a PDF
of this information.
 Glossary
of Intenet and Web Jargon
BOOKMARK/FAVORITES
A way in Netscape to store in your computer direct links to sites
you wish to return to. The equivalent in Internet Explorer (IE)
is called a "Favorite."
BROWSERS
Browsers are software programs that enable you to view WWW documents.
They "translate" HTML-encoded files into the text, images,
sounds, and other features you see
CACHE
A cache temporarily stores web pages you have visited in your computer
CGI
"Common Gateway Interface," the most common way Web programs
interact dynamically with users
COOKIE
A message from a WEB SERVER computer sent to and stored by your
browser on your computer. When your computer consults the originating
server computer, the cookie is sent back to the server, allowing
it to respond to you according to the cookie's contents. The main
use for cookies is to provide customized Web pages according to
a profile of your interests.
DOMAIN
A hierarchical scheme for indicating logical and sometimes geographical
venue of a web-page from the network. In the US, common domains
are .edu (education), .gov (government agency), .net (network related),
.com (commercial), .org (nonprofit and research organizations).
DOWNLOAD
To copy something from a primary source to a more peripheral one,
as in saving something found on the Web (currently located on its
server) to diskette or to a file on your local hard drive.
FRAMES
A format for web documents that divides the screen into segments,
each with a scroll bar as if it were as "window" within
the window. Usually, selecting a category of documents in one frame
shows the contents of the category in another frame.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol. Ability to transfer rapidly entire files
from one computer to another, intact for viewing or other purposes.
HIT
A hit is the calculation of all elements of one individual page
impression. Be wary of Web sites that promote “hits”.
HOST
A computer that provides web-documents to clients or users. See
also server.
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language. A standardized language of computer code,
embedded in "source" documents behind all Web documents,
containing the textual content, images, links to other documents
(and possibly other applications such as sound or motion), and formatting
instructions for display on the screen.
HYPERTEXT
On the World Wide Web, the feature, built into HTML, that allows
a text area, image, or other object to become a "link"
(as if in a chain) that retrieves another computer file (another
Web page, image, sound file, or other document) on the Internet.
INTERNET (Upper case I)
The vast collection of interconnected networks that all use the
TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60’s
and early 70’s. An "internet" (lower case i) is
any computers connected to each other (a network), and are not part
of the Internet unless the use TCP/IP protocols. An "intranet"
is a private network inside a company or organization that uses
the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet,
but that is only for internal use. An intranet may be on the Internet
or may simply be a network.
IP Address or IP Number
(Internet Protocol number or address). A unique number consisting
of 4 parts separated by dots, (e.g. 165.113.245.2). Every machine
that is on the Internet has a unique IP address. If a machine does
not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines
also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to
remember.
ISP or Internet Service Provider
A company that sells Internet connections via modem (examples: aol,
Mindspring).
JAVA
A network-oriented programming language invented by Sun Microsystems
that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely
downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately
run without fear of viruses or other harm to our computer or files.
Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages
can include functions such as animations, calculators, and other
fancy tricks.
KEYWORD(S)
Words on a Web site or words used to find specific topics or areas
of interest.
LINK
The URL embedded in another document, so that if you click on the
highlighted text or button referring to the link, you retrieve the
outside URL. If you search the field "link:", you retrieve
on text in these imbedded URLs, which you do not see in the documents.
PAGE IMPRESSIONS
The actual number of individual web pages displayed by a web site
in any given time frame. Page impressions are not the same as “Hits”.
Hits are an inaccurate way to gauge Web traffic.
PLUG-IN
An application built into a browser or added to a browser to enable
it to interact with a special file type (such as a movie, sound
file, Word document, etc.)
RANKING RESULTS
The order in which search results appear. Each search tool uses
its own unique algorithm. Most use "fuzzy and" combined
with factors such as how often your terms occur in documents and
whether in title or how near the top of the text. Popularity is
another ranking system.
SERVER, WEB SERVER
A computer running that software assigned an IP address, and connected
to the Internet so that it can provide documents via the World Wide
Web. Also called "Host" computer. Web servers are the
closest equivalent to what in the print world is called the "publisher"
of a print document. Also called a "Host."
SITE or WEB-SITE
This term is often used to mean "Web page," but there
is supposed to be a difference. A Web page is a single entity, one
URL, one file that you might find on the Web. A "site,"
properly speaking, is a location or gathering or center for a bunch
of related pages linked to from that site.
SPIDERS
Computer robot programs, referred to sometimes as "crawlers"
or "knowledge-bots" or "knowbots" that are used
by search engines to roam the World Wide Web via the Internet, visit
sites and databases, and keep the search engine database of Web
pages up to date.
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) -- This is the
suite of protocols that defines the Internet.
TELNET
Internet service allowing one computer to log onto another, connecting
as if not remote.
TOTAL USERS
The sum of all users that visit a Web site.
UNIQUE USER
The sum of all individual users minus the additional number of times
that they visit a Web site. If Joe Doe visits your site 10,000 times,
he is counted as 10,000 in the “total user” stat and
1.0 in the “unique user” stat.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of
any Web document.
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