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Web Design and Development Glossary

Like any business, Web development has its own lingo that may baffle newcomers. We've put together this glossary of some of the terms you may encounter during the development process.

Address Bar

Same as Location Bar. The box near the top of your browser window that displays the URL of the page you are viewing.

If you know the URL of a site your want to visit, you may type the URL directly into the address bar box, then hit "Enter" or "Return" to go directly to the site. You may also type search terms into the box and hit Enter or Return; the browser will automatically perform a search using its configured search engine.

Bandwidth

The amount of data that can be transferred through a digital connection in a given time period, usually measured in bits or bytes per second.

Blog

Short for Web Log. An online journal. The Blog owner periodically writes short articles which appear in reverse chronological order on the Blog. Subject matter can be any area of interest: personal, technical, daily events, politics, travel...just about anything.

A number of server-side web applications are available to make it easy to create and maintain a blog. Popular applications include Word Press, Text Pattern, and Movable Type.

You will also need to have a space on a Web server to publish your blog.

Browser

A software application used to find and display Web pages. What you are using to look at this page. Internet Exploror, Netscape, Opera, Safari and Firefox are all popular browsers; however there are many more. See also Cross Browser compatibilty.

Cross Browser Compatibilty

Coding a Web page so that it will display correctly in a variety of browsers. Since each browser works a bit differently, care must be taken to make sure the page displays in all the most popular browsers to reach the widest possible audience.

Domain Name

A unique name used to identify a unique computer on the Internet. Part of a Web site address, e.g. www.domainname.com.
See article Get a Domain Name.

Download

To move a copy of a file from a server (a remote computer) to your computer (a local computer) See also Upload.

Email Client

A computer program used to read and send email. Popular email clients include Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple Mail.

Email filtering

To organize and sort email according to specified criteria. Can be useful in filtering out unsolicited email or spam. Many email clients have a built in email filter which you can use to sort your own incoming email by keyword. There are also some applications that allow you to set up filters to send spam directly to trash.

Email Forwarding

To send email addressed to one email account to another email account. Can be used to send all one's email to one main account for convenience.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol. A standard method to move computer files over networks, including the Internet. This is the method your Web developer typically uses to move files to and from your web site's host server.

FTP client

An application which is used to move files from one computer to another over a network using FTP. There are many free or lowcost FTP clients available Windows, Macintosh, and Unix/Linux platforms.

GIF

The most commonly used format to compress images that are not photographs for Web presentation. Images are compressed (made smaller) by restricting the number of colors used. This makes them smaller and quicker to download. An image in GIF format will have the .gif extension, ex.: mypic.gif
See also: JPEG

Host, Hosting

Short for Web Host.

HTML

HyperText Mark-up Language. The codified language used by Web developers to specify how a Web page will appear in the browser window.

HTTP

HyperText Transfer Protocol. A request/response protocol to facilitate communication betwen a client (your computer) and a server (a Web server). Using your browser, your computer sends a request to the server for a specific page. The server receives the request and responds by sending the page to your browser window.

HTTPS

The secure version of HTTP. For secure transactions such as submitting a card number for a purchase, the information between the browser and the receiving Web server is encryted to protect the data from being intercepted by eavesdroppers.

In web pages that use HTTPS, the URL begins with'https:// (with an "s") rather tha 'http:/'. Many browsers show a lock symbol at the bottom right. When you connect to a secure Web page, the lock should appear to be closed.

Hyperlink

An area, usually a segment of text or an image, that you click on to go to another web page or another file. Hyperlinks can also point to a specific location in the same web page. This is a hyperlink.

Image Optimization

The process of compressing abd converting images for presentation on the Web. Most images will be converted into GIF or JPEG format to make them smaller and download faster.

JPG or JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts Group. The most commonly used file format to compress photographs for Web presentation. Images are compressed (made smaller) by using mathematical algorithm. With this method, photos are smaller and quicker to download but overcompression may cause degradation of image quality. An image in JPEG format will have the .jpg extension, ex.: mypic.jpg

Many digital cameras store your photos in JPEG format. JPEG files do not take up as much room on a memory card. They are also processed faster by the camera than the other file formats.

Keywords

The words users put into search engines to find the web sites relevent to the topic they are seeking. E.g. A person searching for a web developer in a certain region might type in "web designer southern oregon". Enter more specific words to get more specific results.

For Website owners, careful analysis of keywords is important to make sure your customers will find you when they are looking. Knowing who your customers are and what information they are seeking will help bring traffic to your site.
See article: Use Keywords to Improve Search Engine Ranking

Link

Short for Hyperlink.

Link Exchange

A technique to increase a site's link popularity and search engine rankings by exchanging links with a site that has content similar to yours. May be of mutual benefit to search engine rankings of both sites. The key is to link to sites that are complimentary to yours. Avoid exchanging links with link farms as these may actually hurt your ranking.

Link Farm

Sites with lists of links created exclusively to increase a site's link popularity in a vain attempt to improve search engine rankings. Often have pages of link with no relation to the content on your site. Avoid them.

Location Bar

Same as Address Bar. The box near the top of your browser window that displays the URL of the page you are viewing.

If you know the URL of a site your want to visit, you may type the URL directly into the location bar box, then hit "Enter" or "Return" to go directly to the site. You may also type search terms into the box and hit "Enter" or "Return"; the browser will automatically perform a search using its configured search engine.

Merchant Account or Merchant Services Account

An account with a bank that enables you to take and clear credit card payments. You'll need one, in most cases, if you want to accept credit cards online.

Monthly file transfer

Your hosting plan usually limits how much data, usually measured in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB), you can transfer to and from your host server in a given month. An average brochure site does not need much — maybe 200 MB a month or less. Sites with a lot of visitors (traffic), or large size files, like video, music or lots of graphics, will need more.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Context sensitive text ads placed near search results; when a site visitor clicks on the advertisement, the advertiser is charged a small amount. The most popular pay-per-click search engines are Google AdWords and Yahoo!

Phishing

Trying to get account information and passwords from you by sending scam email to you pretending to be a legitimate company — a store, a bank, PayPal, etc. These fraudulent emails often contain alarming messages to scare you into action.
See article: Email Scams and Internet Fraud

Search Engine

A program used to help find files on the World Wide Web. The searcher types in terms related to the topic for which they are searching (keywords). The search engine quieries its database and returns a list of links to Web sites it feels are relevent to the keywords. Google, Yahoo, and MSN are popular search engines.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO

The process of refining the content of your site to achieve a higher position in a list of search engine results for your site's targeted keywords. See article: Improve your Search Engine Ranking

Upload

to move a copy of a file from our computer (a local computer) to a (Web) server or other computer (a remote computer). See also Download.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator: the web address of a file. URLs are commonly written as http://WebSiteName.com/directory/file.html. The http:// means the browser will use HTTP to communicate with another computer. The WebSiteName.com is the Domain Name.

Web Host

A company that rents space on a Web server. Many different hosting packages are available from which to choose depending on your needs. See also: What is a Web Host?

Web Server

A computer that houses and delivers ("serves") Web pages on the Internet. Your Web site files (pages) are uploaded to a Web server so that they will be available to view over the Internet. Once the pages are placed a web server, a person only needs to know the URL, or location of your web page, and type it into their browser. The browser contacts the web server which finds the web page and serves it to the requesting browser. Generally, people with Web sites rent space on a Web server from a Web host.

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