Glossary of Internet Terms
A
- A/B Testing
A/B Testing is the method used to compare the effectiveness of two different landing pages. Depending on the KPI driving the campaign, they may be looking for more leads, or longer time spent on page, or increase engagement as examples.
First two separate pages are made and the server is configured to serve two versions of the page to an equal amount of traffic that is shared while the campaign is running. After the campaign ends the statistics generated from the campaign shows which page had higher points than the other. And so this process can be repeated until the highest performing page is attained using data driven solely by visitors.
- Above The Fold
Everything “Above The Fold” is all the content in the Viewport of any device from desktop computers to small mobile screens.
ℹ Newspapers are typically folded in half. Historically all news on the first half of the folded newspaper was referred to as “Above The Fold”.
ℹ Any content that can be seen after scrolling is known as content Below The Fold.
- Accessibility
The ease at which disabled people are able to access, understand, navigate and interact the website content presented.
- Alt Text
By default the ALT text is add to an image attribute to display information about the image is the image did not load. Many search engine use this information to better understand the image and is considered as an search engine optimization signal in google image search and for general page semantics. For blind people the ALT is also chosen for text to voice readers.
ℹ For search engine optimization it is important to give the ALT image tag the best description the image deserves while using keywords sparingly. Your ALT tags should not be repetitive. Decorative design elements should not be given ALT tags besides the logo image. If there is text on the image, this should be repeated in the ALT tag.
- Analytics
- Anchor Text
It is the text used in a link. Example: Learn More
- API
An Application Programming Interface is a method for two or more application can connect and exchange information with each other.
- Auto Responders
An autoresponder is a pre built email template that automatically replies when a mailbox receives an email. This is a professional way to keep the customer satisfied with any preliminary information that may help them before the email is responded to manually.
Another very handy way to use this utility is by setting up an away message if you going to be away from your office and can only respond to emails upon your return.
B
- Backlinks
All links pointing back to a website are considered as external inbound links or and commonly known as backlinks. It is good practice to remember why links were made, They were originally made for people to find and also be relevant to the content the link is found. Ideally a backlink adds value to a page. So if a page links to another website that explains a technical aspect of a particular topic, then it is considered an authority. These are the backlinks that add value to a page and endorses the source as a trust signal. These are the signals Google actively map and consider into their search engine algorithm.
A directory backlink is not considered an endorsement and is not considered in the overall SEO score.
Local backlinks are highly recommended for those businesses that do business with you actively. Is a great way to network businesses by advertising selective outlets that they use and trust.
- Blog
A blog is a posting area where you can post various types of information. Most blogs are used to build out keywords that do not feature well in static pages. Blogs are also more for readers lookingfor more information on a particular topic, service or product.
- Bot
A bot on the internet is historically associated with the robots.txt file which gets used by search engine bots that constantly crawl the internet. When a search engine bot reads the robots.txt file it takes the directives and processes the crawl according to those rules set by either search engine plugins or manually done by the webmaster in charge.
ℹ Search engine bots explore the internet by following links from one page to the next. Bots also make use of sitemap files that give a list of pages to be crawled.
ℹ There are other bots as well that automatically operate without the help of humans. An example of these kinds of bots can be seen often in live streams of Youtube where adult spam links are injected into live chat.
- Breadcrumbs
Websites that have quite a few pages often make use of Breadcrumbs to find their way back to where they were after navigating deeper into the website.
Breadcrumbs widgets are normally placed above the pages content and are clickable links. They have an appearance similar to the example below.
Home ⇒ Category ⇒ Sub-Category
- Breakpoints
Breakpoints are document width measurements in pixels (PX) and used to determine what styles need to be assigned to the document depending on the viewing screen size. This allows for varying designs that fit well for each device pushing up the overall user experience on all devices.
- Browser
If you are reading this text it is highly likely you are viewing this document from an internet browser. They are multi functional and can handle all the latest internet protocols and file types associated with online documents.
ℹ Examples of well known internet browsers include Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox & Opera.
C
- Cache
Webmaster make use of a websites ability to leave the websites documents on the viewers device for a set period of time. The result is faster loading pages, that only for example had to load the interfaces graphics once from the internet. Those files then get stored in cache and reused when the viewer revisits the pages.
ℹ This is also a very nice way to drop the overall downloads from a website making it load fast even if there are multiple users loading pages.
- Call To Action (CTA)
The main purpose of most websites are to pick up sales, gain leads, provide information or to receive visitor feedback.
ℹ Calls to actions include Forms, Buttons, Wrote A review, Book An Appointment, Reserve A Room, Social Media Feeds, Comments, Like buttons and day/night modes to name some of the well known types.
- CAPTCHA
Google Captcha is a security widget that helps stop spam bots from sending spam messages through contact forms. It is onw of the ways to sift out bots from legitimate visitors.
- CMS
Is the acronym for Content Management System
- cPanel
Some examples of what can be done in cPanel:
Change PHP versions, change variables and system resources allocated to the domain, add edit read reply and delete emails, create email boxes and set perimeters, add sub-domains and the list goes on.
- Cookie
Cookies can mostly be found in confectionaries! But on the internet they are used to collect little snippets of information to help customize the viewers experience.
ℹ Cookies can carry information such as; last logged in, remembering password, remembering products added to favourites and staying logged in and location to name some examples
- Crawl
- CSS
D
- Domain
This is the name of a website that is allocated an online connection to the internet. A domain name can not any spacers or have special characters (Examples: ©&_) in the name besides using the minus/dash symbol(Example allowed: any-domain-name.com)
- Domain Registration
- Domain Authority (DA)
- Dropdown Menu
- Duplicate Content
Copying and pasting other authors work and calling it your own is highly frowned upon and can lead to legal action in most cases if that content is legally copyrighted. As a design business we are firmly against any form of plagarism and always write fresh;y grown content.
E
- E-commerce
🔍 The first e-commerce shop was opened in May of 1989! Where good could be purchased from members posting goods for sale on their website.
- Email Client
- Error 404
Error 404 is a Page Not Found error and loads when a page in no longer available. Also if a webmaster miss-spells the link in a website design this will also lead to an Error 404 loading.
F
- Favicon
ℹ The standard favicon sizes are: 16×16 32×32 48×48 256×256
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
ℹ It is important to use a secure method for your connection to keep your information private while transmitting encrypted to your online server.
- FTP Client
- Footer
This is the bottom section of a website and commonly visible on all pages. Typical info include: Logo, links, legal links, community links, slogan, business hours, physical address and contact details to name some options.
ℹ We normally add one or more social media channels to increase inbound and outbound interaction from social media channels and the company website.