Glossary of Terms

In an effort to provide our clients with a better understanding of the more commonly used Internet terminology, we have created this Glossary of Internet Terms, Abbreviations and Acronyms.

 

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

Scooter  ::   The name of the Altavista search engine's spider.

Screen Capture  ::   A method of "capturing" a snapshot of your computer screen. Pressing the "Print Scrn" key on your keyboard will place an image of your computer screen in memory. Pasting (Ctrl V) that image into any graphics program will permit you to crop and edit that scene.

Script  ::   A script is an executable list of commands created by a scripting language. Scripts that are executed on a web server (eg; Perl, PHP) are said to be server-side scripts. Scripts that execute on your own home PC (eg; JavaScript) are said to be client-side scripts. Scripts can be embed within HTML to produce a web page with dynamic actions.

Scripting Language  ::   A scripting language is a simple programming language used to write an executable list of commands, called a script. JavaScript, Perl, VBscript are scripting languages rather than general-purpose programming languages.

SDK (Software Development Kit)  ::   The vendor-provided software API and tools which allow easy integration of software into an existing infrastructure.

Search Directory (Yahoo!, DMOZ, LookSmart)  ::   Search directory's utilize human editors to determine whether a site is worthy of addition into their large categorized indexes. Improved positioning is not obtained through internal Web site optimization.

Search Engine  ::   A tool for searching information on the Internet by topic. A server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing internet Web pages, storing the results and returning lists of pages which match particular queries. The indexes are normally generated using spiders. Some of the major search engines are AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, Lycos, Northern Light and WebCrawler. Note that Yahoo is a directory, not a search engine. The term Search Engine is also often used to describe both directories and search engines.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)  ::   Using search engines to let people know about your site and drive traffic to your site. When a person searches on a term that is related to your Web site, a brief description of your site with a link to it will appear in their search results. There are a number of different ways to approach Search Engine Marketing. You can also pay to be listed on search results (in a different area from natural, non-paid search results) when a key word you designate is searched on. This is called 'paid placement' or 'paid search results.' Yahoo!® Sponsored Search and Google AdWords™ are two programs that allow you to pay for placement.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  ::   Search Engine Optimization (SEO) makes your site more appealing to search engines and gives them a better understanding of who they should send to your site. Optimizing your Web site should result in a high placement in 'natural search results,' or in the area where companies aren't paying to be listed.

Search Engine Placement  ::   Used to describe a Web site's search engine position in the listings of search engine queries.

Search Engine Positioning  ::   Search engine positioning describes attempting to improve a Web site's specific search engine position in the search engine listings.

Search Engine Ranking  ::   The position of a Web site listing on a search engine.

Search Engine Submission  ::   Registering a Web site with a search engine.

Search Query  ::   The keyword, keyphrase, or list of words that you type into a search engine to find Web pages on a topic that you're interested in. 

Search Term  ::   A list of keywords or a keyphrase that a user types into a search engine to find a list of Web pages related to topic that he/she is interested in.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)  ::   SEM encompasses SEO, Web promotion, online media buying, basically any advertising designed for the search engines.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)  ::   The process of optimizing a Web page for high search engine rankings for a particular search term or set of search terms.

SEP (Search Engine Promotion)  ::   Also used to describe the services offered by most search engine marketing companies, Search Engine Promotion is the act of improving Web site traffic, brand awareness and rankings with search engines.

SERPs  ::   Search Engine Results Pages

Server  ::   One half of the client-server protocol, runs on a networked computer and responds to requests submitted by the client. Your World Wide Web browser is a client of a World Wide Web server.

SGML (Standard Generalised Mark-Up Language)  ::   Is an international standard for defining special document types and controlling presentation of pages. HTML is an instance of SGML. See also XML.

Shared hosting  ::   The most basic of Web hosting types. With shared hosting, numerous Web sites are shared on one server. While an economic solution, they typically cannot handle large amounts of storage or traffic.

Shared SSL  ::   Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a protocol that provides encrypted communications on the Internet. This is used primarily for financial transactions that take place over the Internet. Shared SSL provides secure Web server access without requiring you to purchase a digital key. This means you will avoid additional cost, but you will be required to access your secure content in a form similar to the following: https://secure.networksolutions.com/username

Shareware  ::   Software that is available on a free limited trial basis. Sometimes this is a fully featured product, other times it lacks some of the features of the commerical version. If you find the product useful, you are expected to register the software, for which in return you will receive the full featured commercial version.

Shelfware  ::   Software purchased on a whim (by an individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or government agency), but not actually required for any particular use. Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf.

Shell  ::   The user interface to an operating environment. Unix has several, including the Bourne shell (sh), the C shell (csh), and the Korn shell (ksh).

Shockwave™  ::   A plug-in from Macromedia that permits you to view animated multimedia presentations on the Web.

Shopping cart  ::   A program designed to handle the e-commerce section of a Web site. Shopping cart software lets users browse for and purchase products online.

Signature  ::   A personal tag automatically appended to an email message. May be short, such as the author's name, or quite long, such as a favorite quote.

Site  ::   A file section of a computer on which files reside; for example, a Web site, a Gopher site, an FTP site.

Site Analysis  ::   A system for search engine optimization specialists to assess a Web site's likely rank in search engine results.
Slurp  ::   The name of Inktomi's crawler.

Smart Card  ::   A smart card allows electronic money to be stored in a secure, but portable medium. It is a credit card with a built-in microprocessor and memory used for identification and financial transactions. When inserted into a reader, it transfers data to and from a central computer. It is more secure than a magnetic stripe card and can be programmed to self-destruct if the wrong password is entered too many times. As a financial transaction card, it can store transactions and maintain a bank balance. See Contact Card, Contactless Card, and Medallion.

SMTP  ::   Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A protocol dictating how email messages are exchanged over the Internet. The set of rules that the Internet uses for exchanging e-mail messages. SMTP is a server to server protocol, so other protocols are used to access the messages. See also, Post Office Protocol.

Snail Mail  ::   Paper mail. The traditional mail service offered by the postal service and other postal carriers.

SPAM  ::   The act of flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Spam also can be the act of using any words, HTML code, scripting, or programming on a web page that is not meant to benefit the end user. Sending multiple, sometimes thousands, of unwelcome messages to a newsgroup or mailing list to promote a commercial product or Web site.

Spamdexing  ::   The alteration or creation of a document with intent to deceive an electronic catalog or filing system. Any technique that increases the potential positioning of a site at the expense of the quality of the search engine's database is regarded as spamdexing, also referred to as spamming or spoofing.

Spider  ::   An automated software program that traverses the Web to collect information about resources for later queries by users seeking to find resources; major species of active spiders include search engines such as Lycos and WebCrawler. Each search engine uses a spider to build its database.

Spidering  ::   The process of crawling the web, storing URLs' and indexing keywords, links and text.

Splash Page  ::   Splash pages are introduction pages to a Web site that are heavy on graphics (or flash video) with no textual content. They are designed to either impress a visitor or complement some corporate branding.

Sponsored Links  ::   Pay Per Click ads displayed at the top and on the right side of search engine results.

SQL (Structured Query Language)  ::   A standardized query language used for querying databases in client/server applications.

SSI  ::   Server Side Includes. Tells a server to include information (source from a separate file) in a document before sending it to the browser. A very effective method of producing the same information over many pages as one file can be altered to produce the changes over the many the pages that includes the SSI file.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)  ::   A protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet. Many Web sites use the protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card numbers.

Static IP Address  ::   An IP address that does not change each time the user logs onto the Internet. An example would be an AT & T Broadband IP. See Dynamic IP Address.

Stop Word  ::   A word which is ignored in a query because the word is so commonly used that it makes no contribution to relevancy. Examples are common net words such as computer and Web, and general words like get, I, me, the and you.

Streaming audio, streaming video  ::   Technologies, which permit listening, and watching continuously as the signal is transferred to your system from a remote Web site.

Sub-Domain  ::   A sub-domain is a domain that is part of a larger domain name. DNS hierarchy consists of the root-level domain at the top, underneath which are the top-level domains, followed by second-level domains and finally sub-domains.

Subject Line  ::   The line in e-mail messages where you insert the subject being discussed. This is an important place to add "spin" to a marketing message.

Submission  ::   The process of notifying search engines or directories about a website. Every search engine or directory has a form to enable the submission of websites, varying from a simple URL address (for a search engine), to more detailed information (for a directory). Submissions may be made manually or by using automated software, although the manual submission is more effective for search engine placement.

Surfing  ::   Informal term for exploring the Internet (i.e., "surfing the net."). Most often used in reference to accessing sites on the World Wide Web.

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