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Internet &
Marketing Glossary
As my dad always
said, "Knowledge is your
best defense". Therefore, we have compiled
a list of basic marketing and internet terms that will
keep you in the know and one step ahead of your
competition. Get ready, get set, GROW!
Your greatest
asset is your earning ability. Your greatest resource is
your time. - Brian Tracy
Above The Fold
The part of a webpage that is visible in the web
browser window when the page first loads.
Alexa Ranking
(Small Sampling)
Alexa data is based on a statistical sample of
website users who have downloaded the Alexa Toolbar
therefore it is NOT a good indicator of traffic.
Algorithm
A set of mathematical equations or rules that a
search engines use to rank the content contained within
its index in response to a particular search query.
Analytics
Technology that helps analyze the performance of a
website or online marketing campaign.
Banner Ad
An electronic billboard or ad in the form of a
graphic image that comes in many sizes and resides on a
Web page. Banner ad space is sold to advertisers to earn
revenue for the website.
Blog or Web Log
A blog (short for "web log") is a type of web page
that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal
(or log) for an individual. Typically updated daily,
blogs often reflect the personality of the author. Blog
software usually has an archive of old blog postings.
Many blogs can be searched for terms in the archive.
Blogs have become a vibrant, fast-growing medium for
communication in professional, political, news, trendy,
and other specialized web communities. Many blogs
provide RSS feeds, to which one can subscribe and
receive alerts to new postings in selected blogs.¹
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. Microsoft Internet Explorer (called simply IE),
Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, and Opera are examples of
"graphical" browsers that enable you to view text and
images and many other WWW features. ¹
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. When you log
onto a "customize" type of invitation on a Web page and
fill in your name and other information, this may result
in a cookie on your computer which that Web page will
access to appear to "know" you and provide what you
want. If you fill out these forms, you may also receive
e-mail and other solicitation independent of cookies. ¹
Custom Search
Engine (CSE)
A Google service in which individuals can create a
Google account (free) and create a search engine
directed to search within up to 5,000 URLs or websites
they select. More information at CSEs: Make Your Own
Search Engine and Finding CSEs. ¹
Domain Name,
Domain Name Server (DNS) Entry
Any of these terms refers to the initial part of a URL,
down to the first /, where the domain and name of the
host or SERVER computer are listed (most often in
reversed order, name first, then domain). The domain
name gives you who "published" a page, made it public by
putting it on the Web. A domain name is translated in
huge tables standardized across the Internet into a
numeric IP address unique the host computer sought.
These tables are maintained on computers called "Domain
Name Servers." Whenever you ask the browser to find a
URL, the browser must consult the table on the domain
name server that particular computer is networked to
consult. "Domain Name Server entry" frequently appears a
browser error message when you try to enter a URL. If
this lookup fails for any reason, the "lacks DNS entry"
error occurs. The most common remedy is simply to try
the URL again, when the domain name server is less busy,
and it will find the entry (the corresponding numeric IP
address).¹
Ethernet Card
A piece of hardware that is usually in a computer
which knows how to talk the ethernet protocol on a wire.
This is a kind of network interface.
Ethernet
A protocol or system for a set of computer
networking technologies for local area networks (LANs),
the origins of which came from Bob Metcalfe's Harvard's
dissertation on "Packet Networks."
File Transfer
Protocol FTP
Ability to transfer rapidly entire files from one
computer to another, intact for viewing or other
purposes. ¹
Freshness
How up-to-date a search engine database is, based
primarily on how often its spiders re-circulate around
the Web and update their copies of the web pages they
hold, and discover new ones. Also determined by how
quickly they integrate new sites that web authors send
to them. Two weeks is about as good as most search
engines do, but some update certain selected web sites
more frequently, even daily. ¹
Host
Computer that provides web-documents to clients or
users. See also web server. ¹
Hostname
A name which can be resolved (using a name server)
into an IP Address.
Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML)
Hypertext Markup Language. A standardized language
of computer code, imbedded 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. When you view a
Web page, you are looking at the product of this code
working behind the scenes in conjunction with your
browser. Browsers are programmed to interpret HTML for
display. HTML often imbeds within it other programming
languages and applications such as SGML, XML, Javascript,
CGI-script and more. It is possible to deliver or access
and execute virtually any program via the WWW. You can
see HTML by selecting the View pop-down menu tab, then
"Document Source."
¹
HyperText Transfer
Protocol HTTP
The protocol for moving files across the net; it
requires two client programs. The HTTP client and the
server.
IP Address
A set of four numbers (each between 0 and 255, with some
restrictions), separated by periods that uniquely
identifies an address on a network.
Internet
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. ¹
Internet Service
Provider
This is the service or company you use to access the
Internet.
Keywords
A word searched for in a search command. Keywords
are searched in any order. Use spaces to separate
keywords in simple keyword searching. ¹
Keyword Phrase
More than one KEYWORD, searched exactly as keyed
(all terms required to be in documents, in the order
keyed). Enclosing keywords in quotations " " forms a
phrase in AltaVista, , and some other search tools. Some
times a phrase is called a "character string." ¹
Modem
A piece of hardware that allows the computer to talk
over a phone line. A modem is often used as a network
interface.
Name server
A machine on the network that allows you to resolve
hostnames into IP addresses.
Network Interface
A thing inside a computer that knows how to send
information over a wire (or fiber, or whatever).
Usually, one per computer.
PDF or .pdf or pdf
file
Abbreviation for Portable Document Format, a file
format developed by Adobe Systems, that is used to
capture almost any kind of document with the formatting
in the original. Viewing a PDF file requires Acrobat
Reader, which is built into most browsers and can be
downloaded free from Adobe. ¹
RSS or RSS Feeds
Short for "Really Simple Syndication" (a.k.a. Rich
Site Summary or RDF Site Summary), refers to a group of
XML based web-content distribution and republication
(Web syndication) formats primarily used by news sites
and weblogs (blogs). Any website can issue an RSS feed.
By subscribing to an RSS feed, you are alerted to new
additions to the feed since you last read it. In order
to read RSS feeds, you must use a "feed reader," which
formats the XML code into an easily readable format
(feed readers are to XML and RSS feeds as web browsers
are to HTML and web pages. ¹
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. They
obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete
obsolete ones. Their findings are then integrated into
the "home" database. Most large search engines operate
several robots all the time. Even so, the Web is so
enormous that it can take six months for spiders to
cover it, resulting in a certain degree of
"out-of-datedness" (link rot) in all the search engines. ¹
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) --
This is the suite of protocols that defines the
Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating
system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major
kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the
Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software. See
also IP Address. ¹
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of any
Web document. May be keyed in a browser's OPEN or
LOCATION / GO TO box to retrieve a document. ¹
Web Server
A computer running 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. An important difference is that most print
publishers carefully edit the content and quality of
their publications in an effort to market them and
future publications. This convention is not required in
the Web world, where anyone can be a publisher; careful
evaluation of Web pages is therefore mandatory. ¹
Website Host
For a website to be viewed by other people it must be
stored on a computer (web server) that is connected to
the internet. A company that provides this service is
known as a web host; and the service it provides is web
hosting.
XHTML
A variant of HTML. Stands for Extensible Hypertext
Markup Language is a hybrid between HTML and XML that is
more universally acceptable in Web pages and search
engines than XML. ¹
XML
Extensible Markup Language, a dilution for Web page
use of SGML (Standard General Markup Language), which is
not readily viewable in ordinary browsers and is
difficult to apply to Web pages. XML is very useful
(among other things) for pages emerging from databases
and other applications where parts of the page are
standardized and must reappear many times. See XHTML. ¹
¹
UC Berkeley
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