Web Development Glossary for Small Businesses

MPEG: A standard, or set of rules, created by the Moving Picture Experts Group and adopted by ISO to describe a way to compress and decompress digital video and audio files. MPG is the file extension for AV files created in the MPEG format.

MP3: An acronym for MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3, which is a digital audio compression/decompression file format and standard. Also the filename extension of a digital audio recording stored in that format.

Malicious Software: Software applications such as viruses and worms that seek to steal information or destroy electronic files. Anti-viral software, firewalls, savvy web browsing habits and not letting children on business computers are the prime defenses against malicious software attacks.

Masthead: In web design, a masthead is a graphic image, usually with a text layer, that is at the top of a web page layout. As part of a company's marketing campaign, mastheads often include logos, company names and other branding elements.

Mentor: An experienced business person who helps budding business entrepreneurs learn business lessons from the mentor's experience versus the school of hard-knocks. The word comes from name of the man who took care of Ulysses' son while Ulysses was out sailing the Greek isles creating fantastic material for the book "The Odyssey". The word was erroneously thought to come from mentors saying "Oh I mentor warn you about that."

Meta Tag:An HTML/XML tag located in the hidden text area of a web page. The two main meta tags are the "description" which search engines generally use in the search results to describe a page and the "keywords" which have varying potential, since Google supposedly does not use them though Yahoo professes to take them into account. One of the areas of search engine optimization that businesses often fail to utilize when using inexpensive business template web designs.

MySQL:: MySQL is an open source (free) relational database software with over 11 million users. MySQL is the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database.

Newsgroup: An online forum created to discuss a particular topic of general or specific interest, such as business management or business web design.

Off-page Element: An element, usually an image, that appears on a website, but is actually only a link that goes to a file stored on a different server than the website's hosting server. Often inexpensive business web design templates only create links to graphic images in the template and store the actual image file on their server. This improves the template design company's link popularity by creating many links on many websites that lead to their main website. However, it is a major detriment to businesses seeking to have every search engine optimization opportunity go to their website's advantage.

On-page Element: Elements that are under the control of a web designer and whose links go to a file, such as an image file, that is stored on the website's hosting server. These elements are a fallow field for optimizing for search engines.

Open Source Software: Open source software is developed freely in an iterative climate between developers and users. The open source software development model is used for its rapid creation of software solutions from a potentially huge reservoir of talent. The open source collaborative environment has created a higher standard of quality (extensive level of peer review) and is seen to help maintain the long-term viability of software applications and the data those applications create. Certain websites, like SourceForge.net are secure resources for many open source programs.

Opt-In Form A form that allows web visitors the option of receiving marketing material from the business. The default setting for an opt-in form is, if left unchecked, the visitor does not get put on a marketing mailing list. An opt-in form is considered a better way to create high quality mailing lists, since the business has permission to send material.

Opt-Out Form A form that makes a web visitors check the Opt-Out option in order to not receive marketing material. The default setting for an opt-out form is, if left unchecked, the visitor will get put on a marketing mailing list and also their email address may be shared with other companies. An opt-out form is considered a detrimental way to build a mailing list, since the business may have their URL blocked by anti-spam programs once people begin rejecting the emails.

Organic Search Engine Ranking: The ability of a website to appear high in Google's search results. Search engine optimization is the science of working with a website's web design, content, keywords, and external link strategy to achieve high organic search engine ranking.

Outbound Link: A text element or graphic image that is a hyper-link that, if activated by a mouse click, takes website visitors to a web page on a different website.