to register a domain name. Only once it is registered do you have the ability to assign it to a specific number so that it has an actual location on the internet. A domain name registration is normally only valid for one year, at the end of which it has to be renewed for you to continue using it.
Download
To copy something from a primary source to a more peripheral one, as in saving something found on the Web currently located on its server to diskette or to a file on your local hard drive.
Email
The internet equivalent to post and mail, email is an encoded message that is sent instantly to someone else's computer
Email Client
The software program that you use in order to send and receive email from your computer.
Ethernet
A method for directly connecting a computer to a network in the same physical location
Extension or File Extension
In Windows, DOS and some other operating systems, one or several letters at the end of a filename. Filename extensions usually follow a period (dot) and indicate the type of file. For example, this.txt denotes a plain text file, that.htm or that.html denotes an HTML file. Some common image extensions are picture.jpg or picture.jpeg or picture.bmp or picture.gif
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions document which answers FAQs about various subjects.
Favorites
In the Internet Explorer browser, a means to get back to a URL you like, similar to Bookmarks.
Feed Reader
A software package that enables you to easily read the XML code in which RSS Feeds are written. Bloglines is currently the most popular feed reader but there are many competitors.
Field Searching
Ability to limit a search by requiring word or phrase to appear in a specific field of documents (e.g., title, url, link).
Find
Tool in most browsers to search for word(s) keyed in document in screen only. Useful to locate a term in a long document. Can be invoked by the keyboard command, CTRL-F (CMD-F on a Macintosh).
Freeware
Software that is made available at no cost whatsoever. Often includes advertising for the provider and is sometimes used to entice a user to purchase the unbranded version with no advertising. Freeware from an unknown or questionable source should be avoided as these programs can contain viruses or adware
Freshness
How up-to-date a search engine database is, based primarily on how often its spiders or crawlers reticulate around the Web and update their copies of the web pages they hold, and discover new ones. Also determined by how quickly they integrate new sites that web authors send to them. Two weeks is about as good as most search engines do, but some update certain selected web sites more frequently, even daily.
Frames
A format for web documents that divides the screen into segments, each with a scroll bar as if it were as "window" within the window. Usually, selecting a category of documents in one frame shows the contents of the category in another frame. To go BACK in a frame, position the cursor in the frame an press the right mouse button, and select "Back in frame" (or Forward). You can adjust frame dimensions by positioning the cursor over the border between frames and dragging the border up/down or right/left holding the mouse button down over the border.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol. A method of serving and obtaining files over the Internet. Allows large amounts of data to be transferred or uploaded/downloaded quickly.
FTP Client
The software program that you use to upload your website to a host server.
Fuzzy And
In ranking of results, documents with all terms (Boolean AND) are ranked first, followed by documents containing any terms (Boolean OR) are retrieved. The farther down, the fewer the terms, although at least one should always be present.
GIF
A type of file used for images, especially animated graphics and line-drawn images (as opposed to photographs). A .gif image can be saved with a transparent background, making it ideal for graphic overlays.
Groups
Discussion forums one can participate in, share ideas with, and form community. Most are free and some are open to new members. Yahoo Groups and Google Groups are both popular.
Head or Header (of HTML document)
The top portion of the HTML source code behind Web pages, beginning with <HEAD> and ending with </HEAD>. It contains the Title, Description, Keywords fields and others that web page authors may use to describe the page. The title appears in the title bar of most browsers, but the other fields cannot be seen as part of the body of the page. To view the <HEAD> portion of web pages in your browser, click VIEW, Page Source. In Internet Explorer, click VIEW, Source. Some search engines will retrieve based on text in these fields.
History, Search History
Available by using the combined keystrokes CTRL + H. You can set how many days your browser retains history in Edit | Preferences, or in Tools | Options.
Host
Computer that provides web-documents to clients or users. In order for you to have an email address or a website, a computer somewhere, with all the necessary software, has to provide you with 3 things: an IP (domain) address, physical space to store the information and bandwidth that accommodates the flow of information that is taking place on your behalf. The company that provides you with these facilities is your host and you will pay them a fee for hosting your site and or email address.
HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol. This is a method used to transfer information on the internet and normally precedes the "description" of the actual resource being accessed and transferred. For example, web sites and web pages are one type of resource, identified by their domain name
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language. A standardized language of computer code, imbedded in source documents behind all Web documents, containing the textual content, images, links to other documents and possibly other applications such as sound or motion, and formatting instructions for display on the screen. When you view a Web page, you are looking at the product of this code working behind the scenes in conjunction with your browser. Browsers are programmed to interpret HTML for display. HTML often imbeds within it other programming languages and applications such as SGML, XML, JavaScript, CGI-script and more. It is possible to deliver or access and execute virtually any program via the WWW. You can see HTML by right clicking and selecting Source in the drop-down menu.
Hypermedia
Documents which combine hypertext links and multimedia elements.
Hypertext
On the World Wide Web, the feature, built into HTML that allows a text area, image, or other object to become a link that retrieves another computer file such as: another Web page, image, sound file, or other document on the Internet. It needs to have software that can interact with the imported file. Many software capabilities of this type are built into browsers or can be added as plug ins.
IE
Internet Explorer. The most commonly used internet browser in use,
Internet
The vast collection of interconnected networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60’s and early 70’s. An "internet" (lower case i) is any computers connected to each other (a network), and are not part of the Internet unless the use TCP/IP protocols. An "intranet" is a private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. An intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be a network.
Internet Access Provider (IAP)
A company, organization, or commercial enterprise which provides access to the Internet.
IP Address or IP Number
(Internet Protocol number or address). A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, Every machine that is on the internet has a unique IP address. If a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember.
IRC
Internet Relay Chat A method for serving and retrieving connections for real-time conferencing over computer networks.
ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network A digital telephone network that allows personal home computers to connect to remote networks.
ISP or Internet Service Provider
A company that sells Internet connections via modem for example: AOL or MindSpring There are many ISPs to choose from. Faster, more expensive Internet connectivity is available via cable or DSL.
Java
A network-oriented programming language invented by Sun Microsystems that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to our computer or files. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks. We can expect to see a huge variety of features added to the Web using Java, since you can write a Java program to do almost anything a regular computer program can do, and then include that Java program in a Web page.
JavaScript
A simple programming language developed by Netscape to enable greater interactivity in Web pages. It shares some characteristics with JAVA but is independent. It interacts with HTML, enabling dynamic content and motion.
JPG
A type of file used for images, especially photographs. Images used on web pages work best as jpg or gif.
Keywords
An internet marketing term that refers to the main topics or subjects of your web pages in relation to how people would phrase them when searching for your products or services on the internet. A word searched for in a search command. Keywords are searched in any order. Use spaces to separate keywords in simple keyword searching.
LAN
Local Area Network. A method of connecting a small network of computers to each other.
Limiting to a Field
Requiring that a keyword or phrase appear in a specific field of documents retrieved. Most often used to limit to the "Title" field in order to find documents primarily about one or more keywords.
Link
The URL imbedded in another document, so that if you click on the highlighted text or button referring to the link, you retrieve the outside URL. If you search the field "link:", you retrieve on text in these imbedded URLs which you do not see in the documents.
Mailserver
A mail server is a computer that distributes email. “your local post office”
META-Search Engine
Search engines that automatically submit your keyword search to several other search tools, and retrieve results from all their databases. Convenient time-savers for relatively simple keyword searches (one or two keywords or phrases in " ").
META TAG
Included in the head section of an html web page and is visible to search engines but not human visitors. Meta tags provide information about a webpage, like the topic (title), keywords, description and also instructions to search engine robots and visitor browsers.
Modem
A device that modulates and demodulates telephone toned to allow for the multiplexing of information on the telephone network.
Multimedia
Documents which contain text, sound, graphics and video elements that are all capable of being displayed to the user.
Nesting
A term used in Boolean searching to indicate the sequence in which operations are to be performed. Enclosing words in parentheses identifies a group or "nest." Groups can be within other groups. The operations will be performed from the innermost nest to the outmost, and then from left to right.
Newsgroup
A discussion group operated through the Internet.
NNTPD
The network news transfer protocol daemon which serves USENET newsgroups across the Internet.
NNTP Server
The computer which you connect to to receive USENET newsgroups and post USENET news articles.
Operating System
The type of software that you use to run a computer is the operating system.
Optimize
Website/page optimization. This relates to how the page is structured (both code and content) with regard to search engines. A well optimized website is search engine friendly. It also relates to graphics and pictures that are used on websites. An optimized graphic is one that has been compressed as far as possible without sacrificing acceptable quality. This allows the image to load more quickly when someone visits a website.
Personal Page
A web page created by an individual. Often personal pages contain valid and useful opinions, links to important resources, and significant facts. One of the greatest benefits of the Web is the freedom it as given almost anyone to put his or her ideas "out there."
Parked Domain
A domain name that sits on the same server space as another. If someone types in the address of either the main domain or the parked domain, they will arrive at the same website.
PDF or pdf file
Abbreviation for Portable Document Format, a file format developed by Adobe Systems, that is used to capture almost any kind of document with the formatting in the original. Viewing a PDF file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is built into most browsers and can be downloaded free from Adobe.
PHP
A programming language that is Linux based rather than Windows based. Normally used for increased functionality on a website or to work with a database. It works in conjunction with html and html variants and allows for functions to be run from the server rather than the visitor's browser.
Phrase
More than one Keyword searched exactly as typed in (all words required, in the order specified). Enclosing keywords in "double quotation marks" forms a phrase in most search engines. Sometimes a phrase is called a "character string."
Plug-In
An application built into a browser or added to a browser to enable it to interact with a special file type (such as a movie, sound file, Word document, etc.)
Popularity Ranking of search results
Some search engines rank the order in which search results appear primarily by how many other sites link to each page (a kind of popularity vote based on the assumption that other pages would create a link to the "best" pages). Google is the best example of this.
PPC
Pay Per Click. A common term in internet advertising where you purchase advertising space on someone's website, but instead of paying a flat monthly rate, you pay a small amount each time someone clicks on your advert - which is a link that takes them to your website.
Propagation
When an IP is changed because you have started up a new website or moved your website from one hosting company to another, every name server across the entire internet globally has to update its records to know where to find you. This process is called propagation and can take up to 48 hours. Sometimes even longer. This is because name servers do not all update at the same time.
Reciprocal Links
When website A links to website B and B links back to A and both link to the other on condition that they receive a link back, this is reciprocal linking. The principle is that if site A ever removes the link to site B, site B will remove its link to site A and vice versa.
Relevancy Ranking of search results
The most common method for determining the order in which search results are displayed. Each search tool uses its own unique algorithm. Most use fuzzy and combined with factors such as how often your terms occur in documents, whether they occur together as a phrase, and whether they are in title or how near the top of the text. Popularity is another ranking system.
RFC
Request for Comments
Root
Often when you want to install a piece of software to work on (or run) your site, you will need "root access". This means that you have access to your hosting space at the highest level. To explain further: the information on the server is stored in different folders, arranged in a hierarchical order. The main folder in which all the other folders and sub-folders for your account are kept, is the root folder. If you go into your account on the server and can only see the main content folders, then you do not have root access.
RSS or RSS feeds
Short for Really Simple Syndication a.k.a. Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary, refers to a group of XML based web-content distribution and republication Web syndication formats primarily used by news sites and weblogs (blogs). Any website can issue an RSS feed. By subscribing to an RSS feed, you are alerted to new additions to the feed since you last read it. In order to read RSS feeds, you must use a Feed Reader, which formats the XML code into an easily readable format.
Script
A script is a type of programming language that can be used to fetch and display Web pages. There are many kinds and uses of scripts on the Web. They can be used to create all or part of a page, and communicate with searchable databases. Forms boxes and many interactive links, which respond differently depending on what you enter, all require some kind of script language. When you find a question mark? in the URL of a page, some kind of script command was used in generating and/or delivering that page. Most search engine spiders are instructed not to crawl pages from scripts, although it is usually technically possible for them to do so.
Search
You can search any individual web page using the CTRL-F command (CMD-F on a Macintosh). Many websites also offer search boxes that let you search all the pages in the site, or records in its database. Searching is usually the most efficient way to find information, but sometimes you can find things by browsing that you might miss otherwise because you might not think of the "right" term to search by.
Search Engine
A program that collects, stores, arranges and normally ranks the various resources available on the internet. It is most commonly on a website and used to find other websites
Search Engine Friendly
This relates to how well a site has been put together. A search engine friendly website is one that search engines can easily read and find all the links on AND which search engines "like" because it is properly optimized and not breaking any of their rules.
Search Engine Listing
When someone searches for something using a search engine, all the sites that are listed in response to that search have a "search engine listing".
Search Engine Ranking
Different to a search engine listing because a listing means the site appears anywhere on the list. Ranking relates to exactly where on the list it appears. Closer to the top means it has a higher ranking. A critical consideration in having your website found on the internet.
Search Result
When someone searches for something using a search engine, the list of websites and links that the search engine responds with is the search result. The aim of any website is to appear high in the search result.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization The practice of tweaking website coding and content to achieve the highest possible search engine ranking. SEO practitioners are people who specialize in this.
Server or Web Server
A computer running that software, assigned an IP Address, and connected to the Internet so that it can provide documents via the World Wide Web. Also called HOST computer. Web servers are the closest equivalent to what in the print world is called the "publisher" of a print document. An important difference is that most print publishers carefully edit the content and quality of their publications in an effort to market them and future publications. This convention is not required in the Web world, where anyone can be a publisher; careful evaluation of Web pages is therefore mandatory.
Server-Side
Something that operates on the server computer providing the Web page, as opposed to the client computer which is you or someone else viewing the Web page. Usually it is a program or command or procedure or other application causes dynamic pages or animation or other interaction.
Shareware
Shareware is a piece of software that you can use free of charge for a set period. After that you have to buy it or pay a license fee in order for the software to keep working.
SHTML
usually seen as .shtml A file name extension that identifies web pages containing SSI commands.
Site or Web Site
A web page is a single entity, one URL one file that you might find on the Web. A site properly speaking, is an location or gathering or center for a bunch of related pages linked to from that site.
Sitemap
This is an index to all the content on a website. It is normally accessible from at least the front page of the site and is used for two purposes: to help people find what they are looking for on the site and to help search engines find all your links.
SPAM
Junk mail normally sent out in bulk and normally with no regard as to whether you want to receive it or not.
Spiders
Computer robot programs, that are used by search engines to roam the World Wide Web via the Internet, visit sites and databases, and keep the search engine database of web pages up to date. They obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete obsolete ones. Their findings are then integrated into the database. Most large search engines operate several robots all the time.
SSI commands
SSI stands for "server-side include," a type of HTML instruction telling a computer that serves Web pages to dynamically generate data, usually by inserting certain variable contents into a fixed template or boilerplate Web page. Used especially in database searches.
Stable Release
While BETA software is software that is in the final testing phases, a stable release is when the software has passed the beta testing phase and is considered safe for general use.
Subdomain
A domain that is behind another, but totally separate. Using sub-domains you can effectively have multiple "domains" on a single registered domain name and hosting account.
Subject-Based Popularity Ranking of Search Results
A variation on popularity ranking in which the links in pages on the same subject are used to in ranking search results. Used by Ask.com.
Subject Directory
An approach to Web documents by a lexicon of subject terms hierarchically grouped. May be browsed or searched by keywords. Subject directories are smaller than other searchable databases, because of the human involvement required to classify documents by subject.
SUB-Searching
Ability to search only within the results of a previous search. Enables you to refine search results, in effect making the computer "read" the search results for you selecting documents with terms you sub-search on. Can function much like Results Ranking.
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) -- This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software.
TELNET
Internet service allowing one computer to log onto another, connecting as if not remote.
THE NET
A shortened version of "The Internet". Refers to the entire network that exists worldwide
Timeout
If you try to connect to any server on the internet - to view a website or collect email - and it takes too long, you will have a timeout. It purely means it has taken too long, so the process was aborted.
Traffic
All the people and computers that are using a particular route at a given time or who access a specific resource.
Trojan Horse
A type of virus or malicious code that arrives posing as something harmless or even desirable and infects a computer by getting the user to activate it.
Truncation
In a search, the ability to enter the first part of a keyword, insert a symbol (usually *), and accept any variant spellings or word endings, from the occurrence of the symbol forward.
Upload
For a website to be visible to the world, it has to be put on the server that is hosting it. This process is called uploading because you are literally loading your information, pages, pictures, etc. up onto the server.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of any Web document. May be keyed in a browser's OPEN or LOCATION / GO TO box to retrieve a document.
Usenet
The name given to the computer network which carries newsgroups
Virus
A computer program that reproduces itself and that is frequently malicious.
VRML
Virtual Reality Modeling Language a tagging language for conveying three dimensional information over the Internet
Webmail
Email that you can check from any computer anywhere in the world using software on a server.
Webpage or Page
Just one page rather than a complete website. A page is not the same as, for example, the page in a book. The length is not limited by a fixed height and width, but by user-friendliness, good practice and practicality.
Website
The actual website itself. The website is the content that dictates what people see and do when they go to your website address.
Website Address
This is the location of your website and is normally typed as www.website.com
WINDOWS
The most common type of operating system.
Worm
A type of virus that looks for security loopholes in a system and uses that to replicate itself. It then scans the internet for other computers that have the same flaw and spreads to them, often creating a new identity for itself in the process so that it evolves. Where a virus uses a host file to spread, a worm is imbedded in an actual document, like a Word or Excel document.
WIKI
Used for technology that gathers in one place, a number of web pages focused on a theme, project, or collaboration. Wikis are generally used when users or group members are invited to develop, contribute, and update the content of the wiki. The most famous wiki is the Wikipedia.
Wireless Network
A method using infra-red, ultra-violet or radio waves to connect computers to a network
World Wide Web
The name given to the collection of computers which serve information in hypertext format to the INTERNET
WWW
World Wide Web. Another name for the internet.
XHTML
A variant of HTML Stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language is a hybrid between HTML and XML that is more universally acceptable in Web pages and search engines than XML.
XML
Extensible Markup Language, a dilution for Web page use of SGML Standard General Markup Language, which is not readily viewable in ordinary browsers and is difficult to apply to Web pages. XML is very useful among other things for pages emerging from databases and other applications where parts of the page are standardized and must reappear many times.
