Dictionary

Alt Attribute

An alt attribute is used to specify alternate text for an image. It provides text information about an image if is used in the <img> tag so that search engines understand what the image is about. Alt text plays a role in SEO.

ASP

ASP (Active Server Pages) is a Windows-based server-side scripting language used for creating dynamic web content.

Backend

The backend of a website refers to the code, files and server processes that make the website work. The back-end is what the web designer builds, the front-end is what the web site visitor sees.

Backlink

A Backlink is just a link from someone else’s web site to yours. The more quality backlinks your website has, the better rankings it receives from search engines.

Bandwidth

The rate of data transfer, measured in bits per second (bit/s). The more bandwidth the faster the connection.

Beta

Beta test is the phase of software testing in which a sampling of the intended audience tries the product out. At this stage, the software or website is not guaranteed to be 100% operational.

Black Hat

SEO techniques that attempt to deceive search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo into ranking a page higher than it really deserves.

Blog

A blog is an informational website consisting of articles, news, diary-style content, or journal entries referred to as posts. A blog is nothing more than a website where you can share your thoughts, passions, and experiences.

Breadcrumbs

The navigational elements at or near the top of the page showing the path within the site from the homepage to the current page.

Broken Link

A link that points to a page that does not exist. A broken link produces a “404” error (not found).

Browser

Software used to access web pages. Examples are Safari, Opera, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Etc.

Bug

A bug refers to an error, fault or flaw in any computer software or a hardware system.

CMS

Short for Content Management System. CMS refers to a software application or a set of related programs that are used to create and manage digital content. Blogs, websites, software, etc.

Cookie

A small text file that a web site saves on a user’s computer. The file contains information about that user.

Cpanel

Cpanel is a web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface (GUI) and tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a website to the website owner.

CSS

CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) is the language for describing the presentation of Web pages, including colors, layout, and fonts. It simply makes websites look beautiful.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

Click-through rate, referred to as CTR, is a measure of the number of clicks on a specific link compared to the number of views or impressions of the link in an ad or email marketing campaign. The higher the number, the more effective the ad or campaign is.

Database

A database is just a collection of organized data stored in a computer, especially one that is accessible in various ways. Databases are typically used to store information like user account information, passwords, bank statements, product information, etc. A database is just like an excel spreadsheet.

Dedicated Server

In web design, a dedicated server is a single web server (computer) to host one single website. All the resources on the server are exclusively for the use of the website.

Deprecated

Deprecation is the discouragement of the use of software, code, HTML tags, features, frameworks, or simply coding practices; typically because they have been superseded or are no longer considered efficient or safe – but without completely removing it or prohibiting its use.

Domain

The name by which a website is identified. www.inovawebdesign.com is our domain name. Domains can include letters, numbers, and hyphens only.

Domain Extension

The notation at the end of a web address that specifies an Internet category or a country code. Examples are .com, .net, .org, .edu .mx, .ca, etc.

Dynamic WebSite

A website where the content changes based on user input. A dynamic website uses a database to store and retrieve information.

E-commerce

The common name for a website that sells products or services also referred to as an online store. An online shopping cart and a payment method are usually involved.

External Link

An external link is any link that goes to a different domain.

Favicon

A favicon is a little icon that browsers display next to a page’s title on a browser tab to easily identify the website.

Frontend

The visual structure of a website. What the end-user sees on a web page. HTML, CSS, and Javascript are the main front-end frameworks.

FTP

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is one way of transferring files across the Net. When we design a website, we first build it locally in our own computers and once it is ready we upload it to your server via FTP.

GIF

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a popular image format for the web. A GIF is basically an image file format that is animated by combining several other images or frames into a single file.

Homepage

The homepage is the main page of a website, for example, the main page of this website is inovawebdesign.com. The homepage is the introductory page of a website, typically serving as a table of contents for the site.

Host, Hosting, Hosting Provider

A host or hosting provider is an internet service provider that allows companies, businesses, organizations, and individuals to host and make their website accessible from anywhere in the world via the World Wide Web through a web server (computer). In simple terms, A hosting company leases/rents space on their web servers to you, the client.

HTML

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the authoring language used to create web pages on the World Wide Web.

Index

The index page is the most common name used for the default page shown on a website if no other page is specified when a visitor requests the site.

IP

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on the Internet. Every computer connected to the Internet has an IP or IP address. An IP address looks like this 123.456.7.89.

JavaScript

JavaScript is a programming language used to program the behavior of web pages. Alongside HTML and CSS, JavaScript is one of the three core technologies of website creation.

JPG/JPEG

JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format is an image format that is commonly used in website design.

Keyword

A particular word or phrase that describes the contents of a Web page.

Landing Page

In simple terms, a landing page is a web page on a website that is accessed via a link from another page and/or website.

Layout

How elements (Logo, main menu, images, text, etc.) on a web page are arranged.

Link

A link is a text, an image or an area on a web page that can be clicked to open a new page.

Lorem Ipsum

Synonym for dummy text or placeholder text. It helps the designer visualize the final product.

Mailing List

A collection or list of email addresses of people who provided/subscribed to a particular email newsletter. The mailing list is also referred to as newsletter subscriber.

Malware

Malware, Short for “Malicious software”, is a term used to describe a piece of code/software designed to infect systems in order to steal or destroy data.

Meta Tag

An HTML tag that provides information about a website or web page and has no effect on how the page is displayed. This tag is mostly used by web browsers and search engines to get detailed information about the website or web page.

Meta Tag

An HTML tag that provides information about a website or web page and has no effect on how the page is displayed. This tag is mostly used by web browsers and search engines to get detailed information about the website or web page.

Nav Bar

Short for “Navigation Bar”, it is the section that contains the main menu for the website. It may contain text links, buttons, or images in a row or column that serves as a control point to link the user to sections on the website.

Not Found – 404 Error

Also known as a 404 error, it is an error message (web page) response by the server that a page was moved, deleted or that never existed.

Online

The action to be connected to the internet. When you have a browser open surfing the web you are said to be online.

Opera

Opera is a web browser just like Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.

Optimization

Optimization is the process of improving a web page search engine ranking by adding or editing its contents.

Outbound Link

A link that takes the visitor to an external or different domain (website).

Page Views

The number of web page requests. In simple words, the number of times users have visited a web page.

PPC

Abbreviation for Pay Per Click, It is a marketing technique in which the advertiser pays for the number of clicks or views he receives in an online advertising campaign.

Permalink

Permalink (Short for a permanent link) is a URL that is intended to remain unchanged for many years into the future.

Pixel

The smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a video display system.

PNG

Short for Portable Network Graphics, is an image format suitable for use on websites. It supports transparency and compression. Mostly used for logos, icons and when no background color is needed.

Pop Up

A window that suddenly appears/triggers (pops up) when you select an option with a mouse, press a special function key or access a web page.

Privacy Policy

A web page on a website where the company discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client’s data.

Query

In web development, a query is a request for information to the server from a database.

Ranking

In web development, ranking describes how well a site performs with search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Redirect

Function in a website that sends a user from one URL to another.

Rich Cards

Rich cards are search results that display previews of web page contents like articles, news, events, movies, recipes, and other types of information.

Rich Snippet

A rich snippet is a standard search result snippet that contains extra information about the contents of the web page. Rich snippets usually display reviews, product price, availability, events, movies, navigation links, etc.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a text file in a website created to instruct web robots (typically search engine robots) how to crawl pages on their website.

RSS

Short for Rich Site Summary is a format for delivering regularly changing web content.

Safari

Safari is a web browser that was developed by Apple Inc.

Sandbox

Sandbox is a testing environment that helps test code or software before it goes live. We use a sandbox to design and develop websites for our clients.

Search Engine

A search engine is a software program or script available through the Internet that searches documents and files for keywords and returns the results of any files containing those keywords. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are search engines.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search engine optimization commonly known as SEO is a methodology of strategies, techniques, and tactics used to increase the visibility and rankings of a website in an organic way (free). An SEO strategy aims to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine like Gooogle, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

Search Engine Results Pages (SERP)

Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) are the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query by a searcher.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is also known as SEM refers to all form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results. 2 of the most common strategies are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click).

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting refers to a hosting service platform where multiple websites share a large server (computer). It is more affordable since resources for the server are shared by all websites. If you are a small business owner and your website traffic is relatively low, shared hosting is recommended.

Sitemap

A site map is a document/web page on a website that lists all the web pages within the website. It is basically a table of contents on the website. A sitemap informs search engines about the contents of your website.

Source Code

Source Code (generally speaking) is a text file version of a computer program or software that contains instructions that the computer follows to do something. Basically all the HTML, javascript, CSS, PHP, etc tags that make the website work.

Spider

Spider in web development refers to a program that surfs the Internet. This program jumps from one page to the next by following links with the purpose of storing (indexing) all the information it finds. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing make use of spiders to collect information from and about web sites to facilitate results to its users.

Static Website

A static website contains Web pages with fixed content. Each page is coded in HTML and displays the same information to every visitor. Learn more in our WordPress Vs Static Website blog post.

SSH

SSH (Secure Socket Shell) is a network communication protocol that provides users a safe way to access a server (computer) over an unsecured network. Some uses include remote command-line execution, login, and remote file accessibility.

Wireframe

Wireframe
In web design, a wireframe is a graphic representation of a webpage layout without any fancy graphics or images. Its a skeletal model created mainly with lines and vertices.

WordPress

WordPress is an open-source (free) publishing platform and content management system that you can use to create a website, blog, or online store. WordPress is free to use, and there are no licensing fees or subscriptions. You can use WordPress as much as you like without any limitations. You can download WordPress and even modified the source code if you are motivated enough.