Webmaster Dictionary
Helpful definitions of webmaster terms.
.NET hostingn. Web Hosting. A web hosting package that supports .NET, a Microsoft application.
above the fold
phrase. Web Design. The area of a Web page that is visible without having to scroll down.
absolute path name
n. Operations. The location of a file which is given in relation to the root directory It includes the root directory and the descending series of subdirectories leading to the end file.
ad blocker
n. Marketing. Software that blocks banner ads.
ad space
n. Marketing. The space on a Web page that is set aside for advertisements.
advertising network
n. Marketing. A web site that allows webmasters to sign up with their network which allows them to receive money forselling advertising.
affiliate
n. Marketing. Someone, in this case a webmaster, that signs up to sell a product for a company.
affiliate directory
n. Marketing. A web site that has a categorized listing of affiliate programs.
affiliate forum
n. Marketing. A web site that has a forum dedicated to affiliate marketing.
affiliate fraud
n. Marketing. Fake activity generated by an affiliate in an attempt to generate profits.
affiliate marketing
n. Marketing. The act of getting outsode people to advertise your products or services and share a cut of the revenuewhen they make a sale.
affiliate merchant
n. Marketing. In an affiliate marketing relationship, the company that has a product or service to offer.
affiliate network
n. Marketing. A website that acts as a broker between affiliate and affiliate merchants where affiliates can market for many different affiliate programs and agregate their profits.
affiliate software
n. Marketing. Software that provides affiliates with reports and statistics that show their performance with regard to impressions, click, profits, availble banners, etc.
Ajax
n. Coding. Abreviation for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML A new process that brings different kinds of codes together (such as HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and some other codes) which, when combined, operate more efficiently.
ALT text
n. Coding. An HTML attribute that allows text to be shown when an image on a web page can't be shown and also allowsa mouseover description of an image that is shown on a web page.
anonymous FTP
n. Web Hosting. When using FTP, this option allows a user to download files without having to establish and account.
Apache
n. Web Hosting. A very popular open source web server software.
applet
n. Coding. A small program that can be embedded in an HTML document to give it added functionality.
application
n. Web Hosting. An application is a program that web users can use, like a database.
archive
n. Operations. A area where old files, or in the case of a forum - old postings, can be stored and accessed while being stored out of the way of more commenly accessed files.
ASCII
abbrev. Operations. Abreviation 'Common Gateway Interface', a standard way for data to be passed between a web application toa web page.
Asp Hosting
n. Web Hosting. Web hosting that supports Active Server Pages (ASP).
ASP.Net
n. Coding. A version of Microsoft's ASP language for the internet.
attributes
n. Coding. Parameters that are added to HTML tags to provide further formatting for whatever is inside the tags.
autoresponder
n. Marketing. A e-mail program that sends an automatic response to incoming emails.
B2B
n. Business. A business that sells products/services to another business.
bandwidth
n. Web Hosting. A measure of how much data can be transmitted over a specific time period over the internet.
banner ad
n. Marketing. A banner used to advertise a product.
banner exchange
n. Marketing. A network bring together dfferent webmasters who agree to show banners on each others' pages.
blog
n. Web. An online diary where users create personal posts.
blogger
n. Web. Someone who regularly uses a blog.
bread crumbs
n. Web Design. A design technique near the top of a web page that shows the links back to each previous page that the user navigates through in order to get to the current page. It may look something like this:
home page --> section1 --> sub section page1.
business hosting
n. Web Hosting. A hosting package that usually offers more features and higher reliability, and therefore higher cost, than lower-priced hosting packages.
caching
n. Web Hosting. The storing of Web files that can be retrieved later, saving transmission time and bandwidth.
CGI
abrev. Coding. Abreviation 'Common Gateway Interface', a standard way for data to be passed between a web application toa web page.
cgi bin
n. Web Hosting. A directory on a web server where CGI programs are stored.
click fraud
n. Marketing. Click fraud is an illegal practice that occurs when individuals click on paid banner ads or text linksto increase their commission.
click-through
n. Marketing. The process of clicking on a banner ad or text link ad to get to a web site.
click-through-rate
n. Marketing. The percent of times users click a banner ad You calculate it by dividing the number of click-throughsinto the number of impressions.
client-side
n. Web Hosting. A description of technologies that run by the user's web browser instead of on the web server.
Cold Fusion
n. Coding. A web language from Macromedia that creates HTML pages from a database with templates.
Cold Fusion Hosting
n. Web Hosting. Web hosting that supports the ColdFusion language.
Control Panel
n. Web Hosting. A web-based administration interface offered by some hosting companies.
conversion rate
n. Marketing. The percentage of web page visitors who do a certain action (ie create an account, buy a product, etc).
cookie
n. Web Hosting. A file stored on a users computer that was created by a website and in order to store information about the user so that the user won't have to re-type the information each time he comes back to the page.
cost-per-click
n. Marketing. The average amount of money an advertiser spends for each click through to his website.
CPC
abrev. Marketing. Acronym for 'cost per click' - the average amount of money an advertiser spends for each click throughto his website.
CPM
abrev. Marketing. Acronym for 'cost per thousand impressions' This is the cost of showing a banner or text link ad 1,000times.
CSS
abrev.. Coding. Acronym for 'Cascading Style Sheets' A feature of HTML that webmasters use to format how web pages look while at the same time allowing them to format many pages at the same time using global formatting.
CTR
abrev.. Marketing. Acronym for 'Click-through rate' - the percent of times users click a banner ad You calculate it by dividing the number of click-throughs into the number of impressions.
customer aquisition cost
n. Marketing. The cost of acquiring a new customer.
data transfer
n. Web Hosting. The amount of traffic that a website gets, measured in gigabytes (GB).
database
n. Web Hosting. A location where information can be stored and organized and, therefore, making it easier to search through.
dedicated hosting
n. Web Hosting. A web hosting package where you get an entire server just for your web site and the hosting company is responsible the equipment and maintanence.
dedicated IP
n. Web Hosting. An IP address asigned to a single website.
deep linking
v. Coding. To have a link to a web page other than a site's home page.
DHTML
n. Coding. Dynamic HTML' allows you to create a page where you can make the page change without having to reload thepage.
directory
n. Web Hosting. An organized, categorized listing of Web sites.
disk cache
n. Web Hosting. A part of a computer's hard drive set aside for retrieving information.
disk space
n. Web Hosting. The amount of space on the hard drive of your server that is available for your website to store files.
DNS
n. Web Hosting. Acronym for 'Domain Name System' or 'Domain Name System', the system used on the internet to translate between IP addresses and domain names.
domain name
n. Web Hosting. A name of a website that uniquely identifies the website from others.
domain name server
n. Web Hosting. The system used on the internet to translate between IP addresses and domain names.
domain name system
n. Web Hosting. The system used on the internet to translate between IP addresses and domain names.
domain parking
n. Web Hosting. Domain parking services offers you the ability to 'park' your domain name on its servers for no charge.
doorway page
n. Web Hosting. Web pages that are created solely to rank high in search engine results for a particular keyword withthe purpose of redirecting you to a different page.
drop down
n. Web Design. A navigation menu where the different options to click on for different pages are invisible until theuser mouses over the menu.
e-commerce
abbrev. Business. Abbreviation for 'electronic commerce', doing business over the internet.
emoticon
n. Web Design. A symbol typed by users to indicate the emotional state of the user.
false positive
n. Marketing. False positives are emails flagged as spam when they are not spam.
FAQ
abbrev. Content. Acronym for 'Frequently Asked Questions', a page in a Web site that answers common questions about the site.
favicon
n. Web Design. A small icon created by a website that identifies a bookmarked Web site on a users list of bookmarks.
favorite
n. Operations. A website that has been saved on a users computer so they can return directly to that Website Also called 'bookmark.
Firefox
n. Web. A free, open source Web browser.
firewall
n. Web Hosting. A security system that prohibts unauthorized access to a computer network.
flame
v. Operations. An insult from one user to another an online message board.
flame war
n. Operations. An discussion on an online message board that turns into a bunch of personal attacks on each other.
flash
n. Coding. A multimedia technology developed by Macromedia that allows for animation or moving graphics on a website.
forum
n. Forums. An online community where users with similar interests can have conversations about a particual topic.
frame
n. Web Design. A frame is a page within a page.
freeware
n. Operations. A particular piece of software which is made free to anyone to download and use.
Frontpage Extensions
n. Coding. Scripts you can use with FrontPage to add dynamic functions to a Web site.
FrontPage Hosting
n. Web Hosting. Web hosting that supports FrontPage, a software program from Microsoft that helps you build websites.
FTP
n. Web Hosting. Acronym for 'File Transfer Protocol', a method of transferring files to and from your web server.
gif
n. Graphics. A file format for web graphics.
gigabyte
n. Web Hosting. An amount of storage equal to 1,024 megabytes.
google whack
n. Marketing. A search term containing a combination of two or more words that will result in only one single searchresult in Google.
hexcode
n. Web Design. A combination of letters and numbers used to describe and display colors.
hit
n. Operations. A request for a file from a Web server.
hit counter
n. Operations. A program on a web page that registers each visit to a Web page and displays the total number of pageviews.
homepage
n. Design. The main page of a Web site.
hotlink
n. Web Hosting. A type of bandwidth theft where one website uses the bandwidth of another site to display their images.
htaccess
n. Web Hosting. A file a webmaster can create for their web server to configure the site to behave in certain ways indifferent circumstances.
HTML
n. Coding. Acronym for 'HyperText Markup Language', the programming language used to make web pages.
HTML tag
n. Coding. The HTML code that creates an HTML command.
HTTP
n. Web Hosting. Acronym for 'HyperText Transfer Protocol', the protocol used by internet servers to communicate withweb users.
hypertext
n. Coding. HTML that contains a hyperlink.
ICANN
n. Web Hosting. Abbreviation for 'Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers', the organization that has theresponsibility for allocating IP addresses and other internet functions.
impression
n. Marketing. A single instance of an banner ad being displayed Advertisers use impressions to measure the number ofviews their banner ads receive, and they often sell ad space according to the number of impressions.
inbound link
n. Coding. A link to your website from a different website.
index
v. Web Hosting. Indexing' occurs when a searh engine reviews your web page and stores it in its database so it can come up in searches.
IP address
n. Web Design. An 'Internet Protocol Address' is a number used to uniquely identify a computer on the Internet.
Java
n. Coding. A programming language developed by Sun Microsystems that enables a coder to create 'applets' that producesound, video and other effects within a browser.
JavaScript
n. Coding. A programming language developed by Netscape that is used to create interactive Web sites.
JPEG
n. Graphics. Acronym for 'Joint Photographic Experts Group', a file format for compressed web graphics.
keyword
n. Marketing. A word used in a performing a search on a search engine.
keyword density
n. Marketing. The relative occurance of keywords in the copy of your web page.
keyword marketing
n. Marketing. To market your website by optimizing your pages to come up in keyword searches.
keyword stuffing
n. Marketing. An SEO technique used by webmasters where they overload keywords into the title, meta, or alt tags on their webpage so that their rankings in search engines will go up.
layout
n. Design. The organization of content and images on a web page.
link farm
n. Marketing. A web page created solely to create a list of irrelevant links in order to increase link popularity andsearch engine rankings.
link popularity
n. Marketing. A measure of the quantity and quality of sites that link to your site.
link-checker
n. Operations. Software that automatically checks for broken links on your page.
linkrot
n. Operations. Linkrot occurs when your web page has many links hat go to web pages that no longer exist.
Linux
n. Web Hosting. A free open-source operating system developed by a Finland programmer named Linus Torvald.
load balancing
n. Web Hosting. When a web host divides the load of a single website over several web servers to increase reliability.
log analyzer
n. Operations. A program that takes your server's raw log files and translates it into an easily readable format.
log file
n. Operations. A file that records the activity of your site on your web server.
lurk
v. Forums. When one of your web page users reads your forum but never posts any messages.
media kit
n. Marketing. A set of information a webmaster gives to a prospective advertiser to let them know what the terms of advertising will be (rates, etc).
message board
n. Content. An area on a web site where users can post messages and have conversations.
meta tag
n. Coding. An HTML tag that goes in your HEAD section of your site to tell the search engines a description and keywords of your web page.
mirror site
n. Web Hosting. An exact copy of another Web site.
modules
n. Web Design. When the design and layout of a web site is broken into different pieces that can be turned off and onby the website administrator.
mouseover
n. Web Design. Code that enables an element of a web page to change when you put the mouse over it The most popularexamples of this are to have the text color change and to have an image swap with another image.
MySQL
n. Coding. A popular open source database that many webmasters use that relies on SQL for processing the data in thedatabase.
network effect
n. Marketing. When a product, service, or web page becomes more valuable as more people use it, which increases other users to use the service or poduct.
newbie
n. Forums. A new user to a web site.
news server
n. Operations. A computer that runs the software that gathers and distributes newsgroup postings.
newsgroup
n. Web. A public message board on USENET.
opt-in email
n. Coding. An email list where people explicitly request to be on the e-mail list.
opt-out
v. Marketing. A link in a marketing email that allows a person to get off an e-mail list.
orphan page
n. design. A page that has no link to it on your site.
outbound-link
n. Coding. A link to a site outside of your site.
page view
n. Operations. A measure of how many times a webpage is displayed.
paid inclusion
n. Marketing. A search engine marketing model where the search engine guarantees that your will your web site will bedisplayed when a certain keyword is searched for.
pay-per-click
n. Marketing. Advertising model where advertisers run banner or text ads to come up in searches for a certain keywordand the amount the advertisers pay is based on the click-throughs to their website.
n. Operations. A file format created by Adobe Acrobat that enables a document to be distributed on different systems while preserving the layout.
Perl
n. Coding. A popular web programming language designed for processing text which is often used for writing CGI scripts.
Photoshop
n. Graphics. A popular image editing software program made by Adobe.
PHP
n. Coding. An open source, server-side, web programming language used to create dynamic Web pages.
PHP Hosting
n. Web Hosting. A web hosting package that supports PHP.
pop-under
n. Marketing. An ad that pop up behind the current browser window.
portal page
n. Design. A Web page that shows the categories or a web site and links to those categories.
PPC
abbrev. Marketing. Abbreviation for 'pay-per-click'.
query
n. Coding. To perform a search in a database for certain data.
raw logs
n. Operations. A file that records the activity of your site on your web server.
reciprical links
n. Marketing. Links between two different sites, based on an agreement by the webmasters to exchange links.
reseller hosting
n. Web Hosting. Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting wherein the account owner may split up their alloted hard drive space and bandwidth and resell web hosting.
robot
n. Operations. A program that runs automatically to execute certain commands.
RSS
abbrev. Coding. Abbreviation for 'Rich site summary' or 'Real Simple Syndication', an XML-based format for syndicating content.
scrollbar
n. Web Design. The bar on the side of a web browser window that allows the user the scroll the web page.
search engine optimization
n. Marketing. Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is the process of increasing the traffic to your Web site by coding your web pages in such a way that they rank high in search rankings for specific keywords.
search engines
n. Marketing. Web sites that enable users to search the Internet using keywords.
SERP
abbrev. Marketing. Abbreviation for 'search engine results page', the page that shows the results of a search.
setup fee
n. Web Hosting. A one-time fee paid by a webmaster to their hosting company to set up hosting.
shared hosting
n. Web Hosting. A hosting package where your web site is one the server with other websites, as opposed to dedicatedhosting where your web site has a server of it's own.
Shared IP
n. Web Hosting. An IP address shared by more than one website.
Shockwave
n. Coding. A technology, developed by Macromedia, that allows your web pages to include multimedia objects.
shopping cart
n. Web Hosting. Software installed into a web site that allows e-commerce transactions.
sig spam
n. Marketing. To make many useless posts in a forum jut to be able to post a link to your site in the signature of the post.
signature file
n. Content. A text message or link posted at the end of an e-mail or forum posting.
site placement
abbrev. Marketing. The location of your web page within the search engine results page.
skyscraper ad
n. Marketing. A banner ad that is tall and skinny that stretches up the side of a web page.
SMPT
abbrev. Marketing. Abbreviation for 'Simple Mail Transfer Protocol', the protocol used to send and receive email.
spider
n. Marketing. A program that automatically browses the web to create a copy of all the visited pages to include the pages in their database for search engine users to search.
splash page
n. Web Design. An 'introduction' page of a Web site.
SQL
n. Coding. Structured Query Language (SQL), pronounced 'sequel', is the standard language for requesting informationfrom a database.
SSL
n. Web Hosting. Abreviation for 'Secured Socket Layer', is a protocol that enables encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.
sticky
adj. Content. 1. A forum post that posted by the administrator that always stays at the top of the forum.
2. Marketing. A site?s ability to keep visitors coming back to the site once they have been there.
subdomain
n. Web Hosting. A subdomain is a subdivision of a larger domain For example, 'mailgooglecom' is a subdomain of 'googlecom.
super affiliate
n. Marketing. An affiliate who does a ton of business.
table
n. Content. 1. Tables show data in rows and columns.
2. Design. Tables allows ffor the layout of the pages where different sections of the pages are allocated to different cells in a table.
templates
n. Web Design. A ready-made web design used by webmasters to quickly create a website.
title tag
n. Coding. The HTML tag that shows the name of the web site in the top line of a Web browser as well as shows the name of the site in search engine results.
TLD
abbrev. Web Hosting. Abbreviation for 'top-level domain' - the suffix attached to domain names.
TOS
abbrev. Operations. Abbreviation for 'Terms of Service', the rules that a webmaster creates for the users of their web site.
trackback
n. Content. TrackBack is a system used by many blogs that allows a blogger to see who has seen a certain post and hascommented on it on another.
transparent gif
n. Content. A GIF image that has an invisible background.
troll
n. Content. A forum user that creates controversial posts simply to start arguments.
two tier affiliate program
n. Marketing. An affiliate program where affiliates can recruit other affiliates and earn extra commission based on their recruits' commission.
unique visitor
n. Operations. A distinct visitor to a Web site, usually identified by their IP address.
Unix
n. Web Hosting. The most popular operating system used for Web servers.
Unix hosting
n. Web Hosting. A web hosting package that supports Unix, the most popular operating system used for Web servers.
uptime guarantee
n. Web Hosting. A guarantee from a hosting company's that your web page will be down more than a stated percentage oftime.
usability
n. Web Design. The ease with which your visitors are able to use your web site.
USENET
n. Web. Internet-based bulletin board that allows reading and posting to various newsgroups.
user
n. Operations. Any person operating a computer or web site.
viral marketing
n. Marketing. A marketing strategy where a webmaster tries to get their users to pass on a marketing message to otherpeople, creating exponential growth.
virtual host
n. Web Hosting. A method that web servers use to host more than one domain name on the same computer and IP address.
W3C
n. Operations. Abbreviation for 'World Wide Web Consortium', a consortium of companies whose purpose is to develop standards so that the web evolves in a single, collective direction.
web server
n. Web Hosting. A computer that stores web pages and delivers them over the internet to internet users.
web-ring
n. Marketing. A group of related websites that provide links to each other.
whois
n. Operations. A utility that shows who owns a website.
wiki
n. Content. A website that allows users to add and edit content collectively.
Windows hosting
n. Web Hosting. A web hosting package provided on a Windows platform.
WYSIWYG
n. Web Design. (Pronouced 'wiz-eee-wig') Abbreviation for 'what you see is what you get' An application that lets you edit a document in the format in which it will look.
XML
n. Coding. Abbreviation for 'Extensible Markup Language', a common information format for sharing both the format andthe data on the World Wide Web.