Glossary of Common Web Design Terms
Glossary of web terms is listed alphabetically:
Alt-tags:
Some web browsers do not display the images on a web page. When this occurs the image should have a caption, or alt-tag, saying what would normally appear. These also helps search engines locate and index a web page.
Analytics:
A FREE product offered by Google which provides information on the traffic of a web page. Google provides statistics on the number of visitors, visits, where the visitor came from, search terms used to find the page and much more.
Banner Ad:
An online advertisement on a web page, that links to the advertiser's website. Banner ads can utilize several graphic formats, animation and sound.
Blog:
A contraction of the term web log, this is a site providing a regular commentary on a particular subject, event, or theme.
Browsers:
Computer software used you to view web pages on the internet. The most common are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS):
The use of applying style codes to the html of a web page. By separating design from content it is possible the page will load faster, allows a consistent appearance across the site and easier for search engines to read what’s on a page.
Description:
Each page should have a few lines of text summarizing web page’s the content. Though not visible to visitors the description text is picked up by search engines.
Domain Name (URL):
The web address of a website.
Flash™:
This is a file type to allow animation or movement to be included with graphics or imagery.
H1 Tags:
Page headings and other prominent text are often used by search engines to rank a page. These headings are given a separate attribute, or tag, to the main body of text on a page.
Hyperlink:
An electronic link: connecting one area of a web page to another location on the same web page or from one web page to another web page or another website on the internet.
Indexing:
A search engine will rank a website by its content. With so many websites on the internet a page’s rank in relation to others becomes vitally important. This is indexing and is constantly changing.
Keywords:
Each web page has a number of words or phrases attached to it. These may or may not be visible when viewing a site but are vital in allowing search engines to assess the content of a website and rank it accordingly.
Meta-tags:
Meta-tags are used to specify a page’s title, description and keywords. These are essential in helping search engines locate the page.
Page Rank:
An assessment of a website, its design, content and links to other sites, by a search engine page rank can therefore be used to gauge a website's relevance to its subject and possibly its popularity
Robots:
Also known as a spider, a computer program that reads a web page and indexes those pages referenced from it. A robot can also assess the validity of a page with reference to current web standards.
Search Engine:
A system that searches the internet: collecting and listing websites. Users can then search for relevant websites by entering chosen words and phrases.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
This is a process to creating or improving a website to promote key messages and making it more relevant to people surfing the internet. A well presented site without good search engine optimization may not be found by search engines.
Sitemap:
A sitemap is a document detailing the various pages on a website and how they link to each other. This helps both visitors find pages and search engines to index a site.
Social Networking:
Communicating, building relationships and sharing information with other like-minded people on the internet.
Spry Assets:
A set of programming rules allowing sites to have dynamic content and animated sections.
Web design content:
A webpage consists of the design elements and actual text on the page. It is the text that constitutes the we design content as browsers can not see the artistic elements.
Web hosting:
The files concerned with displaying a website on the internet need to be stored on a web server. The service of providing this storage is called web hosting.
Websafe:
Term given to fonts and/or colors that are compatible with all browsers used to view the internet. Not all fonts are readily available on the internet.
Xhtml:
A language used to construct websites which allows a consistent appearance across a range of browsers.
