Terminology — A to C

This list of words related to the Internet and the World Wide Web is intended for non-specialists. If you want more precise or more technical definitions, we have listed some resources on our links page.

A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N
O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z

Accessibility

Refers to making your Web site and all its components available to people with disabilities, including those who use their cell phone or other small-screen devices to access your Web site.

Adware

Hidden software, stealthily deposited on your computer’s hard drive, that automatically presents you with pop-up advertisements whether you want them or not.

ASP

A Microsoft scripting technology that is used to create dynamic and interactive Web applications. ".asp" at the end of a file name means that a Web page may contain scripts that are processed by a Web server before being sent to the user's browser.

Attachment

A file — a digital photo, or a Word document, for example — which is sent along with an e-mail message.

Bandwidth

The maximum amount of data that can be transferred in a given time, usually measured in seconds, from your Web site to an Internet user, for example.

Bit

Short for binary digit, a bit is the smallest unit of data a computer can handle. Each bit has a value of 0 or 1.

Blog

Short for “Web log” — a personal Web site in diary / journal / log format. Most blogs are updated frequently, and many have a very obvious point of view.

BMP

Windows BitMaP is a simple but powerful format for storing graphics.

Breadcrumbs

A text-based form of navigation that shows the hierarchical linking structure of a web site. Allows the user to navigate back through the hierarchy.

Browser

Software which allows you to view a Web site. Browsers “read” the HTML code and “translate” it into the text, photographs, graphic images, sounds, and everything else on the Web site.

During the 1990s, aggressive competition initiated by Internet Explorer regarding Web standards limited the development of browsers. Netscape emerged from this destructive battle practically unable to compete, and is now owned by AOL.

Mozilla Firefox is a very good recent addition to our browser options.

Byte

Computer storage space is measured in bytes. A byte is a series of bits of a particular length — usually eight.

• 1 kilobyte (Kb) = 1024 bytes
• 1 megabyte (Mb) = 1,000 Kb
• 1 gigabyte (Gb) = 1,000 Mb = 1,000,000 Kb = 1,000,000,000 bytes.

Clickstream

Your use of the Internet — the Web sites you visit, the pages you look at, the images you download, the online purchases you make, and the email you send and receive — produces a personal "clickstream," which is being recorded and archived in increasingly sophisticated ways, principally for commercial use.

Comment Tag

An HTML tag used to hide comments from browsers. A comment tag is placed between symbols <!-- Hello -->. Most search engines will ignore the comments placed between these symbols.

Computer Virus

A file — attached to e-mail or downloaded files — which can infect your computer in an undesirable way.

Cookie

A cookie is a very small piece of tracking software placed in a file on your computer's hard disk; the cookie identifies you as a return visitor to the Web site which originally placed it on your computer. Cookies are sometimes used to remember user-selected preferences for a particular Web site: login information, for example.

Most cookies are harmless, and many e-commerce sites require your browser to allow them to set cookies in order for you to make a purchase. But other cookies can be very problematic.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets define how various components of a Web site are displayed on a browser — definitions of font family, size, weight, style, and color, for example.

"Cascading" refers to the fact that multiple style sheets can be applied to a single Web page, along with instructions about their relative importance.

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