These days most of us are up to speed with terms such as email, viruses, blogs and spam but the ever evolving world of the internet only inspires the internet geeks to cleverly play with words and phrases to astound, amaze and impress us. So this glossary is by no means all inclusive but a starting point to the web gurus' metaphors, similes, onomatopoeias, idioms and so on.
301
301 Error - Moved Permanently- The file has been moved permanently to a new location
404
404 error - Not Found - The server was unable to locate the URL
Adwords
Google's Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising system.
Aggregator
Software that lets you automatically download content to your computer
ALT Text
The text that appears when you hover your mouse on top of an image or picture
Back Link
A text link to your website from another website
Blog
A 'web log' that is frequently updated and is usually the opinion of one person. Often visitors are invited to make comments to one's blog
Browser
Software application usd to browse the internet - Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer are just two browsers
Cache
A copy of web pages stored within a search engine's database
CAPTCHA
Completely Automated Public Turing Apart test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, particularly useful for content or contact forms to inhibit web robots from posting or sending spam
Click Through
The process of a click from an online advertisement to the advertisers destination url
Cookie
Information stored on a user's computer by a website. These days all websites should have a Cookie Agreement with visitors which notifies them that information will be stored on their computer
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets define the look and navigation of a website
Dead Link
A hyperlink pointing to a non-existent url
DNS
Domain Name Server or Domain Name System A protocol that lets computers recognize each other through an IP Address, whereas the human sees a website URL
Emoiji
Ideograms and smileys used in electronic messages and web pages
External Link
A link from your website to another site
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions answer a number of questions which are expected to be asked by a number of users
FTP
File Transfer Protocol allow file transfers from a local machine to a remote host
Google
Currently, the world's number 1 search engine
Google Adwords
Google's Pay Per Click advertising program
Heading Tag
A tag that defines headlines in the text of a tag. These can be given prioritises to inidcate importance to spiders
Hit
A single access request made to the server. A single web page can make numerous requests resulting in many hits for one page display
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the basis for all web coding
HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol is a generic, stateless protocol which can be used for many tasks
HTTPS
HyperText Transfer Protocol is a generic, stateless protocol which can be used for many tasks and has security features available to protect sensitive data
IM
Instant Messaging is the protocol that allows quick communication over the internet
Internal Link
A link that points to another page within the same site
Internet
An interconnected system of computers and systems around the world via the TCP/IP protocol
IP
Internet Protocol allows machines to communicate with each other via the internet
IP Address
IP Address allows data to find its way to and from your computer via the internet
JavaScript
A scripting language that provides browser functionality
Keywords
The word or words a user might enter into a search engine to find information on their query
Landing Page
usually used in conjunction with PPC Campaign, they are call-to-action pages that prompt the user to engage the site
Linkbaiting
The process of getting users to link to your website
Link Farm
A site that features links in no particular order which are totally unrelated to each other. Link farms are frowned upon by good SEO companies
Link Partner
A website who is willing to put a link to your site from their website. Quite often link partners engage in reciprocal linking.
Link Popularity
How many websites link to your site
Meta Keywords Tag
Holds the keywords that are found on a web page
Meta Description Tag
Holds the description of the content on a web page
Meta Tags
Header tags that hold information about the content of a site
Natural Listing
A list of websites resulting from a search in a search engine, appearing below sponsored or paid ads. AKA Organic Listing
Niche
A specialised segment of a market that is usually geared towards one specific purpose
Nofollow
An attribute added to a link to instruct search engines not to follow the link and share page rank
Organic Listing
A list of websites resulting from a search in a search engine, appearing below sponsored or paid ads. AKA Natural Listing
Outbound Link
A link from your site to another website
Page Rank
Google's unique calculation to determine the value of a page on a website. The higher the PR the higher the page will appear in a Google Search
PPC
Pay Per Click is a technique where the position of a paid advert appears depending on how much is someone is willing to pay for a key word or phrase
Query
An enquiry into a search engine in order to get a list of results
Ranking
The actual position of a website on a search engine results page fro a certain key word or phrase
Reciprocal
When two website link to each other for mutual benefit
Redirects
Server script to force a link to go to another page automatically (redirects can be hidden from a user or set on a timer)
Robot
Often used to refer to a search engine spider
Search Query
The text entered into a search box to find relevant content on a website, web page or in a search engine
SEO
Search engine optimisation is the process of perfecting code on a website to have optimum relevance to a search engine spider or robot.
SPAM
Unwanted email or irrelevant content delivered to your inbox
Strategic Linking
A carefully thought out process of getting websites to link to your site
Traffic
The number of visitors to a website calculated over a period of time. Usually reported monthly
URL
Uniform Resource Language, also known as a domain name is how humans navigate around the internet, whereas computers use IP Addresses
Unique Visitor
When a user visits a website, their IP address is logged so if they visit again later in the day the visit wont be counted as a unique visit but as a page impression
VLOG
Video blog
VoIP
Voice Over Internet Protocol converts the voice signal from your telephone into a digital signal that travels over the internet and then converts it back so you can speak over a normal telephone
WILF
What I'm Looking For
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a scripting language that allows the programmer to define the properties of the document
Yahoo
The second largest search engine in the world
Zeitgeist
Google Zeitgeist is a brief outline of trends of what people are searching for through Google search engine
WWW
The World Wide Web or the internet