Web Design Glossary
A glossary of jargon terms used in the HTML and XML industry.
These words are used regularly throughout Web development documentation and books.
If there’s a term you’d like us to add, please email us, and we’ll see what we can do.
Accessibility
Refers to a web page or web site that people interacting with different kinds of disabilities, the difficulty they can experience due to physical and or technological barriers. A web page or site that address these users limitations is said to be Accessibly friendly.
AJAX AJAX, stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, which is a term describing a web development technique for creating interactive web applications using a combination of: * HTML (or XHTML) and Cascading Style Sheets for presenting information* Document Object Model, JavaScript to dynamically display and interact with the information presented* XML, XSLT and the XMLHttpRequest object to interchange and manipulate data asynchronously with the web server.
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX).
Animation It is referred to an image that changes over time. A simple example is Abacus logo where the red dot is moving up and down every several seconds.
Bandwidth Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can travel a communications path in a given time, usually measured in seconds. If you think of the communications path as a pipe, then bandwidth represents the width of the pipe that determines how much data can flow through it all at once.
Banner Also referred to as a banner ad, a banner is a typically rectangular advertisement placed on a Web site either above, below or on the sides of the Web site's main content and is linked to the advertiser's own Web site.
Browser Very often called Web browser, a software application used to locate and display Web pages. The two most popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. There are many other browsers like AOL Browser, Opera, NeoPlanet and many others.
CGI [Common Gateway Interface] The Internet standard for sending information (such as a request or response) to a Web server. Generally used to handle information generated by forms on Web sites.
Content A word you'll likely see around a lot is "web content" and by definition, content is the 'stuff' that makes up a web site. This could be words, pictures, images or sounds. In essence however, when we talk about web content, we are essentially referring to content in a textual nature. Content therefore is the 'information' in text form a web site provides.
CSS [Cascading Style Sheets] A simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents. Not all browsers (of specific versions) implement the full specification of CSS.
Database A special way of organizing computer data. It looks like a table implemented columns and rows for fast accessing data from any of the cells in the table. There are many different types of databases but all of them work on the same principle. Databases are very useful for storing and organizing data for later retrieval. Very often used for managing accounts, managing user information, creating guest books and bulletin boards, even this page (dictionary) is implemented with database.
Directory A database edited manually by Humans. Sites are indexed by category making this feature the main difference to a Search Engine. Users can navigate through the categories to locate documents or information. Most directories offer searching options (which is similar to searching from a Search Engine) within its database.
Discussion Group A web page that supports interactive discussions by users. Users submit text content using a form, that is saved on the server and that way make it available to other visitors.
DNS The Domain Name System which identifies each computer as a network point on the Internet using an internet protocol address systems to translate from domain name to IP and reverse.
Domain Name A unique name that identifies one or more IP addresses. For example, the domain name abacus.ca represents one IP address. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. Every web site that you visit is stored under domain name.
Domain Name Extension Part after the dot in the domain name is a domain name extension. In the abacus.ca domain, domain extension is .ca . There are many other domain name extensions such as .com .net .org .gov .edu .mil .info .web .us .uk .cc .it .mx .ba and many others.
Downloading Downloading is the method by which users access and save or "pull down" software or other files to their own computers from a remote computer, usually via a modem.
E-Commerce E-Commerce means conducting business on the Internet. It is mostly referred to buying and selling items on line.
Encryption A way of coding the information in a file or e-mail message so that if it is intercepted by a third party as it travels over a network it cannot be read. Only the persons sending and receiving the information have the key and this makes it unreadable to anyone except those persons (your browser does it automatically).
Flash Browser independent vector and graphic animation technology owned by Macromedia Inc.. Most browsers support Flash technology and one flash animation looks the same on all browsers.
Frames An HTML technique for combining two or more separate HTML documents within a single web browser screen. A web site using frames often causes great problems for search engines, and may not be spidered and indexed correctly.
FTP FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol which is one of the methods of transferring files over the Internet.
GIF GIF stands for graphics interchange format, it is a bit-mapped graphics file format used by the World Wide Web. GIF supports colour and various resolutions. But it is limited to 256 colors.
Hits Are the individual requests a server answers in order to render a single Web page completely. The page document itself and the various images on the page represent a separate hit.
Home Page It is a first page (also called opening page) of a Web site.
Hosting Hosting is a service provided by hosting company. That's a place (a computer available on the Internet) where web site is stored and made available to web site users to view the content of that web site.
HTML Stands for HyperText Markup Language, derived from the Standardized General Markup Language (SGML),, the authoring and editing language used to create web pages on the World Wide Web.
Image Map An image that has several links geographically mapped onto it.
Interactive A Web page is interactive when it prompts a response from the user or in some way can interact with the user dynamically (eg; filling out a form or a poll etc).
Internet The largest global network connecting millions of computers. It is strictly based on TCP/IP protocol for communication between host and server.
Intranet A private network belonging to an organization, usually a corporation, accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others with authorization.
IP Address An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique identifier for a point or host connection on an IP network. An IP address is a 32 bit binary number usually represented as 4 decimal values, each representing 8 bits, in the range 0 to 255 (known as octets) separated by decimal points. It is just a number like 66.46.105.9
Java applet A short program written in Java (not JavaScript) that is attached to a World Wide Web page and executed by the browser machine. Often used for complicated web applications.
JavaScript JavaScript is a client-side scripting language that allows dynamic behavior to be specified within HTML documents. Most browsers support java however some browsers are disabled for JavaScript use.
JPEG (JPG) Stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG uses compression technique for color images and therefore some details are lost in the compression yet giving relatively good quality. It is widely used on the Internet and other digital applications.
Link Sometimes called hyperlink. A link is object on the web page. When visitor of a web site click with the mouse on that object then user is taken to another web page where the link is pointing to. Different types of links are: text links, graphic links, java links, form links and some other which are not very important.
Meta Tag A special HTML tag that provides information about a Web page. Unlike normal HTML tags, meta tags do not affect how the page is displayed.
Mouseover A JavaScript element that triggers a change on an item (typically a graphic change, such as making an image or hyperlink appear) in a Web page when the mouse pointer passes over it.
MP3 MP3 is the file extension for MPEG, audio layer 3. Layer 3 is one of three coding schemes (layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3) for the compression of audio signals. MP3 files could be embedded into web site providing music while visitors are viewing the site. MP3 files are relatively small comparing to other audio files and therefore are quite suitable for transferring over the Internet.
Page A document on the Web that is displayed by a Web browser.
Perl [Practical Extraction and Report Language] Perl is a server?side, interpreted language that provides much of the web's interactivity.
PHP PHP Hypertext Preprocessor is a server-side, HTML embedded scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages. Designed for Windows and Unix type platforms.
Pixel Refers to how monitors divide the display screen into thousands or millions of individual dots to display an image. A pixel is one dot.
Protocol A formal set of conventions that allow communication between two communicating functional units. Simply said it is a language that computers use to talk to each other. Of course there are many such languages. Most popular is TCP/IP used officially on the Internet.
Ranking The number (order of ranking; ie 1 being the highest) that a web site is listed for a specific search term in a specific search engine. Search Engines utilize a ranking algorithm (mathematical formulas, variables, and set of weights) to determine a site's ranking for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.
Resolution The resolution of an image describes how fine the dots are that make up that image. The more dots, the higher the resolution. When displayed on a monitor, the dots are called pixels. A 640 x 480 screen (resolution) is capable of displaying 640 distinct dots on each of its 480 lines, or about 300,000 pixels.
Script A script is an executable list of commands created by a scripting language. Scripts that are executed on a web server (eg; Perl, PHP) are said to be server?side scripts. Scripts that execute on your own home PC (eg; JavaScript) are said to be client?side scripts. Scripts can be embed within HTML to produce a web page with dynamic actions.
Scripting Language A scripting language is a simple programming language used to write an executable list of commands, called a script. JavaScript, Perl, VBscript are scripting languages rather than general-purpose programming languages.
Search Engine A program that performs searching on documents for specified terms or phrases and returns a list of the documents where those terms were found. Search Engines are lately referred to Internet Search Engines. Most popular search engines today are Google, Yahoo, MSN, AllTheWeb, Excite, Lycos, AOL, HotBot, Altavista. There are over several thousands search engines and growing every day.
Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an act of of increasing the the number of visitors to a particular Web site by adding appropriate keywords and phrases, and such ranking high in the search results. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that your site will be found by a search user. For general and competitive web sites it takes a lot of professionalism to tweak the web site in order to be well optimized and search engine friendly.
Server A computer, program or process which responds to requests for information from an user. On the internet, all web pages reside on servers (computers).
Site A particular 'place' on the Internet. A collection of Web pages.
Spam Spam referrs to the practice of blindly sending commercial messages or advertisements to email users or posting to newsgroups.
Spider An automated software robot that continuously crawls hyperlinks and pages on the Internet and collects data that is returned to its database for indexing. This is how Search Engines function. The process of crawling the web, storing URLs' and indexing keywords, links and text, is the act of Spidering.
SSI [Server?Side Includes] Tells a server to include information (source from a separate file) in a document before sending it to the browser. A very effective method of producing the same information over many pages as one file can be altered to produce the changes over the many the pages that includes the SSI file.
Sub?Domain (Name) A sub?domain is a domain that is part of a larger domain name. DNS hierarchy consists of the root-level domain at the top, underneath which are the top?level domains, followed by second?level domains and finally sub?domains.
Submission Forms Forms are web pages "fields" for a user to fill in with information. They are an excellent way of collecting and processing information from people visiting a website, as well as allowing them to interact with web pages. Forms are written in HTML and processed by CGI programs. The output can be sent as an e-mail form, stored online, printed, and/or returned to the user as an HTML page.
Tag An HTML tag is a formatting command written into a document that specifies how it should be formatted. A web browser interprets these tags and outputs the intended command (action).
Template HTML templates are skeletal HTML pages with the main content left out. Templates provide an effective solution in creating many pages with an identical look or navigational structure but different content.
Thumbnail A small version of a bigger image on a web page. Usually containing a hyperlink to a full-size version of the image.
Traffic Similar to a real?world sense of traffic on a road or freeway, traffic in a web?sense is a measurement of the amount of users that visit a Web site.
URI [Uniform Resource Identifier] The generic term for all types of names and addresses that refer to objects on the World Wide Web. A URL is one kind of URI.
URL It stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is a string that supplies the Internet address of a resource on the World Wide Web, along with the protocol by which the resource is accessed. The most common URL type is "http," which gives the Internet address of a World Wide Web page. Some other URL types are gopher and ftp.
Usability Refers to the level or degree of a page's operating friendliness for the user.
Validation Validation is a way to make sure that your (HTML) code is compliant with current HTML specifications.
Video Clip A short video sequence that can be embedded into a web page.
W3C [World Wide Web Consortium] Established in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability.
Web Application Web Applications are web programs or real programs designed to be used on the web site using a browser. Example of web application would be e-commerce web site, web banking, stock exchange on the web, web games and many others. Web applications are becoming very popular due to wide availability of the Internet access.
Web Based E-mail Web based e-mail is a software on a POP3 server that allows you the luxury, if desired, to access your POP accounts by simply using a web-browser. It allows users to send and receive emails via any web-browser by viewing an HTML web page.
Web Page One of the pages one the web site including home page.
Web Site A site presence on the World Wide Web. Each Web site contains a home page (opening page), which is the first document users see when they enter the site.
World Wide Web A system of Internet servers that support specially formatted documents. The documents are formatted in a script called HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that supports links to other documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files. This means you can jump from one document to another simply by clicking on hot spots. Not all Internet servers are part of the World Wide Web.
WWW [World Wide Web] Is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. Browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape are utilized to access the vast collection of interconnected (hyperlinked) documents on the web.
