Web Development Glossary for Small Businesses

AJAX: The code language combining Asynchronous Javascript and XML to build interactive websites.

API: Application Program Interface is a set of programs or scripts that software or website developers use to interact the a network or operating system. For instance, in order to use some WordPress blog plug-ins it is necessary to obtain a Google API.

ASP: Active Server Pages is a Microsoft scripting language utilized on a Windows server allowing the server to create dynamic web content. JavaScript or MS ActiveX script are used to create the page or are built into the web page.

AVI: Audio Video Interleave is Microsoft's compressed file format software for video alternative to the more popular MPEG formats.

Above The Fold: In newspapers, "above the fold" is the high impact place for information. In web development, this is the high impact area of a web page for your information or marketing message that first shows in the web browser window without scrolling down.

Active Listening: In business and web development, the ability of a service or product provider to actively seek to understand what a customer or client thinks or feels. A key component of reducing mismatched expectations and securing all around agreement on a projects requirements, scope and final product.

ActiveMovie: A Microsoft software technology for streaming video files from a web server to a web client (visitor).

Advantage: That aspect of a company's product, service, marketing strategy or business web design that makes it better, more visible or worth more in the perception of the buying public, especially as measured against a competitor. A business website with search engine optimization has an advantage over one without or with minimal SEO.

Aliasing: In web design, aliasing occurs when an image is rendered on a web or page bigger than its original size. Easily distinguished by the jagged edges in the image. Aliasing only occurs with bitmap graphics files. Anti-alias is a feature used in graphics software to smooth out an images jagged edges.

Alignment: The placement of design elements, text or images on a web page. Most web content is aligned left as in the print media.

"Alt" attribute: In HTML and XML, the "alt" stands for alternative text and is known as the "alt tag". Each graphic image can have an alt text associated with it. Originally used to help web browsers on slow modem speeds download web pages quickly without downloading the graphics. The alt text explained the contents of the graphic image. Now search engine spiders, screen-readers, language translation software and mobile devices like Blackberries use the alt data.

Alternate Style Sheet: An alternate Cascading Style Sheet provides web visitors the ability to change aspects of a website, usually the font size, to meet their viewing needs with the click of a button.

Animated GIF: A GIF file created by combining multiple bitmapped graphics files into one file. The series of GIF frames, usually continuously played in a loop, gives the impression of a moving picture.

Animation: Animation is the broad category of any moving images on a website. One of the most popular animations is created by Adobe’s Flash software, leading the the common expressions of "a Flash website" or "a Flash presentation". With more web users having access to greater bandwidths, video is also becoming a popular web design animation element.

Animus lucrandi: Latin for "The intention to make a gain or profit". The main reason to invest in developing a business website and creating an online marketing strategy.

Applet: A small Java application that can be downloaded over the Internet and run on a web visitors computer. Most often written in Java, but sometimes using MS ActiveX.

Article Writing: By writing articles on popular (with the search engines at least) article websites, business owners can brand themselves as an expert, get free advertising and create an external link to their website.

Attribute: In HTML coding, an attribute is a way to define the look or placement of an element. A paragraph may be defined by an inline style attribute that tells a browser the color, size and alignment that the text within the paragraph should be rendered on a monitor. In the evolution of web design, inline attributes are replaced by the use of external CSS files with define the attributes for most if not all the elements on a web page.

B2B: Business to business software, sales or websites that allow information to be exchanged between companies, usually in the least amount of steps. B2B software allows businesses to exchange database information electronically without going through the intermediary steps of printing documents out only to re-enter them into another electronic database.

BCC: Terminology carried over from typewriter technology when carbon paper was used to make an additional copy (i.e. carbon copy) of a document. On the Internet, a copy of an email sent with the recipients' names masked to all recipients is called a blind carbon copy. This technique helps keep personal email lists from getting broadcast on the Internet with the potential of being used by spammers.

Backup: All too often an afterthought, a backup is an electronic copy of a computer's files kept for security and archival purposes. Businesses and web hosting services usually keep multiple backup copies of files, with one copy on-site for rapid rebuilding of lost or corrupted files, and a more secure copy kept at an off-site location (preferably not in a car).

Backwards Compatible: A software design, hardware design or website folder structure that is designed to work seamlessly with files or file structures of earlier versions. XML code is currently backwards compatible with the earlier HTML code. Websites that discard file names and folder structures for a new web design are not backwards compatible and, for a time, cause the search engines to return 404 errors for indexed and cached pages and broken external links on websites formerly hyper-linked to the website.

Bandwidth: Just as in radio or TV terminology, Internet bandwidth describes the size of data measured in discrete time increments that can be sent over a network. Internet bandwidth is measured in bits per second. A website with large file sizes, such as audio or video files, requires larger (thus more expensive) bandwidth.

Banner Advertisement: A banner advertisement is an image, static or animated, placed on a web page that are similar to billboards on the highway. Some you like, some you ignore and some you wonder if the graphic designer just created a new place in the netherworld for themselves. Unlike billboards, banner ads are linked to a "splash page" on the website of the advertiser or their marketing company.

Benchmark: A reference point for judging changes created by future activities, borrowed from surveying terminology. For example, prior to implementing search engine optimization, current search engine rankings for various keywords is checked as a benchmark for the efficacy of the SEO strategy.

Benefit: What a product's or service's feature means to a potential customer. A customer's tangible or intangible gain, sometimes delineated in terms of cost or time saving.

Blog: A shortened online colloquially of "web log". An online log where informal entries are made with the most recent entry displayed first. Entries can be text or graphic images and are usually categorized by subject matter for faster access of archived matter. In the Web 2.0 world, blogs have an interactive attribute since visitors can comment on the entries.

Bottleneck: A resource constraint; Any business resource (person, machine, etc. - usually the boss) with business demands upon it equal to or greater than its capacity for work or processing.

Bounce Rate: A measurement of how many pages are visited with each visit. When only one page is visited, usually for a very few seconds, the bounce rate is 100, meaning there is a 100% chance that the web visitor came and left, usually due to the inability of a website's content with what content being searched for by the web visitor. Research to refine the keyword choice and web analytics help to improve the bounce rate.

Brand Awareness: A marketing concept denoting the percentage of shoppers who recognize a particular brand. Reinforcement of brand awareness underlies company's marketing strategies including the use of business website development and maintenance.

Breadcrumbs: A navigation device made up of page links showing where a web page is with relation to the home page. Breadcrumbs are hyper-linked to pages of more a general level of information that is closer to the homepage in the website's structure. For example, a breadcrumb trail may go: Home > Lawn Products > Statuary > Overpriced Gnomes.

Browser Cache: Temporary storage of files, usually graphics files, in a computer ’s memory allowing for faster refreshing of a web page when a person revisits a page or for images that are used on many pages like a masthead image.

Browser Default Style Sheet: Browsers are programmed with default Cascading Style Sheet for general attributes as font size, black font color, blue hyperlinks and page positioning. A "best practices" for web developers is to make sure their web design’s style sheet over-rides the browser default style sheet so their design looks the same on all browsers.

CCR: The ratio of the number of times an ad, either a banner ad or Pay-Per-Click ad, is clicked divided by the number of times the ad is presented.

CGI: The computer protocol or standards that govern how servers communicate with external programs to perform a specific function, such as a form written in HTML or XML sending information to a CGI script that processes the information and generates a second action, such as sending the data in an email and/or capturing it in a log.

CMS: A content management system is a software program used for posting and maintaining website content.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheet is a file with a list of rules that determine the styles or the way text and images are visually presented on a web page. By removing common and repetitive style rules to an external file the code size of pages are reduced and design modifications can be made on one page and quickly populate all the web pages using that style sheet. CSS derives its name from the hierarchical behavior of a pages elements, the styles are said to cascade - a rule for a higher element such as the body carries through headings and paragraphs unless the lower level element changes the rule.

CSS Declaration: A declaration is part of a statement or rule that dictates how browsers present different elements, such as headings or paragraphs. Declarations are very versatile and can control a property with more than one value parameter (i.e. just a paragraph's text color or a paragraph’s text color and font size) or a list of properties with their various value parameters.

Case Sensitive: Denotes if a software program takes into account whether upper or lower case letters are used. Passwords are usually case sensitive, whereas email addresses are not case sensitive.

Cloaking: A "black hat" SEO technique where a web visitor is presented one web page while the search engine sees a different page with possibly rather dissimilar content. Socially unacceptable sites use this as a way of drawing traffic.

Computer Virus: Malicious software that behaves similar to a biological virus in that it invades a host computer, replicates itself, and attempts to use the host computer as a platform to infect other computers.

Conflict Resolution: A process of resolving a dispute or disagreement, usually involving tracking back to where a mismatch in expectations occurred.

Content: Content on a web page refers to the page's information content. Key to search engine indexing and cataloguing of a page’s content is the use of keywords and making sure keywords are not hidden from search engines in graphics.

Cookie: A cookie is a text string a website places on a web visitors computer through the browser interface. Websites benignly use cookies to identify visitors and match them to buying preferences or on-line form answers, theoretically speeding up the use of a website. Spyware maliciously uses cookies to covertly record web users’ buying habits, personal information, and financial data, such as credit card numbers.

Copywriting: The science or art of using words to convey a person, business, product or service, usually associated with writing promotional or advertising copy. The purpose of copywriting is to persuade readers (or listener in the case of radio) to take action steps to purchase the product or service. Copy that moves people to take action is referred to as conversion copy.

Critical Path: A Theory of Constraints management term denoting the longest set of dependent activities within a project, not taking into account any resource constraints (i.e. bottlenecks).

Cyberspace: That part of our reality (or unreality as the case may be) created on the Internet and corporate, government, educational institutions and personal intranets.