Glossary of Web Terms

301 Moved Permanently
404 File Not Found
Above The Fold
Absolute Link
Accessible Web Design
AJAX
Alt (alternate) Text Attribute
Animation
Bot
Breadcrumbs
Broken Links / Dead Links
Browser
Cache
Canonical URL
CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
Client Package
Cloaking
Clustering
Color Scheme
Comments Tag
Content Management System (CMS)
Conversion
Cookie
Copy
Crawl Frequency
Cybersquatting
Dedicated Server
Deep Link
Design
Design Process
Digital Photography
Domain Name
Domain Name Server (DNS)
Domain Registrar
Duplicate Content
Dynamic Content
eCommerce
eCommerce Buying Cycle
Flash
Favicon
Feeds / Feed Readers
Font / Typeface
Font / Web-Friendly
Forms
Forums / Message Board / Discussion Group
Fresh Content
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Graphics
.htaccess File
Heading Element (Header Tag)
Hosted Email
HTML5
HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure)
Keywords
Link / Hyperlink
Logo
Marketing
Open Rate
Pages / Sections
Phishing
Photos
Preview Pane
ROI (Return on Investment)
Search Engine
Search Engine Optimization
Server
Site Map
Social Media / Networking
Splash / Intro Page
Spoofing
Target Audience
Testing / Validating
Thumbnails
URL
User Testing
Web Hosting
Website
Website Content
Website Maintenance
Whitelists

301 Moved Permanently

The file has been moved permanently to a new location. This is the preferred method of redirecting for most pages or websites.
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404 File Not Found

The server was unable to locate the URL. Some CMSs (content management system) return a 404 error when documents do exist. Make sure existing files put out a '200' status code, & requests of files that don't exist return a 404 code. Creating a custom 404 error page, makes it easier for visitors to: (see more)...
- view the most popular/relevant navigation options
- report navigation issues w/in the site
Search engines request a 'robots.txt' file to see which parts of the site they're allowed to crawl. Most browsers request a 'favicon.ico' file when loading a site. Although you don't need either of these files, creating them will keep the log files clean.
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Above The Fold

The bottom of your browser window or the bottom of your email before you have to start scrolling is commonly referred to as the "fold". These viewable areas should be where your most important information should be located since it's the first thing your viewer will see.
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Absolute Link

A link showing the full URL address of the web page being linked to. There are links only showing 'relative' link paths instead of having the entire reference URL within the a href tag. It is preferred to use 'absolute' links over relative links.
'Absolute' link example ::
< a href= "http : // aardvarkwebworks . com /directory /filename . htm” > Cool Links < /a>
'Relative' link example ::
< a href= " ... directory /filename . htm” > Cool Links < /a>
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Accessible Web Design

The practice of designing web pages on the Internet so they are accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities.
This primary audience consists of users who are:
- blind
- sight impaired
(e.g. common types of poor eyesight and color blindness)
- motor impaired
(e.g. Parkinson's Disease, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, stroke)
- cognitively impaired
(i.e. dyslexia or poor short-term memory)
- hearing impaired or deaf
- non-native speakers of the web site's language (s), including users of sign languages
Individuals would have the ability to perceive, understand, navigate, interact and contribute with and to the world wide web and society. It is giving older people with limited abilities due to aging, access to knowledge, health care, other services and the world around them. It encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, neurological and technological. Making your online services accessible means making them available to the broadest possible range of users, including those with disabilities of all kinds.
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AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript & XML)

A group of interrelated web development methods used to create interactive web applications. Web apps can ‘get’ data from the server independently in the background w/o interfering w/ display/behavior of the existing page. Data is retrieved using XMLHttpRequest object. Use of XML is not needed, and requests need not be independent.

AJAX is not one technology, but a group of technologies. It uses a combination of HTML & CSS to mark up/style information. The DOM is accessed with JavaScript to dynamically display, and allow the user to interact with, the info presented. JavaScript and the XMLHttpRequest object provide a method for exchanging data independently between browser:server to avoid page reloads.
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Alt (alternate) Text Attribute

People with severe visual issues and most major search engines are not able to easily distinguish what is in an image. Including an image alt text attribute when inserting an image allows screen readers and search engines to understand what the image is by providing a text equivalent.
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Analytics

Software allows tracking of page views, user paths, and conversion statistics based on interpreting log files or by including a JavaScript tracking code on your website.

Ad networks are a margins game. Marketers tracking user action have a great advantage over those who don't.
See Google Analytics - Google's free analytics program -- http: // www. google. com/ analytics/
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Bot

(GoogleBot, etc..)
Short for "robot", it's a program operating as an 'agent' for a user, program or simulates a human activity. Within the internet, most 'bots' are the programs, aka spiders or crawlers, that access websites and gather content for search engine indexes.
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Breadcrumbs

A type of horizontal navigation used to aid search engines & let visitors know where they are currently within the site & where they've been. For example: start on the Home page, then to 'Services' then to 'Responsive Web Design & Development' - would look like this:

Home > Services > Responsive Web Design & Development.

Current page - capped, changed color, lets visitors know where they are.
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Broken Link / Dead link

A broken link or dead link is a link on the web that points to a web page or server that is permanently unavailable. Dead links are commonplace on the Internet, but they are considered to be unprofessional. The most common result of a dead link is a 404 error, which indicates that the page could not be found. Dead links can also refer to URLs that point to sites unrelated to the content requested, e.g., a search for "Sports at ESPN.com" resulting in pornography or advertisements.
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Browser

A web/internet browser is a software application for retrieving and/or presenting information resources on the World Wide Web. A resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and may be a web page/image/video or other piece of content.

Although browsers are primarily used to access the Web, they can also be used to access information provided by Web servers in private networks or files in file systems.

Here is a list of notable web browsers : Google Chrome, Firefox (Mozilla Firefox), Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, Netscape (now part of AOL), Camino, SeaMonkey, iCab, K-Meleon, Amaya, Galeon, Maxthon, Flock, Konqueror, Midori, uzbl, Voyager, Dillo, Slim, KidRocket, Epic, Iron, GNU IceCat, PhaseOut, OmniWeb, Crazy Browser ShenzBrowser, Swiftweasel, Enigma, Shiira, Avant, xB, Sleipnir, space time, Browse3D, 3B Room, Bitty, Lobo Java, Elinks Text, Epiphany, Grail, Ibrowse and Lynx. There may be others unintentionally omitted.
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Cache

Pronounced 'cash', "Clear Your Cache" is a common phrase. A 'cached' web page is a component that transparently stores data so future requests for said data can be served faster. Bookmarked web pages on your computer are 'cached' pages you've called up earlier.

When doing a search for a page that you've been to earlier, the exact page will come up fast because it's been cached on your server or hard drive. When calling up a page you have not been to before, it will come up slower because it has not been cached yet.
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Canonical URL

Canonicalization is a process for converting data that has more than one possible representation into a “standard” canonical representation.
Therefore, Canonical + URL (web address) = Duplicate Content = More supplemental results = less Google-friendly.

Some content management systems (like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal) are configured with errors which cause duplicate or exceptionally similar content to get indexed under multiple URLs.

Many webmasters use inconsistent link structures throughout their site that cause the same content to get indexed under multiple URLs. The canonical version of any URL is thee most authoritative version indexed by the search engines. A search engine will normally use PageRank or similar measure to determine which version of a URL is the canonical URL.

Webmasters should use consistent linking structures throughout their sites to ensure that they funnel the maximum amount of PageRank at the URLs they want indexed. When linking to the root level of a site or a folder index it is best to end the link location at a / instead of placing the index.html or default.asp filename in the URL.

Examples of URLs which may contain the same information in spite of being at different web addresses:
http: // www. aardvarkwebworks. com/
http: // www. aardvarkwebworks. com/index.shtml
http: // aardvarkwebworks. com/
http: // aardvarkwebworks. com/index.shtml
http: // www. aardvarkwebworks .com/?tracking-code
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CGI (Common Gateway Interface)

A standard protocol defining how web server software can delegate the generation of web pages to a console application. These applications, known as 'CGI scripts', be written in any programming language, though scripting languages are mostly used.
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Client Package

Information regarding client's web site. This may include the following:
- The web site's Date of Creation
- Hosting information (where the site is hosted, how to access it including Login and Password info)
- Where the Domain Name is registered
- A CD with copies of the site's files
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Cloaking

The purpose of 'cloaking' is to deceive search engines so they show a page when it would not otherwise be displayed. It is a 'black hat' search engine optimization (SEO) technique whereby the content given to the search engine spider is different from what is presented to the user's browser.

This is done by delivering content, based on the IP addresses or User-Agent HTTP header of the user requesting the page. When a user is identified as a spider, a server-side script delivers a different version of the web page - one that contains content not present on the visible page. It is intended to deceive human editors, rather than computer search engine spiders.

Black Hat: a computer security hacker that breaks into networks or computers, or creates computer viruses.
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Clustering

Listings in search results from any one site are normally limited to a specific number & grouped together to making search results appear organized & ensuring diversity among the top ranked results.

Clustering also refers to a technique allowing search engines to group hubs & authorities on a specific subject together further enhancing their value by showing their relationships.

Also see: Google Touchgraph - a web application showing the relationship between sites Google returns as being related to a site you enter.
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Color Scheme

A color scheme is the choice of colors used in design for a range of media.
For example, the use of a white background with black text is an example of a basic and commonly default color scheme in web design. Color schemes are used to create style and appeal. Colors that create an aesthetic feeling when used together will commonly accompany each other in color schemes.

A basic color scheme will use 2 colors that look appealing together. Color schemes can also contain different shades of a single color; for example, a color scheme that mixes different shades of green, ranging from very light (almost white) to very dark.

In order for a web site to be accessible to Color Blind users, color choices must be taken into account. Color should not be used to convey meaning, such as my choice of bold in this case instead of color. Background and foreground color should contrast. Ensure that text and graphics are understandable when viewed without color.
Example: Red/Green and other color blindness disabilities
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Comments Tag

I'd like to believe most web developers these days place comments within the source code of the project to make it easier for other developers to understand the code.

HTML comments appear as < !-- comment here -- >

They can only be seen when viewing the source code of a doc. It doesn't appear in the rendered version.

Some SEOs used to cram keywords within comment tags to increase page keyword density, but nice to know search has evolved since then. Now using comments this way adds to your risk profile and shows little ranking upside potential.
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Content Management System (CMS)

A secure, private area that empowers web site owners with the ability to enter and modify their own data rather than send content to a webmaster for updating, if they choose. CMS is perfect for frequent content changes. Adobe Contribute is one.

Examples of blogging/website platforms that have incorporated CMS: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Mambo.
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Conversion

Most online advertising is easy to track. 'Conversion' happens when a desired goal is reached.

'Offline' ads - i.e., print - are normally more difficult to track. Some use custom phone numbers or coupon codes to tie 'offline' to online marketing.

Here are some reachable goals by an online visitor - conversions:
• a service/product sale
• filling out a lead form
• a phone call
• capturing an email
• filling out a survey
• commanding attention to your site
• receiving feedback
• your visitor sharing your site with a friend
• your visitor linking to your site
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Cookie

A small text file of alphanumeric characters, created on your computer when the browser accesses a website that uses 'cookies'. They help the browser navigate the site and fully use all its features like logins, preferences, language settings, themes, among other common features. It doesn't collect any information or snoop on your files.

Each file normally contains:
* The name of the website server that created the cookie
* The duration of the cookie - how long your browser can use the cookie information to access the website that created the cookie
* A cookie value - this unique information is normally a randomly generated number

The server that created the cookie uses the cookie value to remember you when you come back to the site or navigate from one page to another. Only the server that created the cookie can read and process the cookie.
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Copy

Your copy is simply the text you write.
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Crawl Frequency

Google's spiders regularly crawl the web to rebuild their index. Crawls are based on PageRank, links to a page, and constraints, i.e. the number of parameters in a URL. Many factors affect the crawl frequency of individual sites. The crawl process is algorithmic; computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to get from each site.
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Cybersquatting

The act of registering a popular Internet address - usually a company name/brand - with the intent of selling it back to its rightful owner. Cybersquatting would be compared to online extortion.
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Dedicated Server

A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc.

Server administration can usually be provided by the hosting company as an add-on service. Server which is limited to serving one website or a small collection of websites owned by a single person.

Availability, price and employee familiarity often determines which operating systems are offered on dedicated servers.
Dedicated servers tend to be more reliable than shared (or virtual) servers. Dedicated servers usually run from $100 to $500 a month. Virtual servers typically run from $5 to $50 per month.
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Deep Link

A hyperlink pointing to a specific page or image on a website, instead of that website's main or home page. 'Aardvarkwebworks.com / services.htm' is an example of a deep link. The URL contains all the information needed to point to a particular item.
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Design

The artistic process of creating a web site, logo or corporate identity. It may involve both the technical aspects as well, of how a web site works. Some of the features that make up design are:
- graphic creation
- animation creation
- color selection
- font selection
- navigation design
- content creation
- HTML / XHML / XML authoring
- programming
- ecommerce development
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Design Process

A design process generates a conceptual solution for a problem stated in the form of requirements. A design process is usually followed by an implementation process which provides a concrete solution based on the design. In this case it is the method that takes the client and the web designer from an idea of a web site to the actual creation and implementation of the site.
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Digital Photography

Digital photography, as opposed to film photography, uses an electronic sensor to record the image as binary data. This facilitates storage and editing of the images on personal computers. Digital cameras now outsell film cameras and include features not found in film cameras such as the ability to shoot video and record audio.
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Domain Name

A name that is entered into a computer (e.g. as part of a Web site or other URL, or an email address) and then looked up in the global Domain Name System (DNS) which informs the computer of the IP address (es) with that name. They are sometimes colloquially (and incorrectly) referred to by marketers as "Web addresses". Domain names are hostnames that provide more easily memorable names to stand in for numeric IP addresses. Each string of letters, digits and hyphens between the dots is called a label in the parlance of the domain name system (DNS). Valid labels are subject to certain rules, which have relaxed over the course of time. Ideally, labels must start with a letter, and end with a letter or digit; any intervening characters may be letters, digits, or hyphens. Domain names are compared case-insensitively. It is now permissible for labels to start with a digit (but may not be entirely numeric), and for labels to contain underscores, but support for such domain names is uneven. These are the rules imposed by the way names are looked up ("resolved") by DNS. Translating numeric addresses to alphabetical ones, domain names allow Internet users to localize and visit Web sites. Additionally since more than one IP address can be assigned to a domain name, and more than one domain name assigned to an IP address, one server can have multiple roles, and one role can be spread among multiple servers. One IP address can even be assigned to several servers, such as with hijacked IP space.
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Domain Name Server (DNS)

A database system that translates a computer's fully qualified domain name into an IP address.
Networked computers use IP addresses to locate and connect to each other, but IP addresses can be difficult for people to remember. It's much easier to remember the domain name 'www. yourcompanyname .com' than it is to remember its corresponding IP address - i.e., 200.111.166.00. DNS allows you to connect to another networked computer or remote service by using its user-friendly domain name rather than its numerical IP address.
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Domain Registrar

The company that registers your domain name. We recommend AardvarkHosting.com, Network Solutions, GoDaddy.com or any other well-known registrar as a way to avoid possible problems.
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Duplicate Content

This refers to substantial chunks of content used within or across several domains which totally mirror other content or are similar enough to be questionable. There are 2 types of duplicate content. This type is normally not malicious. According to Google, examples of non-malicious duplicate content could include:
1) Discussion forums that can generate both regular and stripped-down pages targeted at mobile devices
2) Store items shown or linked via multiple distinct URLs
3) Printer-only versions of web pages

Sometimes, people will deliberately duplicate content across domains trying to manipulate rankings or get more traffic. This type of deceptive content duplication will result in a very confusing user experience when a visitor finds results that are basically the same during a search.

"Google no longer recommends blocking crawler access to duplicate content on your website, whether with a robots.txt file or other methods. If search engines can't crawl pages with duplicate content, they can't automatically detect that these URLs point to the same content and will therefore effectively have to treat them as separate, unique pages. A better solution is to allow search engines to crawl these URLs, but mark them as duplicates by using the rel="canonical" link element, the URL parameter handling tool, or 301 redirects."

Note :: "If you find that another site is duplicating your content by scraping (misappropriating and republishing) it, it's unlikely that this will negatively impact your site's ranking in Google search results pages. If you do spot a case that's particularly frustrating, you are welcome to file a DMCA request to claim ownership of the content and request removal of the other site from Google's index."
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Dynamic Content

Dynamic content is the ability to have the presentation of information on a web page, or other services, influenced by other factors. The servers that create the web page run computer programs that, according to a sequence of decisions, alter the content of the page in real-time.

Dynamic content could be as simple as putting the current date in a web page. At its most complex it can identify the person using the page, and personalize the information presented to the preferences they gave to the server when they registered to receive that service. Dynamic content is usually enabled by the use of scripting languages such as CGI, Perl or JavaScript.
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eCommerce

Electronic commerce, e-commerce or ecommerce consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions. It can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange, automated inventory management systems, and automated data-collection systems. It typically uses electronic communications technology such as the Internet, extranets, email, Ebooks, databases, and mobile phones.
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eCommerce Buying Cycle

Prior to making internet purchases consumers research which brands & products fit their needs & wants. Keyword-based search marketing lets you reach consumers at any point in the buying cycle. In most markets branded keywords tend to have high search volumes & high conversion rates. The buying cycle would consist of the following stages:
• Problem Discovery: prospect discovers a need or want
• Search: after discovering a problem look for ways to solve the need or want. These searches may contain words which revolve around the core problem the prospect is trying to solve or words associated with their identity.
• Evaluate: may do comparison searches to compare different models, and also search for negative information like product sucks, etc.
• Decide: look for information which reinforces your view of product or service you decided upon
• Purchase: may search for shipping related information or other price related searches. purchases may also occur offline
• Reevaluate: some people leave feedback on their purchases . If a person is enthusiastic about your brand they may cut your marketing costs by providing free highly trusted word of mouth marketing.
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Favicon

A favicon (favorites icon), is a 16×16 pixel square icon associated with a particular website or webpage. They *can* be either 16×16 or 32×32 pixels in size, and either 8-bit, 24-bit, or 32-bit in color depth - note that GIF files have limited, 256 color palette entries.

Browsers providing favicon support typically display a page's favicon in the browser's address bar and next to the page's name in a list of bookmarks.
Go to HTML Kit - HTMLKit.com > Services > Favicon - to create your own favicon.
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Feeds / Feed Readers

RSS or XML Feeds -
Content management systems (CMS), like blogs created with WordPress, Joomla, etc., let readers subscribe to content update notifications by way of 'RSS' or 'XML' feeds. They allow you to quickly scan headlines and/or full stories at a glance, from a variety of different providers, all in one place.

Feed Readers -
There are 5 types: Web-based, Desktop, Browser, Email and Mobile.
1) Web-based: Allows you to read all your feeds from within your browser.
Examples: Bloglines, Google Reader, Kinja, My Yahoo, and NewsGator.
2) Desktop Feed: Allows you to read all your feeds from something actually installed onto your system. These come with better features than the Web-based feed readers and are more for the technologically advanced user.

Examples: BlogBridge, RSS Bandit, AmphetaDesk, and FeedDemon for Windows.
3) Browser Built-In: Some browsers come with 'baked-in' feed readers. There are many extensions and plug-ins providing this functionality.
Examples: Google Chrome's RSS Live Links extension, Firefox’s Live Bookmarks, Safari's Reader and Opera's Newsfeeds, among others.
4) Email-based: Great if you're looking for your feeds delivered via email.
Examples: Mozilla Thunderbird, Newsgator Inbox, and Google Alerts. You can adjust the rate of emails you get with each one of these email-based feed readers.
5) Mobile: So many people get their via mobile device now. If you do, check out one of these feed readers/access services specifically for each mobile device.

Examples: These are the best around the web - Google Reader, Feed Demon and Net Newswire.
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Flash

Flash refers to both the Adobe Flash Player and to a multimedia authoring program used to create content for it as well as games or movies created using the program. Adobe Flash Player is a client application available in most dominant web browsers.

It features support for vector and raster graphics, a scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of audio and video. Adobe Flash is the integrated development environment (IDE) and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files, but these have become mixed: "Flash" can mean either the authoring environment, the player, or the application files. Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; several software products, systems, and devices are able to create or display Flash. Flash is commonly used to create animations and advertisements; to design web-page elements; to add video to web sites; and, more recently, to develop Rich Internet Applications (RIA). The Flash files, traditionally called "flash movies", usually have a .swf file extension and may appear as an element of a web page or to be "played" in the standalone Flash Player.
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Font / Typeface

In typography, a typeface consists of a coordinated set of characters, designed with stylistic unity. A typeface usually comprises an alphabet of letters, numerals, and punctuation marks. In digital typography the font is the computer file that stores the vector paths, before they are rendered on a screen or a page. Vector-based digital type outlines have no reproduction size limit. A font family is a group of related fonts which vary only in weight, orientation, width, etc., but not design. For example, Times is a font family, whereas Times Roman, Times Italic and Times Bold are individual fonts making up the Times family. Font families typically contain several fonts, though some, such as Helvetica, may consist of dozens of fonts. Helvetica, Century Schoolbook, and Courier are examples of three widely distributed typefaces.
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Font / Web-Friendly

Almost all web browsers are capable of displaying four primary fonts properly: Times, Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana, as well as their variants (Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, etc.) If a web developer decides to stray from one of these fonts he or she risks browser compatibility problems and the prospect that their pages may render inaccurately when viewed through certain web browsers.
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Forms

Interactive elements which allow a user to input information to be utilized by the web site. Forms can be used to gather information supplied by the user in order to help the user interact with various components within the site.
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Forums / Message Board / Discussion Group

An Internet forum is a facility on the Web for having discussions, or the web application software used to provide the facility. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of different topics.

Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, discussion forums, discussion groups, bulletin boards, fora (proper latin plural) or simply forums.
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Fresh Content

You're always hearing people talk about the need for 'fresh content' on their website or blog to help the search engines find them and rank them high; but what is it?

Interesting content (text-based) which is dynamic (always changing / being updated), giving people a great reason to keep coming back to your website or blog and helping to convert visits to sales. It refers to creating new content not re-working the existing stuff.

The main advantages to having and keeping 'fresh content' are:
• Fresh content makes visitors beg for more and they keep coming back. They'll probably decide to subscribe so they can receive more updates, given the option, or even buy a product - customer conversion.
• Building your archives: The more content you 'own', the more chances you have to rank higher. Constantly building content gives you a good solid catalog of up-to-date, relevant content.
• Bot Crawling Frequency: Constantly changed and updated blogs and websites are crawled more frequently.
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FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

FTP is a method (protocol) for transferring files and data between computers. Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal include FTP capabilities as well as most web development software such as Dreamweaver and Expression Web.

There are also free or cheap FTP programs such as FileZilla and Cute FTP. We use a cloud-based application called 'Dropbox' that uses drag and drop technology. We're finding this is the best, most efficient way to share files between our developers and our clients - free up to 2G.
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Graphics

Visual presentations on some surface such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper or stone to inform, illustrate or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings, or other images which are not only text. Graphics is often used in combination with text and color.

Graphics can be functional or artistic. Graphics can be imaginary or representing something in the real world. The latter can be a recorded version, such as a photograph, or an interpretation by a scientist to highlight essential features, or an artist, in which case the distinction with imaginary graphics may get blurred. But in the case of the computer, it is a picture or image produced on a computer. These can include .BMPs (bitmaps), .JPGs (joint photographic experts group), .GIFs (graphical interface format), and .PNGs (portable network graphics) among others.
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.htaccess File

.htaccess (hypertext access) is the default name of a directory-level config file allowing for decentralized management of web server configuration. The .htaccess file is placed inside the web tree, and is able to override a subset of the server's global configuration; the extent of this subset is defined by the web server administrator. The file name begins with a dot because dot-files are by convention hidden files on Unix-like operating systems.

.htaccess files are often used to specify the security restrictions for the particular directory, hence the filename "access". The .htaccess file is often accompanied by a .htpasswd file which stores valid usernames and their passwords.

Servers often use .htaccess to rewrite long, overly comprehensive URLs to shorter and more memorable ones. They enable server-side includes.

.htaccess files control how the server will react when no specific web page is specified. They can change the page that is shown when a server-side error occurs, for example HTTP 404 Not Found.

.htaccess files instruct the server how to treat different varying file types. These files allow a server to control caching by web browsers and proxies to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag.

Use .htaccess files when:
.htaccess files are read on every request, therefore changes made in these files take immediate effect as opposed to the main configuration file which requires the server to be restarted for the new settings to take effect.

For servers with multiple users, as is common in shared web hosting plans, it is often desirable to allow individual users the ability to alter their site configuration. In general, .htaccess files should be used by users who do not have access to the main server configuration files.

NOTE :: Copy your current .htaccess file before editing it! - and Do Not Edit it on a site which you can't afford to have go down unless you know what you are doing!
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Heading Element (Header Tag)

HTML defines six levels of headings. A heading element (or paragraph heading) implies all the font changes, paragraph breaks before and after, and any white space necessary to render the heading.

The heading elements are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6 with H1 being most important and H6 the least. Google LOOKS for H1 tags on website pages to help with ranking.

For example:
< H1 >This is the top level heading on your webpage describing the content

Top level heading.

< H2 >Second level paragraph heading

Second level paragraph heading

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Hosted Email

A hosted version of an email allows users to view the email message as a web page, ensuring that all formatting remains intact. Hosted versions of your email are also great for you to send your Twitter and Facebook followers to when you launch your campaign.
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HTML5

'HyperText Markup Language' is the language in which Web pages are created. HTML5 is the standard for structuring and presenting content on the Web. HTML5 is the newest major revision of the HTML standard that has been 4.01 since its last revision in 2000.

This new revision adds many new syntactical features including the < video >, < audio >, and < canvas > elements, as well as the integration of SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) content. These features will make it easy to include and handle multimedia and graphical content on the web without having to resort to proprietary plugins and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Other new elements, < section >, < article >, < header >, and < nav >, are designed to enrich the semantic content of documents. New attributes have been introduced for the same purpose, while some elements and attributes have been removed. Some elements, such as < a >, < cite > and < menu > have been changed, redefined or standardized.
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HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

'HTTP' is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. It works as a request-response protocol in the 'client-server' computing model.

In HTTP, a web browser would act as a 'client', while an application running on a computer hosting a web site, functions as a 'server', which stores content, such as html files. The client (browser) submits an HTTP request message to the server. The server returns a response message to the client. The response contains completion status info about the request and contains any content requested by the client in its message body.

The term 'HyperText' was coined by Ted Nelson. The first documented version of HTTP was HTTP V0.9 in 1991, and was officially introduced and recognized HTTP V1.0 in 1996. So FYI... most people who tell you they've been designing websites for longer than 15 years, or before 1996 is not telling the truth. We were lucky to have email at Motorola in IT when I worked there by 1998.
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HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure)

HTTPS is a combination of the HTTP and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)/TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server. HTTPS connections are most often used for payment transactions on the Web and for sensitive transactions in corporate information systems. HTTPS should not be confused with Secure HTTP (S-HTTP). When making a purchase on the internet, NEVER give out your information such as credit card numbers, to a site that does not begin with HTTPS in the URL address.
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Keywords

A word describing a concept found in a document such as a Web page, constituting part of the metadata (literally "data about data", information about another set of data), for the document. Words which pertain to your web site and are placed in the content of your pages. Keywords are one way to generate higher placement rankings in search engines.
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Link / Hyperlink

A hyperlink, or simply 'link', is a reference in an HTML document to another document or other resource. It's similar to a citation in literature. A computer can be instructed to retrieve the resource referenced from the link. Hyperlinks are part of the foundation of the Web. When Tim Berners-Lee created the world wide web, he saw the possibility of using hyperlinks to link, or connect, every unit of information to any other unit of information over the Internet. Hyperlinks were therefore integral to the web's creation. Phrases, titles, words or images can direct visitors to another page on a site or to another web site. Many sites have a "Links" page. Having your site listed as a non-reciprocal link on other sites can generate a higher rankings placement in the search engines.

There is another type of linking: intralinking - which links a word or phrase in a website to another place within the same website - yet another important way to move up on the search engines
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Logo

A logo is the graphic element of a trademark or brand, which is set in a special typeface and/or font, or arranged in a particular, but legible, way. The shape, color, typeface, etc. should be distinctly different from others in a similar market. A logo is an iconic symbol designed to represent a company, product or service. It also depicts an organization's personality. In recent times the term 'logo' has been used to describe signs, emblems, coats of arms, symbols and even flags.
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Marketing

Is "the process of planning and executing the pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, ideas, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals." Another definition, perhaps simpler and more universal, is the process of moving people closer to making a decision to purchase, use, follow, refer, upload, download, obey, reject, conform, become complacent to another person's, society's or organization's value. Simply, if it doesn't facilitate a "sale" then it's not marketing.
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Open Rate

Your open rate is simply the number recipients who opened your HTML emails. It is typically measured as a percentage of the total number of emails sent, although calculation methods may differ. The open rate is considered a useful metric for judging response to an email campaign but it should be noted that open rates for text emails can't be calculated AND some email clients don't display images as a default which would under report your total number of opens.
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Pages / Sections

A web page is a resource on the Web, usually in written in HTML / XHTML format and with hypertext links to enable navigation from one page or section to another. Web pages often use associated graphic files to provide illustration, and these too can be clickable links. The pages on your web site are those that are listed in navigation. Often, areas of a web site are separated into sections to facilitate organization as well as the user's experience. The number of pages included varies per package, but you can add on as may as you need.
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Phishing

In a phishing scam, a spammer, posing as a trusted party such as a bank or reputable online vendor, sends email messages directing recipients to Web sites that appear to be official but are in reality fraudulent. Visitors to these Web sites are asked to disclose personal information, such as credit card numbers, or to purchase counterfeit or pirated products.
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Photos

Photos can add a lot to your site, but too many can bog down the speed of your pages and detract from your business presence. Photos may also need some retouching, resizing, and, in some cases, cutting. The number of photos included varies per package, but more photos can be added to your site for an additional fee.
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Preview Pane

Email programs like Microsoft Outlook, Entourage, and Mac Mail allow users to view email through a preview pane before your recipient clicks to open. The preview pane is important to bear in mind when composing the opening lines of an email so you can get your recipient's attention fast.
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ROI (Return on Investment)

Your ROI is the measure of the profit you make and/or costs saved at your business. For your email marketing campaigns you calculate cost of sending email plus time.

ROI = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100

So if you made $780 on your email campaign, your time was worth $50 to create it and it costs $15 to send it it would look like this:
(($780 - $65)/$65)*100 = 1100% ROI (which is really good!)

If you want to take it a step further subtract your cost of your products or services as well.
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Search Engine

A search engine is a program designed to help find information stored on a computer system such as the Web, inside a corporate or proprietary network or a personal computer. The search engine allows one to ask for content meeting specific criteria (typically those containing a given word or phrase) and retrieves a list of references that match those criteria. Search engines use regularly updated indexes to operate quickly and efficiently. Without further qualification, search engine usually refers to a Web search engine, which searches for information on the public Web. Other kinds of search engines are enterprise search engines, which search on intranets, personal search engines, which search individual personal computers, and mobile search engines. However, while different selection and relevance criteria may apply in different environments, the user will probably perceive little difference between operations in these. Some search engines also mine data available in newsgroups, large databases, or open directories like DMOZ.org. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically. Most web sites which call themselves search engines are actually front ends to search engines owned by other companies.
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Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about the designing and coding of a web site so search engines will rank it high for a particular set of keywords. Search engines display different kinds of listings in the search engine results pages (SERPs), including: pay-per-click advertisements, paid inclusion listings, and organic search results. SEO is primarily concerned with advancing the goals of a web site by improving the number and position of its organic search results for a wide variety of relevant keywords. SEO strategies can increase both the number and quality of visitors, where quality means visitors who complete the action hoped for by the site owner (e.g. purchase, sign up, learn something).
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Server

A computer that delivers web pages to users. It is the "computer" where web site files (the whole web site) reside and are accessed through the Internet. A server can also be called a host or node.
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Site Map

A site map (or sitemap) is a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors, and search engine robots, to find pages on the site. Site maps can improve search engine optimization of a site by making sure that all the pages can be found.
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Social Media / Networking

Defined as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content" by Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). Social media utilization is believed to be a driving factor in the idea that the current period in time will be defined as the Attention Age. Said to have three components: Concept (art, information, or meme), Media (physical, electronic, or verbal) and Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print). Within the social media Communication area you'll find Blogs, Micro-Blogs such as Twitter, and Social Networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning. Collaboration holds the Wikis like Wikipedia, Social Bookmarking like Delicious, and Social News like Digg. Then there's multimedia with the largest one being YouTube. You'll also find Entertainment in the form of Virtual Worlds such as Second Life.
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Splash / Intro Page

A splash page of a web site is a sort of pre-home page front page, usually providing no real information. Often this page is graphics-intensive and used only for reasons of branding; sometimes it provides a choice of entry points for the site proper, for instance links to Adobe Flash and HTML-only versions of the site.
We do not condone the use of splash pages for accessibility reasons. They can hinder access by users with disabilities.
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Spoofing

Email spoofing involves forging a sender's address on email messages. It can be used by malicious individuals to mislead email recipients into reading and responding to deceptive mail. These fake messages can jeopardize the online privacy of consumers and damage the reputation of the companies purported to have sent the messages. Spoofed email often contains phishing scams.
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Target Audience

A target audience is the primary group of people that something, usually an advertising campaign, is aimed at appealing to. A target audience can be people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc. (ex: teenagers, females, single people, etc.) A certain combination, like men from twenty to thirty is often a target audience. Other groups, although not the main focus, may also be interested. Targeting with Email gives you the ability to deliver emails to those most likely to respond to your emails, based on a variety of things that will appeal most to them.
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Testing / Validating

Testing and Validating a web site for errors when designing. Depending on the complexity of a program, testing and validating can take nearly as long as the actual creation of the program.
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Thumbnail

Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures, used to make it easier to scan and recognize them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words.
Visual search engines and image-organizing programs normally use them, as can some modern operating systems or desktop environments. In practice the display size of an image in pixels should always correspond to its actual size, in part because one purpose of a thumbnail image on a web page is to reduce download time.
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URL

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a string of characters conforming to a standardized format, which refers to a resource on the Internet (such as a document or an image) by its location. For example, the URL of this page on Aardvark Web Works, LLC is:
http://www.aardvarkwebworks.com/glossary.htm .
An HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) URL, commonly called a web address, is usually shown in the address bar of web browser. The term is typically pronounced as a spelled-out initialism ("yoo arr ell").
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User Testing

Determines how easily the user can navigate the web site. There are three components to User Testing:
- Ask volunteer users to perform basic tasks within a web site design.
- Observe what the users do, where they succeed, and where they have difficulties with the user interface.
- Allow the users to solve any problems on their own.
The results of User Testing are then compiled and any necessary adjustments are applied to the web site design. Testing may be performed one or more times.
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Web Hosting

A service that runs Web/Internet servers, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content on the Internet. There are various levels of service and various kinds of services offered. The most common kind of hosting is web hosting. A web hosting service provides individuals, organizations and users with online systems for storing information, images, video, or any content accessible via the Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center. Most hosting services offer a combined variety of services; most web hosting services also offer email hosting service, for example. A host can also refer to a Web hosting company. While we do not physically host sites, we are a reseller of hosting.
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Website

A web site, according to Associated Press guidelines, is a collection of Web pages, typically common to a particular domain name or sub-domain on the Web on the Internet. To date, there are nearly 80 million web sites in the world with registered domains.

A web page is an HTML / XHTML document accessible generally via HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol). All publicly accessible web sites are seen as constituting a mammoth "World Wide Web" of information.
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Website Content

The body of a web page. Content includes actual words, sentences, and paragraphs, selling points, graphics, animations, etc. that do not comprise the framework of the page. This is the information that changes from page to page. We advise businesses to provide their own content. You know your business the best! Aardvark Web Works, LLC will help you edit your text, and help you add content that works best for the web. Keyword-rich content is a great way to generate higher placement rankings in search engines.
We will accept your copy in just about any electronic format.
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Website Maintenance

The upkeep and updating of content, pages, images or information that is displayed on your web site. This can include updates, changes and technical support. For a nominal fee (2 hour minimum per month), Aardvark Web Works, LLC will maintain your web site. This includes updating content and photos.
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Whitelists

Whitelists are usually created by an ISP (internet service provider) and are made up of commercial emailers (including ESPs - email service providers) who have been approved to send email through their gates. The ISP requires a list of IP (internet protocol) addresses that email will be sent from, and in some cases a test period where the commercial emailer will be approved or rejected.
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-- Thanks, in part, to Wikipedia and VerticalResponse.