If you don't know your bit's from your byte's, or what you should do with cookie's, spiders and trojans, then take a look at our glossary.
Designed with normal web users in mind the definitions are written in plain english and listed alphabetically for your convenience.
However if you are unsure of any of the terms used on our site, and they are not featured in our glossary, please feel free to contact us and we will be happy to explain and clarify further.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Accessibility
The physical and technological barriers to people with disabilities interacting with a web page or site. We endeavour to make all our sites accessible to everyone, regardless of ability, and comply with the 508 standard.
ASP
Active Server Page. Dynamically created web page, generally using programming scripts and integrated with the HTML of a page. The ASP code is then compiled on the fly by the server and outputs standard HTML. It's a server side scripting language, mostly used on Windows platforms for interactive functions.
Bandwidth
The amount of data that can be transferred over the network during a fixed amount of time. A hosting server will usually allocate your site a fixed amount of bandwidth usage for a given period of time.
Banner
A banner is a graphic image (static, animated or rich media) that is placed on websites for advertisement.
Blog
Short for web log, a blog is an online journal with entries usually ordered chronologically. Often administered using a content management system, allowing those not technically minded to contribute with ease.
Browser
Software that is used to display webpage content on your computer, thus enabling the user to access and view the resources on the Internet. The two most widely used browsers are: Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), and Mozilla Firefox.
Chat
Content
The words, images, pictures or sounds that make up a web site.
Cookie
A cookie is a file, held on your computer, that's associated with a specific web site. Cookies identify web site visitors to the site,enabling them to prepare customised web pages for them. It’s good practice to get consent from your visitor before you store a cookie on their machine.
Crawler
A program that visits web sites and reads their pages and other information to gather entries for a search engine index.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets. A feature of HTML that enables designers to specify style information, such as fonts, size and colour for a web page. CSS can also define the placement of elements on a page.
Domain Name
The main part of an internet address that is its unique identification e.g. `mysite.com` or `flowers.co.uk`.
Dynamic
A dynamic web page has some element added to it between when it is requested and when it is downloaded by the end user. It usually has a file extension of .php or .asp. Static pages are written in HTML and will appear the same every time you load them.
Encryption
Conversion of data from it's original form so that it can not be interpreted by others. Only the sender and recipient have the key to convert the data back to it's original form. The purpose of encryption is to prevent unauthorised people from viewing data as it travels across the Internet.
Firefox
The award-winning, free Web browser is better than ever. Browse the Web with confidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups. Enjoy improvements to performance, ease of use and privacy. It's easy to import your favourites and settings and get started.
Firewall
Hardware, software or a combination of both that acts as a security filter to restrict types of network communications. Most often used to protect an individual computer from the Internet.
Flash
Graphic software from Adobe that allows a single animation file to play on all browsers, provided the Flash plug in is installed. The advantages of Flash are the quick download times and the engaging interfaces and websites that can be produced.
Forum
FTP
Gigabyte
1024 megabytes (MB), commonly rounded down to one billion bytes.
Hits
The number of times a page or a file within a page is viewed or has been downloaded.
Home Page
The main or first page of your website. Make sure the content is excellent and the design is appealing, or your visitors wont get any further!
Hosting
The act of storing and providing information over the Internet. Hosting companies over hosting space for lease, enabling companies or individuals to set up their own sites or other Internet content.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
This is the language of the Web. HTML is a set of tags, that is used to define the content, layout & formatting of Web documents. Browsers interpret these HTML tags to define how to display the web page.
Internet Explorer
Itunes
Apple's computer music application, now upgraded to include the world's largest downloadable music store.
Ipod
Javascript
This language is used for rollovers, for automatically changing a formatted date on a web page, for creating pop-up windows, and other simple functions. Javascript can be embedded in HTML pages and directly interpreted by the Web browser or client.
Keyword
The words used as an input in search engines to perform the search.
Link
A pointer to another document , usually a link to another web page. Hyperlink and hotlink are older synonyms for a link.
Messenger
Meta Tag
A specific kind of HTML tag that contains information about the page itself. Typical uses of meta tags are to include information for search engines to help them better categorise the page.
Mouse Over
A javascript element that triggers a change on an item (typically a graphic change, such as making an image or a hyperlink appear) in a web when the mouse pointer passes over it.
Navigation
The hierarchical relationship between pages on a website, mapped out in a site diagram, which is then used to determine the links that will appear in each pages navigation bars.
Netiquette
Acceptable behaviour online - for example, don't write emails entirely in capital letters. Not only are these hard to read, it is the online equivalent of SHOUTING!
Newsletter
Opera
A very good open source & standards compliant alternative browser to Internet Explorer & Firefox.
PDF - Portable Document Format
PDF files can be viewed using Adobe's Acrobat cross-browser, cross-platform compatible text viewing software.
Perl
A script programming language. Programmes written for a CGI gateway are often written in Perl.
PHP
PHP Hypertext Preprocessor is a scripting language often used to create dynamic web pages. A MySql database holds the necessary information: PHP takes the required information and sets it out as a web page on demand.
Phishing
A form of Internet fraud, where a dummy site is created that resembles a legitimate organisation. Emails are sent out requesting recipients log on to the site in order to fraudulently obtain the users access codes and passwords. This information is then used for further fraud.
Pop Up
Those annoying adverts that "pop up" in a new window when you are viewing a website. Not good practice to use anymore and generally frowned upon by the Internet community.
Portal
A web portal is a site that creates a single point of access to information collected from several different sources.
Quicktime
A format for video playback. A free plug-in is required to enable a browser to display content saved in Quicktime format.
Referrals
Referrals are tracked in website logs, showing where a site's visitors originated from and the search words they used to find it.
Also relates to site referrals on affiliate programmes in order to reward the sites who send you the most qualified traffic.
Rich Media
Media with more than just text & images, using sound, video and special effects, via progammes such as Flash & Shockwave. Often includes a level of user interactivity also.
Rollover
A feedback cue that is activated when the mouse cursor is moved over a particular element or button on a webpage.
RSS - Really Simple Syndication
RSS is a platform over which a webmaster can instantly deliver summarised information about the latest, most important content on their site. This summary can be a list of headlines and snippets displayed in an RSS reader and some RSS compatible browsers and email clients.
Search Engine
Software that searches online documents for specific content.
SEO - Search Engine Optimisation
The process of increasing visitors to a site by increasing a web page's relevance ranking on a search engine results page.
Server
The computer that hold your websites files on the Internet, ready for other computers or clients to access.
Shockwave
A plug-in for your computer that enables your browser to display rich media content.
Shopping Cart
Software programme that displays and sells goods online. Many, including ours, are database driven for easier organisation & stock control.
Splash Page
A web site's introduction page, usually using flashy graphics and animation.
Spider
Software programme sent out by search engines to find web content by following hyperlinks across the internet.
Streaming
Streaming is the act of sending media, such as sound and video, in compressed form over the Internet to be played as it arrives. The user doesn't have to wait for a large file to be downloaded completely before playing the file.
Thread
A series of posts, related to the same subject, in a discussion group or Forum.
Toolbar
Traffic
The volume of visitors to a given website. Measured with statistics, such as hits and page access.
Trojan
A computer programme - hidden in another programme - that destroys software or collects information about the use of a computer, often for malicious purposes.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address for a file on the internet.
Virus
Viral Marketing
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium. The group responsible for defining many major standards used in web design, such as HTML & CSS.