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Website Terms and Defintions
This section was added because at NCS Web Design and Hosting, we understand that not everyone is a webmaster. This page offers some of the definitions and terminolgy used when planning a website.
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ASP
Microsoft's Active Server Pages(ASP)
Auction Template
Generally a one page web page that can easily be plugged into an online auction site such as eBay to better display the item for sale.
BLOG
A blog (short for "web log") is a type of web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal (or log) for an individual, much like a dairy for the web. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. Blog software usually has an archive of old blog postings. Many blogs can be searched for terms in the archive. Blogs have become a vibrant, fast-growing medium for communication in professional, poltical, news, trendy, and other specialized web communities. Many blogs provide RSS feeds, to which one can subscribe and receive alerts to new postings in selected blogs. Wordpress, Drupal, and Movable Type (TypePad).
BROWSERS
Browsers are software programs that enable you to view WWW documents. They "translate" HTML-encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see. Microsoft Internet Explorer (called simply IE), Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, and Opera are examples of "graphical" browsers that enable you to view text and images and many other WWW features.
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, JAVASCRIPT, or another programming language, and then to integrate the response into a display using HTML.
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.
CRAWLER or WEBCRAWLER
Same as Spider.
Domain
The address of your website as in ncswebhost.com
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.
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.
Forum
Webpages designed for group discussion and interaction. Some popular forums include PHPBB, Snitz, and VBullitin.
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. Ability to transfer rapidly entire files from one computer to another, intact for viewing or other purposes.
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. Google Groups includes the former Usenet Newsgroups. Blogs are replacing some of the need for this type of community sharing and information exchange.
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.
HOST (webhost)
Computer that provides web-documents to clients or users. See also server.
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 selecting the View pop-down menu tab, then "Document Source."
HYPERTEXT
On the World Wide Web, the feature, built into HTML, that allows a text area, image, or other object to become a "link" (as if in a chain) that retrieves another computer file (another Web page, image, sound file, or other document) on the Internet. The range of possibilities is limited by the ability of the computer retrieving the outside file to view, play, or otherwise open the incoming file. 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."
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. For more information search any of these jargon terms in the Webopedia.
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.
KEYWORD(S)
A word searched for in a search command. Keywords are searched in any order. Use spaces to separate keywords in simple keyword searching. To search keywords exactly as keyed (in the same order), see PHRASE.
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.
NEWSGROUP
A discussion group operated through the Internet. Not to be confused with LISTSERVERS which operate through e-mail.
PERSONAL PAGE
A web page created by an individual (as opposed to someone creating a page for an institution, business, organization, or other entity). 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." But frequently personal pages offer highly biased personal perspectives or ironical/satirical spoofs, which must be evaluated carefully. The presence in the page's URL of a personal name (such as "jbarker") and a ~ or % or the word "users" or "people" or "members" very frequently indicate a site offering personal pages.
RSS or RSS feeds
Short for "Really Simple Synication" (a.k.a. Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary), refers ti 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 (feed readers are to XML and RSS feeds as web browsers are to HTML and web pages.
Sales Page
A simple web page thats sole purpose is to sell a product. Generally consisting of only a landing page, an order processor, and a "Thank You" Page.
SCRIPT
A script is a type of programming language that can be used to fetch and display Web pages. There are may 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 marke (?) 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 (see Invisible Web for more information).
SERVER, WEB SERVER
A computer running 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. Also called a "Host."
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.
SHTML, usually seen as .shtml
An file name extension that identifies web pages containing SSI commands.
SITE, WEB-SITE, or Website
This term is often used to mean "web page," but there is supposed to be a difference. 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. For example, the site for the present tutorial is the top-level page "Internet Resources." All of the pages associated with it branch out from there -- the web searching tutorial and all its pages, and more. Together they make up a "site." When we estimate there are 5 billion web pages on the Web, we do not mean "sites." There would be far fewer sites.
SPIDERS
Computer robot programs, referred to sometimes as "crawlers" or "knowledge-bots" or "knowbots" 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. Even so, the Web is so enormous that it can take six months for spiders to cover it, resulting in a certain degree of "out-of-datedness" (link rot) in all the search engines.
SPONSOR (of a Web page or site)
Many Web pages have organizations, businesses, institutions like universities or nonprofit foundations, or other interests which "sponsor" the page. Frequently you can find a link titled "Sponsors" or an "About us" link explaining who or what (if anyone) is sponsoring the page. Sometimes the advertisers on the page (banner ads, links, buttons to sites that sell or promote something) are "sponsors." WHY is this important? Sponsors and the funding they provide may, or may not, influence what can be said on the page or site -- can bias what you find, by excluding some opposing viewpoint or causing some other imbalanced information. The site is not bad because of sponsors, but you they should alert you to the need to evaluate a page or site very carefully.
SQL (Structured Query Language)
A database backend that can supply information on demand to front end web browsers based on queries.
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.
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. (E.g., femini* retrieves feminine, feminism, feminism, etc.)
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. Ideally, there should be some logic in in the path.
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