Web Terminology
These are some of the most frequently used (and not so common) terms that have created questions for folks new to the web, web pages design, and desktop publishing for the first time. We have also included some Computer Technical Terms that we have been asked to share. This list is by no means complete and is a starting point only, and is a “simple” explanation on most of these terms. Please feel free to make your submissions and suggestions.
Word or Abbreviation |
Description and/or Definition |
| Active X Data Objects - | Microsoft objects are designed to interact with many kinds of software over the internet and on desktops to be used to access data from a variety of sources (including spreadsheets and databases). |
| Agregator - | A web site that brings together products and/or services from other web sites to make it easier to make a comparison of products, services, and/or prices. |
| Background - | You aren't limited to having only white space visible on your computer screen. The area behind the text and tables can be in an image/photo, a color or a textured format. When an images or photos are used in an environment other than the web it is referred to as "wallpaper". |
| Banner - | The first type of Banner is an Advertisement that allows viewers to see constant on-screen display usually on commercial web sites, normally placed at the top of a web page. The second type of banner are a type of header/headlines that appears on a website that is more aesthetic in value. It can be round, square, or oval in shape. |
| Browsers - | A software program that uses HTML documents by requesting information from the World Wide Web on your computer. Some of the browsers are I.E. (Internet Explorer), N.N. (Netscape Navigator), Opera, and Firefox, these are just some of the browsers to name a few. |
| Buttons - | Is usually graphic in nature that you "click" or "push" on a web page (similar to a button on a phone). |
| Business-to-Business (B2B) - | A business that involves selling products or services to other businesses. |
| CGI Scripting (CGI) - | is a mechanism that stands for Common Gateway Interface. It is a type of form that allows you to enter a message in an HTML form where the answers may vary. This creates dynamic pages rather than static. A good example of this would be search engines. The data your enter would pull up a different response each time. |
| Checkbox - | This is primarily used on forms when there is a list of items given. A viewer can “check off” one or multiple items from this list. |
| Clickable Map (Image Map) - | A graphic on a web page that contains multiple hyperlinks. |
| Client Side - | The WWW uses the Client Server model for delivering information. As the viewer requests the document from a Web Site, the Web Server will send the data. The Web Server stops the connection when the request is complete. The client application processes and manages the data thus conserving the servers processing power. |
| Clipping - | Is a procedure to reduce an HTML web page to only text that answers a specific request so it can be small enough to be sent to a wireless device. |
| Cookie - | is data that is sent from the web server to a client computer (end-user) and is stored in a text file. This type of system is used to personalize the web site content and make the browser interactive with the user. |
| Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) - | These are style sheets that your web pages refer to for "style". e.g., style refers to the formatting structure such as font size, color, margins, etc. It makes websites more uniform in nature. Allows you to change the design of your web page with just one or multiple style sheets. Each sheet is made up of codes or commands that tells the browser how to display the web pages. CSS was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Cascading refers to the order the style sheets look to when applying the style. |
| CSS - | (See Cascading Style Sheets above) |
| Desktop Publishing - | Usually a MAC or PC that runs specialized and intensive software applications to produce written documents for print media such as newsletters, corporate packages, forms, brochures, resumes, etc. |
| Domain - | A logical group of networked computers. A good example is a college campus that shares a centralized directory/database and offers security for the entire group (domain). |
| Domain Name - | This is a unique text-version of a name that identifies an IP address. It is also called a Web Address. Currently this is a 32-bit address. |
| DNS - | Domain Name System. |
| Domain Name Extensions - | These are country or organizational extensions or suffixes that appear after the domain name. |
| E-Commerce - | A business that conducts business fully on the internet involving money transactions. |
| Elements - | A web page is composed of various elements. |
| Embedded - | Usually applies to graphics or photos that are linked or tied into a particular web page. |
| FTP - | File Transfer Protocol is used to transfer files (download and upload files) over the Internet in such a way that the files do not need to be convertered to an ASCII format before transmission. |
| Full Text Index - | Can search the entire contents of the web site for a specific word or phrase. In this case, the word or phrase does not need have been assigned a keyword. |
| Graphic Extensions - | Gif Jpeg Tiff |
| Head - | A division of a web page that is hidden. It usually contains the "meta-description" and the "title" of that particular web. |
| Headline - | A term that applies to text on a page (web or print) that is bigger and bolder in size that the remaining body text. |
| Home Page - | Default Web Page or Index Page. This is the page that is presented to a browser when the request to a web site does not indicate a specific page. |
| Host - | Host - The host of a website is the computer on which a web site hypertext files are physically stored. This computer is on 24/7 and in most cases has a "backup" computer in case of failure at another location. |
| Hotspots - | An area of a graphic or a section of text that activates a specific function when selected. |
| HDML - | Handheld Device Markup Language. A markup language for wireless devices. A more popular markup language is WML. |
| HTML - | HyperText Markup Language which is used for Web Pages. This really isn't a programming language, but a "Markup Language" used for hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It formats text by placing symbols around the text being "marked up" by using "tags". A couple examples of HTML tags are: ‹b› which makes a word "bold" or darker; and ‹i› which makes a word "italicized" or slanted for emphasis. |
| Image Map (Clickable Map) - | It is an “image/graphic" that allows users to “click” on an area of a graphic, photo, or word, etc. to access another web page. |
| Index Page (Home Page) - | This is the page that is presented to a browser when the request to a web site does not specify a specific page. This is commonly referred to as the default or the home page. |
| Interactive - | Many things make your web pages interactive. Forms are probably the most used. Any part of a page that requires input from a person either in the form of data or requests. |
| Interlaced - | A way of layering photos on the web so that viewers see a "lighter" version, rather than waiting for each individual photo to appear before moving on the the next photo. |
| Internal Links - | A link that keeps you within the website that you are on. These links are bound together by a specific tag. |
| Intranet - | An internal or private network, such as business. It uses the same protocols and equipment as the Internet. It may or may not allow its employees to access the Internet. |
| Keyword Index - | Is a method of locating items on a website based on an internal list of predetermined terms (keywords). This can either be a box where you type in your request or a "drop-down list". |
| IP (Internet Protocol) - | The main system of delivery for information over the Internet |
| IP Address - | IP Addresses keep all the machines on the internet straight by assigning each computer a unique “address” which is called an IP Address. These addresses are 32-bit and are in groups of 4 digit numbers or “octets. A typical IP Address looks something like this: 215.108.110.105 |
| Links - | Think of StarTrek™ and Scottie's transporter that takes you to numerous places. This can either be within your own web, on the same page or to another page. These links can appear as buttons, underlined text (or not) and sometimes you may have seen them marked as a "top of page". A link can also take you to another website. Links can be text, graphics, or photos. Some text links may be in a different color or underlined (not always) than the rest of the text on the website. If a graphic or photo "link" is used, it may or may not have a border of color around them (it's not required). |
| Meta - | A Meta tag is what is used to describe the contents of the web page |
| Mirrored Servers - | This is a server that carries the same data as the original server. This helps to provide faster download time on busy sites and also serves as a backup in case the original server goes down. |
| Multimedia - | The integrated use of Text, Graphics (Animations), Sound and Videos. |
| Name Server - | A name server translates the web name, such as www.ParaNis-Pages.com to an IP Address. |
| Navagation - | A way to plot your course from one place to another place on a web page. |
| Operating System - | An Operating System provides a software platform on top of which other programs, called application programs, can run. Some examples are DOS, OS/2, Windows, Linux and MAC. |
| PDF Files - | Portable Document Format, developed by Adobe. A way to transform our document files so they can be easily read. |
| Radio Buttons - | A way to select only one item in a group of items. E.G. If given 4 choices, (a), (b), (c) or (d), a radio button lets you choose one of those items. |
| Robots - | An Agent or Spider program that runs automatically without help from a person. |
| Scripts - | A function code that is executed when a page loads from the web. |
| Search Engine - | A World Wide Web site that offers an index to other sites available on the WWW. The most popular of these search engines are Lycos, Google, DogPile and Yahoo. Yahoo makes a more consistant check on the links offered to make sure they are current and funtioning so that you as the consumer will not end up with a "404 Error" a bad link or an URL that was spelled incorrectly. Sometimes the search engine offers these as a directory that runs similar to a table of contents. They also offer an area where you can type in the key phrase, place or item you are searching for. |
| Security - | Technique that ensures that data stored in a computer cannot be read or compromised by any individuals without authorization. |
| Servers - | Can be either a software program that interacts with client software in a client/server type environment or a computer that runs server software and responds to requests from client computers. |
| Signatures - | Digital code that is attached to an electronically transmitted message that uniquely identifies the sender. It is a guarantee that the individual sending the message really is who he or she claims to be. |
| SMTP - | (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) - used to send text-based information (by e-mail) |
| Spam - | Typically harmless but always annoying, spam is the electronic equivalent of electronic junk mail. Spam can be dangerous though and often it contains links to Web sites that may require you to accept a cookie. |
| Spider (Web Crawler) - | This is software that searchs the internet looking for keywords to record in its search engine database. It can also be called a web robot or a web crawler. |
| Style Sheet - | (See Cascading Style Sheets) It is a text file that refers to the formatting structure such as font size, color, margins, etc. |
| Tables - | A way to section information in rows and columns. These words and descriptions are in displayed in a table format. |
| Tags - | This is a code in an HTML document that is used for formatting, inserting graphics and photos, and for creating hyperlinks. |
| TCP | (Transmission Control Protocol) - used to break apart and rebuild information that travels over the Internet |
| TCP/IP - | Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol |
| Title - | This is the line of text that describes your web page and appears in the title bar on the browser. |
| UDP - | (User Datagram Protocol) used for information that requires no response, such as streaming audio and video. |
| URL - | Uniform Resource Locator. |
| Upload - | The process of transferring information from your computer to another computer over the internet. |
| Web Page - | This is a text file that contains hypertext that is transmitted from the web server to a browswer. The browswer interprets this information, then displays it as a web page to the end-user. |
| Web Site - | It is a group of web files and multi-media/graphic files that work in tandem to provide information on the internet. |
| WML - | (Wireless Markup Language) A markup language that is used to build web pages for transmission to devices using the Wireless Application Protocol. |
| WYSIWYG - | "What You See is What You Get"... an oldie but goodie that refers to what fonts you see on your computer screen. In older word processing software, often we would get a "courier type-face" on the screen and the output would be the "fancy type." |