Glossary of Commonly Used Web Terminology:
This glossary doesn’t include everything, but it is a work-in-progress and we will be building on it often. If there’s a term that you’d like to suggest, don’t hesitate to contact us. Please note also that this glossary has been written from a small business perspective as they are the primary audience for this website.
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CMS (Content Management System): A CMS is a password-protected area of your website where you (and other users you specify) can login to edit content (pages, blog posts, etc.) using a a tool that usually resembles Microsoft Word or a similar “What You See is What You Get”/”WYSIWYG” word processor. Commonly, CMS platforms also include the ability to add/delete/hide web pages and blog posts and may have other functionality like controls for e-commerce, lead generation or photo galleries built in. It is important to note that CMS platforms store content and other information in a database and not in a “traditional” HTML page. Common small business CMS platforms include Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. Of all the common CMS platforms, WordPress has the largest market share and is generally regarded as the standard for small business content management.
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are files that live on your web server and act as a “rulebook” for displaying your site, telling the web browser how page elements should be arranged, what fonts, colors and sizes should use, etc. The entire framework of your website should be developed in CSS rather than using tables which is a dated practice and has not been considered acceptable for 5+ years.
Domain Name: Also commonly known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), a domain name is a means of identifying a website (a unique alphanumeric name followed by an extension like .com., .net., .biz., .me, .info, .us, etc.) and is, in Internet terms, analogous to a street address. It is vital that small businesses assume ownership of all the domain names relevant to their business and properly maintain them as they are bought and sold on a first-come-first-serve basis on the open market. Domain names, when registered properly through a Registrar (like GoDaddy or Network Solutions) domain names are very cheap, generally less than $20/year. When bought from a third party, domain names can be very expensive, often costing thousands of dollars to secure. It is generally not recommended that businesses trust the purchase of their domains to a third party like an advertising/web agency or a developer as regaining ownership of those assets can be difficult and costly after the fact — and sometimes impossible. Ownership of a domain name entitles the owning party to create and maintain a website at that address and/or the ability to sell that domain name to an interested third party.
Host (or Hosting): Either bought or leased (on a monthly or annual payment plan), hosting is a service that runs web servers for the purpose of allowing customers to keep their websites there. There are many different types of hosting; dedicated, shared and self hosting being the most common. Hosting is “dedicated” when a host company sells or leases you a private server which you can use exclusively. “Shared hosting” means that many customers share a single server but that each customer has their own share or partition of the server and client sites/files do not ever intermix; shared hosting is also the cheapest and most common form of small business web hosting. You are said to be “self hosting” if you own and maintain your own web server and keep it on-site. Self hosting is generally NOT recommended for a small business that does not have a full-time IT staff.
HTML: Short for HyperText Markup Language, HTML is the code that web browsers read to render websites on your screen. An HTML document or “page” does not actually include all of the elements on the page (images, movies, animations). HTML includes the page text and then acts as a “roadmap” telling the browser where to find related images, style sheets, movies, etc.
Linux: A free or open-source computer operating system that is commonly used on web servers. There are many variations (or flavors) of Linux though the differences between these siblings are not terribly important from a small business perspective. Linux is generally considered the standard for small business web hosting.
MySQL: See SQL.
.NET: A software/programming framework that runs on servers running on a Microsoft Windows operating system. Although .NET has many functions, it is generally used on websites as means of connecting the site with a database so that user experiences may be customized or content managed by a CMS. Widely considered to be the best platform for enterprise-level applications, it is generally not used in small business because it is relatively expensive to develop in and because there is a limited community of affordable developers to support it for small business. PHP (which runs on servers using a Linux operating system) is far more commonly used for small business applications.
PHP:Code that extends the functionality of HTML. PHP is mainly used to make dynamic (or database-drivern) web pages. PHP code is written in conjunction with HTML. Once the web page is requested by your browser it is parsed (interpreted) by the server and converted into HTML. This allows information stored in a database to be requested in real-time. PHP performs similar functions as .NET but runs primarily on Linux-based servers.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization): A process by which website owners attempt to improve their position or “ranking” on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. There are many ways to optimize sites including “white hat” (or accepted) methods like improving site content, changing site content frequently and adding descriptive text in the site code and “black hat” (or unaccepted/hacker) methods. Black hat SEO is based on an idea that you can trick/game search engines into ranking your site higher; these methods are usually only effective in the short term and may result in your site being permanently banned/blacklisted from major search engines.
Server (or Web Server): Much as a server in a restaurant brings you food, a web server is a computer connected to the internet that brings web pages, content, files, images, videos, etc. to your PC. Websites are said to be “hosted” on a server which means that the files for that website are stored on that server just as you keep files on the hard drive on your PC. A server may be owned and kept in a company office, owned and kept at a third party location, or rented/leased from a hosting company.
SQL: A database language commonly used for web servers, often pronounced “sequel.” MySQL is an open-source version of this which runs on Linux servers.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificate: This is a program used to encrypt data being submitted through a website. It is generally used whenever very confidential information (like medical history or credit card numbers) are being submitted online and is, in fact REQUIRED for these types of transactions. As a site visitor, you will know if the page you’re on is protected by SSL if the URL of the page beings with “https://” instead of “http://”.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL): The “address” of a website, web page or other online file or resource.
