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Absolute Path The complete path to a resource, independent of the location of the visited page. |
| ActiveX Software components from Microsoft. They enable sound, Java applets and animations to be integrated in a Web page |
| Addon domains An addon domain is a domain that points to a folder within your web folder. It's not as full-featured as what we offer in our reseller accounts, but it does allow you to host more than one domain on a hosting account. |
| Alias A generic name used to identify a mail account. |
| Anonymous FTP Public file servers that can be accessed by means of anonymous login and using an email address as the password. |
| Anonymous FTP An option in FTP that allows users to download files without having to establish and account. |
| Apache The most widely available HTTP server on the Internet. It supports the PERL and PHP languages. |
| Apache An open source web server software. |
| ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard character-coding scheme used by most computers to display letters, digits and special characters. |
| ASP Active Server Pages. A specification that enables Web pages to be dynamically created using HTML, scripts, and reusable ActiveX server components. |
| Autoresponder A program that sends an automatic form response to incoming emails. |
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Balloon Help Information that appears in a small area when the mouse pointer is positioned on a page element (for instance, topic title, menu, image, etc.). |
| Bandwidth Like many other terms, the technical definition of bandwidth is somewhat different from its use in reference to web sites and data transfer. For our purposes, and yours, bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred from your web site to the world. |
| Bandwidth How much data can be transmitted in a time period over a communications channel, often expressed in kilobits per second (kbps). |
| Behaviour In Dreamweaver, interaction between objects of a Web page, for instance, the change in the display of a page element when the mouse pointer is placed over a link. |
| Browser A program used to navigate Internet sites. |
| Browsing Options To provide increased flexibility, a site can offer two navigation options: with HTML or with Flash. |
| Burstable Bandwidth A hosting option that allows sites to use the available network capacity to handle periods of peak usage. |
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C A programming language, originally limited to the Unix operating system, widely used to develop systems and software. |
| C++ Enhancement to the C language, providing object-oriented programming features. |
| Cache The location where visited web pages are stored, enabling them to be displayed more rapidly at the next visit. Each browser has its own cache on the hard drive. |
| Cascading Style Sheets A standard of the W3C which defines a simple mechanism for customising the formatting of Web pages, by defining fonts, colours of titles, paragraph spacing, etc. |
| ccTLD Country Code Top Level Domains. The country code for domain names (.fr for France, .uk for United Kingdom, .be for Belgium, etc). |
| CGI The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard for interfacing external applications with information servers, such as HTTP or Web servers. A plain HTML document that the Web daemon retrieves is static, which means it exists in a constant state: a text file that doesn't change. A CGI program, on the other hand, is executed in real-time, so that it can output dynamic information. |
| CGI Script Often combined with a fill-in form to collect and process the data entered by the user. |
| Clustered Services Clustered services is where each service (database, mail, web, dns, and others) is separated on to its own physical server. Some services may share another services physical server but should be treated as if it were separate as it can change to be separate at any time. Clustered services allows for each service to have better performance as each service does not have to share resources with other services that are resource hogs also. |
| Cookies Text files downloaded onto a visitor's computer hard drive to store the visitor's actions in order to better customise their following visits. |
| Copyright Legal rights to commercialise, license, transfer, broadcast or reproduce an original piece of work, irrespective of its supporting media. |
| Custom Error Pages A custom error page is a feature of most web server software that allows you to replace default error messages with ones you create. The default error messages tend to be fairly generic, and not particularly user-friendly, so making custom messages for your site is recommended. |
| CuteFTP One of the most widely-used FTP clients. |
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Data Transfer The total amount of outbound traffic from a website*, typically measured in gigabytes (Gb). |
| Data Transfer The total amount of outbound traffic from a website*, typically measured in gigabytes (Gb). |
| Dedicated Hosting Hosting option whereby the host provides and is responsbile for the equipment, dedicating an entire server to the client's websites. |
| Dedicated IP A dedicated IP address is set aside specifically for one domain, like in the old days. This means that if someone types in the numeric form of the IP address the same domain will always appear in the browser. |
| Dedicated IP An IP address dedicated to a single website. |
| DHTML Dynamic HTML. An extension of HTML that enables, among other things, the inclusion of small animations and dynamic menus in Web pages. DHTML code makes use of style sheets and JavaScript. |
| Disk Space The amount of storage space allotted to a web site. Disk space can be used to store pictures, HTML files, videos, programs, and anything else used by the Web site |
| Disk Space The amount of hard drive space on the server that is available to your websites. |
| DNS Domain Name Server. The local server (in a company) or remote server (at your provider) that resolves domain names in IP addresses. |
| DNS Domain Name System, a distributed directory used to translate between IP addresses and domain names. |
| Domain One of the elements that comprise a DNS address. Domain names are divided into different categories: .com, .net, .org, .edu, .fr, .uk, etc. |
| Domain Name A series of words separated by dots (e.g.: microsoft.com) identifying an IP address. |
| Domain Name A name that uniquely identifies a website. |
| Domain Parking Providing a nameserver for domains that do have their own hosting yet. |
| Dreamweaver Powerful WYSIWYG authoring software from Macromedia enabling easy creation of sites containing graphics and multimedia elements. It is one of the best programs for creating JavaScript and DHTML animations. |
| Dynamic Pages Web pages automatically generated by ASP, PHP or ColdFusion. |
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Ecommerce Electric commerce the conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. Specifically, ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital communications. |
| Email Auto-Responders Email autoresponders automatically reply to any email they receive, using text that you have written, before passing it to your mailbox as normal. |
| Email Forwarding You can setup several email aliases at your domain name to forward to real email addresses anywhere on the internet. You can forward mail to your Hotmail account, your ISP email account, your Yahoo account, or any other email account you may have. |
| Email Forwarding Automatically sends email messages from one email address to another email address. |
| Error 400: Bad Request The request is incorrect. |
| Error 401: Unauthorised The client does not have the required privileges to access the site. |
| Error 403: Forbidden The request is forbidden. You may need to register with the site before being allowed access. |
| Error 404: Not Found The requested resource no longer exists or has been moved, or the address may be misspelled. |
| Error 500: Internal Error The server could not process the request. |
| Error 501: Not Implemented The server does not support the service type or the called protocol. |
| Error 503: Gateway Timeout The server took too long to answer and the connection timed out. |
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Fantastico Fantastico is probably one of the most advanced script installer we have ever seen. Currently it can install a large amount and array of free scripts, ranging from bulletin boards to content management systems. |
| FAQ Frequently Asked Questions. A list of the most frequently asked questions along with their respective answers. |
| Firewall A server whose role is to protect a private site connected to the Internet from unauthorized access. |
| Fireworks Graphics creation software from Macromedia. It is useful for optimising image size, editing animated GIFs, creating buttons, animations or roll-overs. |
| Flash Software from Macromedia for creating small vector animations played back on the Web. A user's browser needs the Flash Player plug-in in order to interpret Flash animations. |
| Form An interactive Web page with predefined sections to be filled in or options to be selected. The data is then collected for processing, generally by a CGI script on the server. |
| Forum A site offering that allows visitors to post and read messages. Ideal for livening up a site and interacting with visitors. |
| Front Page Extentions A series of scripts that can be employed by FrontPage users to add dynamic functions to a Web site. |
| FTP File Transfer Protocol. Protocol for transferring files on the Internet. |
| FTP Accounts FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is a simple method to transfer files from a client computer to the server. This is one of many methods you can use to maintain your site. All FTP accounts can be administered through FTP manager. |
| FTP Client Software used to upload your site to your provider's Web hosting server, or download files from a server. |
| FTP Server A machine or software for storing and forwarding data files. |
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Guest Book A method of collecting feedback from visitors. |
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Hit A unit of measurement for quantifying traffic to a site. |
| Home Page A site's main page. It contains the table of contents and links pointing to other pages. Generally, the home page file is called index.html or index.htm. |
| Host A remote machine whose contents can be accessed via the TCP/IP network. |
| HTML HyperText Markup Language. Web page description language. A W3C standard, compatible with all systems. |
| HTML Editor Software that simplifies the creation of HTML Web pages. |
| HTML Validator A utility for checking the syntax of HTML pages, the display of images and link validation prior to putting a site online . |
| HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol. Standard protocol for transmitting Web pages on the Internet. |
| HTTPS HTTP Over SSL. Protocol enabling the secured transmission of Web pages. |
| Hypertext System for browsing the Web through the use of links implemented in displayed pages. |
| Hypertext Link Element on a Web page which you click on to jump to another location (on the page, the site or the Web). The mouse pointer changes when it is placed over such a link. |
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ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The organisation in charge of world-wide domain and commercial names management on the Internet. |
| IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) IMAP is gradually replacing POP as the main protocol used by email clients in communicating with email servers. Using IMAP an email client program can not only retrieve email but can also manipulate message stored on the server, without having to actually retrieve the messages. So messages can be deleted, have their status changed, multiple mail boxes can be managed. |
| InterNIC Internet Network Information Center. A service providing information on domain names registration services (.com, .net and .org), responsibility of which is assumed by ICANN. |
| Intranet A private company network based on Internet technologies: Web, e-mail, etc. When accessed from outside, it becomes an extranet. |
| IP Internet Protocol. The protocol that handles the delivery of packets on TCP/IP networks. |
| IP (Internet Protocol) Address Every computer on the Internet is identified by a numeric address (for example: 188.147.6.90). Each IP address has a corresponding DNS address (for example: www.xyz.com). |
| IP Packet Data packet forwarded on a TCP/IP network. |
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Java Programming language from Sun Microsystems. Close to C++, it is useful for providing interactivity to a Web page. |
| Java Console The window to which the standard output from an applet is directed. |
| JavaScript Scripting language that complements HTML. |
| JPEG Joint Photographic Expert Group. A standard for file compression, more powerful than GIF, that can produce a 1:200 compression ratio. |
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Keyword A word entered by a visitor in a search engine/directory to locate information or a site. |
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Link Hypertext link. |
| List-Box Drop-down list. |
| ListServ One of the most widely used newsletter servers. |
| Live Cam A Webcam that continuously broadcasts live on Internet. |
| Load Balancing Dividing the load of a single website or service over several web servers. |
| Log A journal file that reports connections to a server. |
| Log Analyzer A program that takes a server's "raw" log file data and summarizes it into easily-understood reports. |
| Log File A file that records the activity of a web server. |
| Login Identification supplied by users to access a server. |
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Mailing Lists Lists usually contain names of persons sharing a similar characteristic, ie, subscribers to a particular magazine or credit card holders for example. |
| Metatags HTML tags that are not visible on a formatted page, but are used by search engines for indexing purposes. |
| Mirror An exact replica of a main site provided to users to improve accessibility. |
| MPEG Motion Picture Experts Groups. A set of norms for online broadcasting and compression of digital video and audio. |
| Multi-Domain Plan A web hosting plan option that allows multiple domain names to share the resources of the single hosting account. |
| MySQL Databases Databases facilitate managing information on your web site in a structured way. MySQL is a fast and reliable database server that integrates well with PHP and Perl. |
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Namo Web Editor A WYSIWYG HTML editor from Namo Interactive. Easy to use for DHTML animation creation, it has many wizards and predefined templates. It supports XML, PHP, ASP and style sheets. |
| Navigation Menu Essential on a site home page, it can have different appearances. It contains the table of contents and the links to the other pages of the site. |
| Netiquette Unofficial rules defining proper behaviour on Internet. |
| Netmeeting Videoconferencing software from Microsoft. |
| Network Errors HTML pages returned by the server when browsing a site. On the client side, you can receive errors of type 4xx, and on the server side, errors of type 5xx. |
| Notepad A text editor supplied with Windows. It is sometimes used to type in HTML code. |
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Offline Browser Software used to save all or part of a Web site onto a user's hard drive. |
| OLE Object Linking and Embedding. Microsoft technology that enables the creation of documents by incorporating elements created using different kinds of software. |
| Option or Radio Buttons User interface elements placed in a form to provide a limited number of options, from which only a single reply can be selected. |
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Page Size To ensure optimal browsing, the home page size should not exceed 30 Kb. |
| Parked domains Let's say you own abc.com, but you also own abc.net, abc.biz, abc.org, etc. You want these domains to also point to your same abc.com site so you "Park" them to your primary site. Another classic example for Domain Parking is if you owned one domain such as mycompany.com but for marketing purposes also used other domains like accountingservices.com or autodetailing.com, etc. |
| Path The location of a file or a page in the file system of a remote server. |
| Pay-per-Click Each click on a link or a banner generates a commission for the webmaster. |
| PDF Portable Document Format. A format from Adobe that enables a document to be distributed on different systems while preserving the layout (.pdf). |
| PERL Practical Extraction and Report Language. A scripting language for developing CGI programs. |
| PHP Personal Home Page. Advanced scripting language for site design. |
| PHP Hosting Web hosting that supports PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, an open source server-side scripting language. |
| Ping Packet Internet Groper. A utility that forwards data packets to check the quality of a link or verify the connection of a machine to the Internet. |
| Pop-up A small box that appears over a visited page to deliver information or display an ad. |
| POP3 POP3 is the abbreviation for Post Office Protocol - a data format for delivery of emails across the Internet. |
| Protected directories Restrict access to data on the web by requiring a username and password to access selected directories. |
| Proxy Server placed between a user's machine and the Internet. It can act as a firewall to provide protection and as a cache area to speed up Web page display. |
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Query An inquiry sent to a server. |
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Registrar A company specialised in the registering of domain names with the InterNIC. |
| Relative Path A partial path relative to the location of the visited page. |
| Reseller Hosting Arrangement whereby a company selling hosting to consumers uses the datacenter and equipment of another company. |
| Router Typically a machine, though it can also be software, that acts as a gateway to provide access to network resources, irrespective of the protocols or operating systems the users use. |
| RV Skin RVskin is a multi-language, multi-theme advanced skin management software. |
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Script A set of commands written in an interpreted language to automate certain application tasks. The term scenario is also sometimes used. |
| Server A computer or software providing services to remote client machines or applications, such as supplying page contents (texts or other resources) or returning query results. |
| Servlet A server-side Java program that provides additional features to the server. |
| Shared Hosting Hosting option whereby several client websites are housed on and share the resources of a web server. |
| Shared IP An IP address shared by multiple websites. |
| Shopping Cart Software used to make a site's product catalogue available for online ordering, whereby visitors may select, view, add/delete, and purchase merchandise. |
| Site Monitoring A service that regularly checks a site and alerts the administrator in the event of a problem. |
| Site Submission All the techniques involved when submitting a site to search engines or directories. |
| SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a protocol used to send and receive email. |
| Source Code All the tags and instructions contained in a text file used to compose a Web page. |
| Spam Protection SpamAssassin is a computer program released freely under the Apache License 2.0 used for e-mail spam filtering based on content-matching rules, which also supports DNS-based, checksum-based and statistical filtering, supported by external programs and online databases. |
| SQL Structured Query Language. Relational database query language developed by IBM. It is compatible with HTML and XML. |
| SQL Server Microsoft database management software. |
| SSH A packet-based binary protocol that provides encrypted connections to remote hosts or servers. |
| SSI Server side includes. A type of HTML comment that directs the web server to dynamically generate data for the web page upon request. |
| SSL Secure Sockets Layers. A protocol developed by Netscape for securing data sent by the browser by means of encryption. |
| SSL Shared Shared SSL certificates work only within one domain level. For example, if you get a domain name for *.domain.com, it will work for www.domain.com and subdomain.domain.com. But it won't work for www.subdomain.domain.com or http://domain.com, and visitors' browsers will show a warning message: "The name on the security certificate does not match the name of the site". |
| Streaming Technology that enables the playback of sound or video without the need to download the entire resource file in advance. |
| Sub Domains Subdomains are separate sites within your account but do not require their own domains and hence do not require domain registration. A subdomain is for example: sub-domain.example.com. |
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Table Enables the layout of a Web page that keeps the same general appearance irrespective of the browser window size. Depending on requirements, the number of rows and columns can be adjusted, as can the size of the cells. |
| Tags Syntax tokens of the HTML language used to structure a Web document by indicating the beginning and the end of a word, a title, a sentence, a block of text, etc. Each HTML tag is enclosed in < and > brackets. |
| TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. Communication protocol suite and standard for all Internet-connected machines. |
| Template A pattern used to create document |
| TLD Top Level Domain. The first level of an Internet site address. |
| Traceroute A Unix command that precisely locates a server that is slowing down transmission on the Internet. |
| Traffic Site audience. |
| Tree Hierarchical structure of a site's elements in directories and sub-directories. |
| TrueType Vector font type from Apple and Microsoft. The character size is adjustable without quality loss. |
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Ultradev Version of Dreamweaver providing dynamic page development through ASP or ColdFusion. |
| Unique Visitor A site audience measurement unit. A specific visitor (identified through his IP address) who has visited a site during a whole month. |
| Uptime Guarantee An assurance that a hosting company's uptime will meet an agreed-upon percentage. |
| URL Uniform Resource Locator. The Internet address of a Web resource (page, embedded elements, etc.) understood and interpreted by browsers. |
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VBScript Visual Basic Script. A Microsoft scripting language derived from their object-oriented programming package. |
| Vector Image This type of image (as opposed to Bitmap image) is calculated from its dimensions and can be reduced or enlarged without loss of quality. |
| VRML Virtual Reality Modelling Language. Software for creating 3D scenes in Web pages. The client needs to install the appropriate plug-in (for instance, Live 3D). |
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W3C World Wide Web Consortium. The international organisation that defines standards and rules for the Internet. |
| Web Host A company specialising in the hosting (free or not) of Web sites on their servers. |
| Web Hosting The business of providing the storage, connectivity, and services necessary to serve files for a website. |
| Web Hosting Control Panel A web interface offered by hosting companies so customers can administer their account. |
| Web Mail Email that is accessed via a web browser. |
| Web Page A constituent part of a Web site linked to other documents or resources by means of hypertext links. |
| Web Server A computer that stores web pages and delivers them on request to the web browsers of client computers. |
| Web Stats Web stats refer to statistics produced by the online statistical program offered with the web hosting plan. It allows the webmaster to have more accurate visitor information like unique visitors, pageviews, referrers, etc. instead of just information like hits |
| Webmail You can access your email through a browser (like Internet Explorer) from everywhere in the world, with advanced features (mailboxes, address book). |
| Windows Hosting Web hosting that supports any version of Windows, a family of operating systems by Microsoft. |
| Winzip File compression program for Windows. |
| WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get (you get what you see on screen). A graphical user interface embedded in software (see WYSIWYG Editor) |
| WYSIWYG Editor An authoring program that enables the user to handle and place objects directly in the page using a graphical user interface, instead of having to manually enter the HTML code. |
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XHTML eXtensible HyperText Markup Language. Reformulation of HTML 4 according to XML rules. It is supported by HTML browsers and applications developed with XML. |
| XLL eXtensible Linking Language. An XML extension used to insert links that can point directly to a specific object (image, title, word, etc.) into a page. |
| XML eXtensible Markup Language. A re-defined version of SGML. It is seen as the successor of HTML. It enables the customising of tags which describes the layout and the very nature of data elements. It is very useful for sites maintaining large data volumes and on an intranet. Currently, only Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 6 offers support for XML. |
| XSL eXtensible Style Sheet Language. A language for defining XML style sheets. It is on course to becoming a standard. |
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Zip A format for compressed files on Windows systems. |