A Glossary of Web Design Terms

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Bandwidth: The amount of data or information that can be transmitted through your Internet connection.

Browser: A software application used to display Web pages. Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla are examples.

Database: A collection of information organized electronically for easy access by your computer system. Think of a database as an electronice filing system.

Directory: A term describing the hierarchical structure used to organize files or folders. The first directory in any file is labeled root directory. You may be familiar with the Windows back slash (/) which is the symbol for root directory.

Domain Name: Domain names identify Web pages. In this example of a web address, eyelandcreations.com is the domain name: http://www.eyelandcreations.com/index.html
Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs within, such as:

• .gov - Government agencies
• .mil - Military
• .edu - Educational Institutions
• .com - Commercial Business

A web address, also called a URL, is actually a sequence of numbers called IP Addresses. Your web server translates these numbers into your domain using a Domain Name System (DNS) server.

Email Client: The software your computer uses to access your e-mail, for instance, Microsoft Outlook.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol, most commonly used to download or upload files to a server.

GIF: Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmapped graphics file format used on the Web. The color space is limited to 256 colors and therefore GIF format is best used by solid colored graphics and some illustrations but is not recommended for photographs.

Host Server or Web Site Hosting: A computer that stores the files that make up your web site.

HTML: HyperText Markup Language, used to create documents on the World Wide Web. It defines the structure and layout of the document using tags and attributes.

Internet: A global network of computers.

IP Address: A 32-bit numeric address used by a computer or device to route messages. For example, a web server uses the IP Address 17.254.3.183 to find the domain name apple.com. A TCP/IP network also uses IP Addresses to identify computers and other devices on a network.

Java: A high level, object-oriented language originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Small Java applications are called Java applets and can be downloaded from a Web server and run on your computer by a Java-compatible Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

JavaScript: An open source scripting language originally developed by Netscape that interacts with HTML allowing for a variety of dynamic web page designs.

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group or JPEG is a lossy compression format used by images on the Web. JPEG format is generally used for photographs.

Modem: Short for modulator-demodulator, a modem is a device used by a computer to transmit and carry data over a phone or cable line.

Multimedia: The ability of a computer to display text, graphics, video, animation and sound in an integrated manner.

PDF: The Portable Document Format was developed by Adobe. These files make it possible to capture the formatting information from any desktop publishing or word processing program and send the file to another computer or printer with all formatting intact – even if the recipient does not have the program or fonts the creator used. To view a file in PDF format, you do need the free Adobe Reader software.

Search Engine: A program which searches documents and Web Sites for specified keywords and then returns all matches found.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator, also known as a web address.

Web Server: A computer which delivers Web pages.

Web Site: A collection of documents and files displayed on the Web.

World Wide Web: A system of Internet servers that support HTML documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files.

WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get.

Virtual Assistant: A temporary worker hired as needed who performs tasks remotely.

XHTML: Extensible Hypertext Mark-up Language.

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