Internet Terminology (A – Z)  

  In order to become a success online, you’ll need to  familiarize yourself with some key Internet terms. A great  place to find definitions of any marketing term is  http://www.marketingterms.com and for technical terms use  http://www.webopedia.com 

These sites’s offer a library of the most common terms and  the list is still growing. When you’re having troubles come  back to this guide and look in the list provided. If your  answer is not here click on the links above, type the term  and, presto, you have an answer in seconds. 

Here are the terms you should get to know: 

¨ Authentication: the process of identifying an individual  usually based on the username and password. 

Authentication merely ensures that the individual is who  he or she claims to be, but says nothing about the access  rights of the individual. 

¨ Autoresponder: software application that allows you to  respond automatically to a certain email request. 

¨ Bandwidth: the transmission capacity of a computer  channel. Communications line or bus. It is expressed in  cycles per second (Hertz), the bandwidth being the  difference between the lowest and highest frequencies  transmitted. The frequency is equal to or greater than  the bits per second. Bandwidth is also often stated in  bits or bytes per second. 

¨ Bit: (Binary digit). A single digit in a binary number  (0 or 1). Within the computer, a bit is physically a  transistor or capacitor in a memory cell, a magnetic spot  on disk or tape or a high or low voltage pulsing through  a circuit. A bit is like a light bulb: on or off. Groups  of bits make up storage units in the computer, called  characters, bytes, or words, which are manipulated as a 

group. 

¨ Bps: (bits per second) The measurement of the speed of  data transfer in a communications system. 

¨ Browsers: short for Web browser, a software application  used to locate and display Web pages. The two most  popular browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft  Internet Explorer. 

¨ Byte: the common unit of computer storage from micro to  mainframe. It is made up of eight binary digits (bits). A  byte holds the equivalent of a single character, such as  a letter, a dollar sign or decimal point. For numbers, a  byte can hold a single decimal digit (0 to 9), two  numeric digits (packed decimal) or a number form 0 to 255  (binary numbers) 

¨ CGI: (1) (Common Gateway Interface) A programming  interface used to link Web pages to databases and other  programs, CGI programs are small and written in Perl or  some other script or high-level language. They reside on  the Web server and function as the glue between the HTML 

pages and the databases. (2) (Computer Graphics  Interface) A device independent graphics language for  display screens, printers and plotters that stemmed from  GKS. 

¨ Click-through: the click rate measures the amount of  times an ad is clicked versus the amount of times it’s  viewed. 

¨ Domain name: the term may refer to any type of domain  within the computer field, since there are several types  of domains. However, today, it often refers to the  address of an Internet site, such as  www.askimmarketing.com 

¨ E-commerce: (Electronic commerce) doing business online. 

¨ Email: the transmission of memos and messages over a  network. Users can send mail to a single recipient or  broadcast it to multiple users. With multitasking  workstations, mail can be delivered and announced while  the user is working in an application. Otherwise, mail is  sent to a simulated mailbox in the network server or host  computer, which must be interrogated. 

¨ Ezine: (Electronic Magazine) A magazine or newsletter  published online. To sign up for my company’s, go to:  http://www.askimmarketing.com 

¨ Flame: slang for communicating emotionally and/or  excessively via email. 

¨ FTP: (File Transfer Program & File Transfer Protocol) A  set of TCP/IP commands used to log onto a network list  directories and copy files. It can also translate between  ASCII and EBCDIC. 

¨ Gigabyte: one billion bytes. Also Gb, Gbyte and G-byte. 

¨ Hits: the retrieval of any item, like a page or a  graphic, from a Web server. For example, when a visitor  calls up a Web page with four graphics, that’s five hits,  one for the page and four for the graphics. For this  reason, hits often aren’t a good indication of Web  traffic. 

¨ Home Page: the main page of a Web site. Typically, the  home page serves as an index or table of contents to  other documents stored at the site. 

¨ Hosting: a computer system that is accessed by a user  working at a remote location. Typically, the term is used  when there are two computer systems connected by modems  and telephone lines or cable. The system that contains  the data is called the host, while the computer at which 

the user sits is called the remote terminal. 

¨ HTML: (HyperText Markup Language) the document format  used on the World Wide Web. Web pages are built with HTML  tags, or codes, embedded in the text. HTML defines the  page layout, fonts and graphic elements as well as the  hypertext links to other documents on the Web. Each link  contains the URL, or address, of a Web page residing on  the same server or any server worldwide, hence “World  Wide Web.” 

¨ HTTP: (Hypertext Transport Protocol) the communications  protocol used to connect to servers on the World Wide  Web. Its primary function is to establish a connection  with a Web server and transmit HTML pages to the client  browser. Addresses of Web sites begin with a http://  prefix; however, Web browsers typically default to the  HTTP protocol. For example: typing www.askimmarketing.com  is the same as typing http://www.askimmarketing.com 

¨ Hyperlink: a predefined linkage between one object and  another. 

¨ Hypertext: the process of linking related information.  For example, by selecting a word in a sentence,  information about that word is retrieved if it exists, or  the next occurrence of the word is found. The concept was  coined by Ted Nelson as a method of making the computer  respond to the way humans think and require information.  Hypertext is the foundation of the World Wide Web. Links  embedded within Web pages are addresses to other Web  pages stored locally or in a Web server anywhere in the  world. 

¨ Impressions: the gross sum of all media exposures  without duplication. The total number of times an ad is  seen on a Web page. 

¨ Internet: a large network made up of a number of smaller  networks. “The” Internet is made up of more then 100,000  interconnected networks in more than 100 countries,  comprised of commercial, academic and government  networks. Originally developed for the military, the 

Internet became widely used for academic and commercial  research. Users had access to unpublished data and  journals on a huge variety of subjects. Due to the World  Wide Web facility on the Internet, it has become  commercialized into a worldwide information highway,  providing information on every subject known to man and  women. 

¨ Intranet: an in house Web site that serves the employees  of the enterprise. Although Intranet pages may link to  the Internet, an Intranet is not a site accessed by the  general public. 

¨ IP address: (Internet Protocol Address) the physical  address of a computer attached to the TCP/IP network.  Every client and server station must have a unique IP  address. Client workstations have either a permanent  address or one that is dynamically assigned for each  dial-up session. IP addresses are written as four sets of  numbers separated by periods; for example 206.172.65.1. 

¨ ISP: (Internet Service Provider) an organization that  provides Internet access. Small ISPs provide service via  modem and ISDN while larger ones also offer private line  hookups. Customers are generally billed a fixed rate per  month, but other charges may apply. For a fee, a Web site  can be hosted on the ISP’s server, allowing the smaller  organization to have a presence on the Web with its own  domain name. 

¨ Java: A programming language for Internet and Intranet  applications from the JavaSoft division of Sun. Java was  modeled after C++, and Java programs can be called form  within HTML documents or launched stand alone. Java was  designed to run in small amounts of memory and provides  its own memory management. 

¨ JPEG: (Joint Photographic Experts Group) an ISO/ITU  standard for compressing images using discrete cosine  transform. It provides lousy compression (you lose  sharpness from the original) and can provide ratios of  100:1 and higher. It depends entirely on the image, but  ratios of 10:1 and 20:1 may provide little noticeable  loss. The more the loss can be tolerated, the more the  image can be compressed. Compression is achieved by  dividing the picture into tiny pixel blocks, which are  halved over and over until the ratio is achieved. 

¨ Kilobyte: one thousand bytes. Also KB, Kbyte and K-byte 

¨ Login: to gain access, or sign in, to a computer system.  If restricted, it requires users to identify themselves  by entering an ID number and/or password. Service bureaus  base their charges for the time between logon and logoff. 

¨ Megabyte: one million bytes. Also MB, Mbyte and M-byte. 

¨ Meta Tags: a special HTML tag that provides information  about a Web page. Meta tags do not affect the way a page  is displayed. Instead they provide information about who  created the page, how often it is updated, what the page  is about, and which keywords represent the page’s 

content. Many search engines use this information when  building their indices. 

¨ Modem: (Modulator-Demodulator) a device that adapts a  terminal or computer to a telephone line. It converts the  computer’s digital pulses into audio frequencies (analog)  for the telephone system and converts the frequencies  back into pulses at the receiving side. The modem also  dials the line, answers the call and controls  transmission speed, which ranges up to 33,6000 bps and 

higher. 

¨ Netiquette: (network etiquette) proper manners when  conferencing between two or more users on an online  service or the Internet. Emily Post may not have told you  to curtail your cussing via modem, but netiquette has  been established to remind you that profanity is not in  good form over the network. Using UPPER CASE TO MAKE A  POINT all the time and interjecting emoticons throughout  a message is also not good netiquette. 

¨ Newsgroup: a discussion group on the Internet. It is an  on-going collection of messages about a particular  subject. 

¨ Node: In communications, a network junction or  connection point (terminal or computer). In database  management, an item of data that can be accessed by two  or more routes. In computer graphics, an endpoint of a  graphical element. 

¨ Page view: the accessing of a Web page. Often used by  sites to give advertisers a sense of traffic, a page view  differs form a hit by counting only the number of times a  page has been accessed. 

¨ POP (Post Office Protocol) a standard mail server  commonly used on the Internet, the latest version of  which is POP3. It provides a message store that holds  incoming email until users log on and download it. POP is  a simple system with little selectivity. All pending  messages and attachments are downloaded at the same time.  POP uses the SMTP messaging protocol. 

¨ Protocol: rules governing transmitting and receiving of  data. 

¨ Search engine: software that searches for data based on  some criterion. 

¨ Security certificate: a block of information, usually  stored as a text file that is used by the SSL protocol to  establish a secure connection. 

¨ Server: a computer in a network shared by multiple  users. The term may refer to both the hardware and  software or just the software that performs the service. 

¨ SET: (Secure Electronic Transaction) a standard protocol  from MasterCard and Visa for securing online credit card  payments via the Internet. 

¨ SMTP: (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) the standard  email protocol on the Internet. It is a TCP/IP protocol  that defines the message format and the message transfer  agent (MTA), which stores and forwards the mail. SMTP was  originally designed for only ASCII text, but MIME and 

other encoding methods enable program and multimedia  files to be attached to email messages. SMTP servers  route SMTP messages throughout the Internet to a mail  server, such as POP or IMAP, which provides a message  store for incoming mail. 

¨ Spider: a search engine that searches the Web by document  title and contents, archiving the information for  searching purposes. 

¨ SSL: (Secure Socket Layer) the leading security protocol  on the Internet. When an SSL session is started, the  browser sends its public key to the server so that the  server can securely send a secret key to the browser. The  browser and server exchange data via secret key  encryption during that session. 

contains the protocol prefix, port address, domain name,  subdirectory names and file name. Port addresses are  generally defaults and are rarely specified. To access a  home page on a Web site, only the protocol and domain  name is required. For example,  http://www.askimmarketing.com retrieves the home page at  the Askimmarketing Web site. The http:// is the Web  protocol, and the www.askimmarketing.com is the domain  name. If a required page is stored in a subdirectory, its 

name is separated by a slash. Like path names in DOS and  Windows, subdirectories can be several levels deep. 

¨ Web Crawler: a search engine that searches the Web by  document title and content, archiving the information for  searching purposes. 

¨ Web Server: a computer that provides World Wide Web  services on the Internet. The term may refer to just the  software that provides this service or to the computer  system and software. 

¨ Webzine: a magazine published on the World Wide Web. 

¨ Web/WWW: the largest collection of online information in  the World. The Web is an Internet facility that has  become synonymous with the Internet. Its foundation is  the HTML document, which contains links (URLs) to other  documents on the same Web server or on servers anywhere 

in the world. The Web uses the HTTP protocol to download  Web pages to a browser, such as Mozilla Firefox or  Internet Explorer8. Using a variety of  programming  tools and architectures, such as Java, JavaScript,  Jscript, VBScript, JavaBeans and ActiveX, the Web is  turning into“the” worldwide information system for e- education, e-research, e-entertainment and e-commerce.