Internet and website-related activities
AdSense®
A Google® service that puts advertisements
on others' websites automatically.
Google pays the website owners for publishing its
ads. (See also Pay-per-Click.)
AdWords®
A Google® service that accepts advertisements for
placement on others' websites. Advertisers
pay Google for this service, and Google shares
this revenue with the other website owners
who publish these ads. (See also AdSense, and
Pay-per-Click.)
Affiliate
Term for a website that sends potential
customers to another website by means of outbound
links. The website sending the customers receives
commission payments from the receiving website
for sending the customers.
Bandwidth
Measure of network capacity that connects
servers and the Internet. A website used frequently
by many people requires a lot of bandwidth.
Click-thru
Action of a website user of clicking on
a hyperlink in order to reach another web page,
which page may be on the same or another website.
A user "clicking through" to a different website
may be an economically valuable event, as when
the first website introduces the user—a potential
customer—to
another second website.
Content
The information on a web page and website: text,
images (pictures), sound recordings, PDF files,
etc.
Disk (or Server) Space
Measure of capacity on the storage medium
of a website server. The content files for a website
take up a certain amount of "space" (capacity)
on the storage medium (hard disk drive) of
a server computer. Web hosts may charge a higher
fee for storage of a larger number (or size) of
files on a server's hard disk.
Domain Name
The official Internet name used by Domain Name
Servers to locate and access a website. Domain
names (such as writerswebsiteplanner.com) end
in .com, .org, .net,
.edu, .gov, .mil, .biz, or some other categorization
(known as a "top level domain").
Domain Name Registrar
A service that registers the names of websites
chosen by website owners and integrates the names
into the domain name system by recording them
on computers known as Domain Name Servers, the
"address books" of the Internet.
Domain Name Servers (DNS)
The "address books" of the Internet: computers
in the Internet system that store domain names,
receive
requests
from
computers to be connected to other computers
in order to view web pages and/or other "resources,"
and uses the stored domain names to make the
connections
so
that
the pages may be communicated.
Dreamweaver®
A professional-level software program product
of Adobe Systems,
Inc. (formerly
of Macromedia)
for use in designing, building and maintaining
Internet
websites.
Google
The most-used Internet search engine.
Host
Also called web host, a business
that maintains computers that store website files
and make them available to Internet
users
through
connection to the Internet.
HTML
HyperText Markup Language,
a computer "language" used to define the appearance
and functions of websites and their pages. When
talking of websites, HTML is often referred to
as "code" or "source code." Superset elaborations
of such code include XHTML, XML, etc. Other sorts
of computer code, such as Javascript, QuickTime,
may be included in the
overall HTML source code.
Hyperlink
Also called embedded link or
simply link, a
connection between some element of website content
and another
element of website content. Links most often connect
words or portions of text on a web page with other
web pages, but may also be between words, phrases,
sentences,
pages,
images,
etc. on the same page. Links are defined in the
website's source code (see HTML), often through
the use of website design programs such as Dreamweaver®.
Hypertext
Website text characterized by hyperlinks,
allowing for the non-linear arrangement and reading
of all the text. (See also linear text and
Optimized Hypertext™.)
Linear Text
Text arranged to
be read as a continuum, from beginning to end,
as in a traditional article, story, or book.
(See also hypertext
and Optimized Hypertext™.)
Optimized
Hypertext™
Hypertext
written so as to optimize intuitive navigability of
the entire body of content, reader comprehension
and enjoyment, and search engine optimization.
Pay-per-Click (PPC)
A method of online commercial revenue genration
whereby a website publisher earns payment whenenver
a website user clicks on a designated link. An
example of pay-per-click is Google AdSense: when
a user clicks on a Google advertisement link,
the publisher of the website on which the advertisement
appears is credited with a sum of money.
PDF (Portable Document Format)
A technology developed and owned by n
Adobe Systems, Inc. permitting the composition
of electronic documents so that
they
can be viewed by others with composition and formatting
(layout, typeface, etc.) intact even if the viewer
does not have access to the software programs used
in composing the document.
Search Engine
An Internet service that searches and
catalogs online content and helps users to locate
and
access the content. Google, Yahool! and MSN
Search are search engines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The refinement of website content, the
development of inbound links to the website, and
publicity about
the website aimed at raising the position of
the website in the SERPs (Search Engline Results
Pages). Some companies offer search engine
optimization services, some of dubious value.
Search Engine Results Pages
(SERPs)
The web pages showing the results of a
search engine's search for keywords and pages on
which those keywords
appear. SERPs for any keyword search may number
in the hundreds or thousands. Internet users usually
only read the first few SERPs. Websites that appear
on the first few SERPs have the highest chance
of being accessed by the searcher.
Server
A computer connected to the Internet that
stores web page files and delivers ("serves") them
to other computers that request them. (See also
Website Host.)
Universal Resource Locator
(URL)
The "address" of
any particular web page or other element of content
on the Internet. The URL appears in a field (space)
at the top of an Internet
browser window. For web pages, the URL usually begins
with "http://" and ends with ".htm" or ".html". However,
other sorts of Internet resources, such as images,
sound recordings, and PDF files, are also accessed
by URLs.
Website Host
Also called simply host, a business
that provides the service of storing website files
and
making them available to Internet users through
connection to the Internet.