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Glossary of terms used by N-Web Design

We appreciate that many terms or phrases used in our web site amy require further explanation.

We have compiled a listing of terms that we hope will give you some helpful additional information when using our web site

Glossary

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation is the practice of preparing a web site and web pages to be more effective in achieving high search engine rankings

E-Commerce

E-Commerce stands for Electronic Commerce and is a term used to encompass the practice of selling or commercial activity on the internet. E-Commerce is generally associate with on-line shops and sites selling goods and services.

Page Ranking

Page ranking is he rating of your web page in a search engine listing.

Search Engine

A search engine is a web site application which stores and retrieves listings of web sites, which it returns based on the search term inputted by the search engine user.

Robot

In this context, a robot (or 'bot) is a computer program that visits then systematically reads and processes the content of a web site.

Web Crawler

A web crawler is another term for robot.

HTML

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is designed to be flexible, easy to use and is used to tell web browsers how to construct a web page it has requested. HTML is such a vast and interesting subject, well beyond the purposes of this glossary. You can find information on HTML, its history, standards and usage on the W3C's HTML reference section.

CSS

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a mechanism for adding style to HTML documents. CSS allows the designer or developer to define elements within an HTML page to add rich colour, texture and uniformity to layouts. CSS is a very important tool in the structure of modern web sites. The way web browsers display web pages can be greatly influenced by CSS so it is important for the designer to know about the interaction of HTML, CSS and the web browser. You can find information on CSS, its history, standards and usage on the W3C's CSS reference section.

W3C

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is the centre for managing many of the technologies used on the internet. The W3C acts to maintaining standards and information, aimed at maximising the potential of the world wide web. More information on the W3C can be found on the W3C web site

WAI & WCAG

The WAI provides strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities. You can find more information by visiting the WAI Websaite.

Algorithms

IP address

an IP Address is a numerical number used to identify a host computer on the internet. IP Addresses are unique.

Site Map

A site map is a web page that is used to list all the pages that can be found on a web site. The common formats used for site maps are xml and html. HTML pages are intended for use by site human visitors, whereas XML sitemaps are intended for use by search engine robots, although they are perfectly usable by human visitors also.

XML

XML is eXtensible Markup Language. It is a close relative of HTML and XHTML but is used for the presentation of data or information in an easily distributed format that may be consumed by any system or service, irrespective of what system created it. XML is used extensively in data exchange formats and web services. More information can be found on the W£C's XML web site.

Markup Language

Typo Squatting

Typo squatting is a term used for sites where a domain name is selected that closely matches common typing errors used in looking for a well known site in order to attract traffic to an alternative resource. For example googgle.com may be used to mislead people who accidentally type google.com in their web browser.

Cloaking

Cloaking is the technique of presenting web site content depending on the visitor. It is used in some circumstances as an SEO technique to present different web site content to a search engine robot than to a human visitor. You can read more about cloaking on the Wikipaedia cloaking page. This is not recommended for search engine optimisation.

Spamming

Spamming is the overuse or repetition of words or phrases in such a manner that they are intended to promote a web site or resource to electronic visitors whilst not neccessarily being of value to human visitors. Spamming on web pages is carefully checked by search engines and is not recommended.

Web Statistics

Web statistics are mprmally graphical representations of server log files, used to present imformation about the web site's visitors, their interation and source. Web stats or statistics are invaluable in assessing the performance and usage of a web site over a period of time.

Keywords

Keywords are words used to identify the main topic of content for a web page or web site. Used as a reference, they help a search engine to decide on the relevance of a page for inclusion in its listing for the topic claimed by the keywords.

Meta Tags

Weta tags are part of the HTML specification. Added to the section of a web page, they are used to define page-wide information and resources to the browser. Used primarily for search engine optimisation purposes to present keyword and description information for use by search engines, they are an important part of the SEO process.

RSS

UML

About our glossary of internet terms

This list is intended to be helpful in understanding some of the topics and information included in our web site content. We do not intend to be authoratative on these subjects and suggest some further reading if we have not explained them entirely. Where appropriate, we have offered links to help the visitor with further information but we also suggest using a search engine should you need more details about any of the subjects we have included here.

Whilst we hope we have covered every term that visitors may find useful in an accurate manner, there may be terms or words used that need further explanation that we have not included in our glossary or that we may have presented in a misleading or incorrect manner.

If you feel that we have neglected any additions to our glossary or have included incorrect information, please let us know so we can make any neccessary changes. You can find out how to get in touch on our contacts page

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