Accessability

Web Accessibility is practice of making websites accessible to those with disabilities. This can also help with SEO as search engines cannot see pictures or flash.

AJAX

Stands for ‘Asynchronous JavaScript And XML’. Often used on online forms, as it allows for data to be requested and received without the need for reloading the page.

API

A set of defined rules that allows access and interaction with a system

ASP

Stands for Active Server Pages. ASP is a programming language which Microsoft developed for building dynamic web sites.

Beacon

Coding which enables website owners to track visitor interactions e.g. email sign ups, purchases etc

CGI

Abbreviation for Common Gateway Interface. The CGI allows external software to interface with a web server.

Cookie

Often come in chocolate chip varieties…they go lovely with a cuppa :) OR: Data which a web site stores on a user’s hard drive; then requests when the user returns. Their purpose is to identify returning visitors, and in some instances create customised content based on their preferences / previous behaviour on the site.

CSS

Stands for Cascading Style Sheets. When designing a site, the creation of style sheets enables any changes to the design of the site to be made via amending a single style sheet, rather than going into each individual page and making amends.

Emphasis

An HTML tag used to emphasise important words and / or phrases. It causes the text to appear in italics i.e. – emphasis. Whilst this can be useful from an SEO perspective, clearly if this is overused then the site may look strange to human visitors.

Feed

A feed is a format which can be used to publish digital content which is typically updated frequently. Often used within blogs, news sites etc, visitors may elect to subscribe to an RSS or XML feed to receive this content rather than having to return to the site to view it.

FTP

An abbreviation for File Transfer Protocol, which is simply a protocol for transferring data.

Header Tag

As the name suggests, an HTML tag used to denote a heading on a web page. Search engines give more weight text that is marked with a heading text so this is often used for SEO.

HTML

An abbreviation for Hyper Text Mark-up Language, used for formatting websites.

See Also: HTML Source

HTTP 301

A 301 redirect alerts search engines that the site which previously resided at this domain has been permanently moved to a new one.

See Also: HTTP 302

HTTP 302

A 302 redirect alerts search engines that the site which previously resided at this domain has been temporarily moved.

See Also: HTTP 301

Java

Java is a programming language which was created by Sun Microsystems and was released in 1995. However sometimes when people refer to Java they mean coffee, if you’re feeling kind you could go fetch them a cup of the good stuff…

See Also: Java Applet, JavaScript

Java Applet

Java Applets are platform-neutral (meaning they can run on a variety of different systems without being recompiled). All that is needed to run them is a Java-enabled browser. Typical uses include animation, calculators, games etc

See Also: Java

JavaScript

JavaScript is a scripting language that runs locally on a users’ browser and is generally used for web development. Its primary use is through functions that can either be included from or embedded in HTML pages. Although syntactically similar to the programming language Java; JavaScript and Java are actually unrelated.

See Also: Java

Mod Rewrite

Mod Rewrite is a tool which allows you to return a different URL from the one that was requested. One of it’s uses is to convert dynamic URLs into static looking HTML URLs in order to make them more memorable to users. mod_rewrite is also used for SEO purposes as Search Engines are not keen on dynamic URLs and they generally take longer to index them. An example of mod rewrite: A user may ask for http://www.gravytrain.com/marketing/ppc/, but will really be given http://www.gravytrain.com/index.php?subject=marketing&service=ppc by the server.  So the user will be viewing the content on the dynamic page http://www.gravytrain.com/index.php?subject=marketing&service=ppc, but the URL address in the browser will read http://www.gravytrain.com/marketing/ppc/

See Also: URL Rewrite

PHP

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) – PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language that is commonly used for web development. It has many other applications including client-side GUI application development and command line scripting. Benefits include that it is available free of charge and it can be deployed on most web servers.

RSS

Stands for Really Simple Syndication. It allows sites to share and broadcast content with both other sites and their users.

Sniffer Script

A program which identifies which browser a visitor is using and serves them an appropriate version of the website. These scripts are also used to ascertain whether or not a user has flash, and therefore serve them an appropriate version of the site.

Static

Static means unchanging; the opposite of dynamic. For example a Static URL will always lead to the same web page; whereas in sites where URLs are generated dynamically a given URL will not always lead to the same page; and may instead cause an error message to appear as the web page cannot be found.

Streaming Media

When media is streamed it allows the user to view and / or listen to a continuous audio and / or visual without the need to download a file. Streaming is a method whereby the data is sent in small packets which are instantly displayed to the end user.

Syndication

Web syndication is a means of sharing information on multiple websites. Web syndication usually refers to making web feeds available to provide a website with useful information. For example, The BBC website contains web feeds for different types of news broadcasts.

See Also: RSS

Token

A token is an object which allows a user to  perform an operation or access a particular service. Tokens are often used to uniquely identify users and record their actions.

XML

Stands for Extensible mark up Language. Recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium, XML started as a subset of SGML (standard generalised mark-up language). It is used to facilitate the sharing of data via different information systems, particularly online.

Cookie Use

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