Web Design Terminology
We have compiled a list of terms used in Web Design business we
feel may be useful to our clients. Although we do our best to
explain everything in layman's terms, we feel it's important to
provide you with the tools and knowledge to plan and maintain a
successful website.
Web Design
Web Design
is the art and process of creating a single Web page or
entire Web sites and may involve both the aesthetics and the
mechanics of a Web site's operation although primarily it
focuses on the look and feel of the Web site - the design
elements.
Some of the
aspects that may be included in Web design or Web production
are graphics and animation creation, color selection, font
selection, navigation design, content creation, HTML/XML
authoring, JavaScript programming, and ecommerce
development. Web design is a form of electronic
publishing.
Website
A Website is a
collection of web pages, images, videos or other digital
assets that is hosted on one or more web servers, usually
accessible via the Internet.
A web page is a document, typically written in (X)HTML, that
is almost always accessible via HTTP, a protocol that
transfers information from the web server to display in the
user's web browser.
All publicly accessible websites are seen collectively as
constituting the "World Wide Web".
The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a common
root URL called the homepage, and usually reside on the same
physical server. The URLs of the pages organize them into a
hierarchy, although the hyperlinks between them control how
the reader perceives the overall structure and how the
traffic flows between the different parts of the site.
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all
of their content. Examples of subscription sites include
many business sites, parts of many news sites, academic
journal sites, gaming sites, message boards, Web-based
e-mail, services, social networking websites, and sites
providing real-time stock market data. Because they require
authentication to view the content they are technically an
Intranet site.
Web development
Web
development is a broad term for any activity related to
developing a web site for the World Wide Web or an intranet.
This can include e-commerce business development, web
design, web content development, client-side/server-side
scripting, and web server configuration. However, among web
professionals, "web development" usually refers only to the
non-design aspects of building web sites, e.g. writing
markup and coding. Web development can range from developing
the simplest static single page of plain text to the most
complex web-based internet applications, electronic
businesses, or social network services..
Graphic designer
Graphic
designer (also known as a graphic artist and communication
artist) is a professional within the graphic design and
graphic arts industry who assembles together images,
typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A
graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for
published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures
and advertising. They are also sometimes responsible for
typesetting, illustration and web design, or take a teaching
position, although these specialties may be assigned to
specialists in various graphic design occupations. A core
responsibility of the designer's job is to present
information in a way that is both accessible and aesthetic.
Web Site Design
A web site is
a collection of information about a particular topic or
subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement
and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A
web page consists of information for which the web site is
developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where
each page of the book is a web page.
There are many aspects (design concerns) in this process,
and due to the rapid development of the Internet, new
aspects may emerge. For non-commercial web sites, the goals
may vary depending on the desired exposure and response. For
typical commercial web sites, the basic aspects of design
are:
- The
content: the substance, and information on the site
should be relevant to the site and should target the
area of the public that the website is concerned with.
- The
usability: the site should be user-friendly, with the
interface and navigation simple and reliable.
- The
appearance: the graphics and text should include a
single style that flows throughout, to show consistency.
The style should be professional, appealing and
relevant.
- The
visibility: the site must also be easy to find via most,
if not all, major search engines and advertisement
media.
A web site
typically consists of text and images. The first page of a
web site is known as the Home page or Index. Some web sites
use what is commonly called a Splash Page. Splash pages
might include a welcome message, language or region
selection, or disclaimer. Each web page within a web site is
an HTML file which has its own URL. After each web page is
created, they are typically linked together using a
navigation menu composed of hyperlinks. Faster browsing
speeds have led to shorter attention spans and more
demanding online visitors and this has resulted in less use
of Splash Pages, particularly where commercial web sites are
concerned.
Once a web site is completed, it must be published or
uploaded in order to be viewable to the public over the
internet. This may be done using an FTP client. Once
published, the web master may use a variety of techniques to
increase the traffic, or hits, that the web site receives.
This may include submitting the web site to a search engine
such as Google or Yahoo, exchanging links with other web
sites, creating affiliations with similar web sites, etc.
Multidisciplinary requirements
Web site design crosses multiple disciplines of information
systems, information technology and communication design.
The web site is an information system whose components are
sometimes classified as front-end and back-end. The
observable content (e.g. page layout, user interface,
graphics, text, audio) is known as the front-end. The
back-end comprises the organization and efficiency of the
source code, invisible scripted functions, and the
server-side components that process the output from the
front-end. Depending on the size of a Web development
project, it may be carried out by a multi-skilled individual
(sometimes called a web master), or a project manager may
oversee collaborative design between group members with
specialized skills.
Static website
A static
website is one that has web pages stored on the server in
the same form as the user will view them. It is primarily
coded in HTML (Hyper-text Markup Language).
A Static website is also called a Classic website, a 5-page
website or a Brochure website because it simply presents
pre-defined information to the user. It may include
information about a company and its products and services
via text, photos, Flash animation, audio/video and
interactive menus and navigation.
This type of website usually displays the same information
to all visitors, thus the information is static. Similar to
handing out a printed brochure to customers or clients, a
static website will generally provide consistent, standard
information for an extended period of time. Although the
website owner may make updates periodically, it is a manual
process to edit the text, photos and other content and may
require basic website design skills and software.
In summary, visitors are not able to control what
information they receive via a static website, and must
instead settle for whatever content the website owner has
decided to offer at that time.
Search engine
optimization
(SEO) is the
process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a
web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or
"algorithmic") search results. Typically, the higher a
site's "page rank" (i.e, the earlier it comes in the search
results list), the more visitors it will receive from the
search engine. SEO can also target different kinds of
search, including image search, local search, and
industry-specific vertical search engines.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search
engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a
website primarily involves editing its content and HTML
coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords
and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search
engines.
The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine
optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants
who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients,
and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search
engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or
as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective
SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site,
SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development
and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to
describe web site designs, menus, content management systems
and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.
Website Hosting
A web hosting
service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows
individuals and organizations to provide their own website
accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies
that provide space on a server they own for use by their
clients as well as providing Internet connectivity,
typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data
center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers
they do not own to be located in their data center, called
colocation.
File Transfer
Protocol (FTP)
File Transfer
Protocol (FTP) is a network protocol used to transfer data
from one computer to another through a network such as the
Internet.
Web search engine
A Web search
engine is a tool designed to search for information on the
World Wide Web. Information may consist of web pages,
images, information and other types of files. Some search
engines also mine data available in news books, databases, or
open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are
maintained by human editors, search engines operate
algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human
input.
Web analytics
Web analytics
is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of
internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing
web site usage.[1]
There are two categories of web analytics; off-site and
on-site web analytics.
Off-site web analytics refers to web measurement and
analysis irrespective of whether you own or maintain a
website. It includes the measurement of a website's
potential audience (opportunity), share of voice
(visibility), and buzz (comments) that is happening on the
Internet as a whole.
On-site web analytics measure a visitor's journey once on
your website. This includes its drivers and conversions; for
example, which landing pages encourage people to make a
purchase. On-site web analytics measures the performance of
your website in a commercial context. This data is typically
compared against key performance indicators for performance,
and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign's
audience response.
Historically, web analytics has referred to on-site visitor
measurement. However in recent years this has blurred,
mainly because vendors are producing tools that span both
categories.
PageRank
PageRank is a
link analysis algorithm used by the Google Internet search
engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of
a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web,
with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance
within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any
collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and
references.
Google
describes PageRank:
“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the
web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an
individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a
link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.
But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or
links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts
the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves
"important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages
"important"."
In other words, a PageRank results from a "ballot" among all
the other pages on the World Wide Web about how important a
page is. A hyperlink to a page counts as a vote of support.
The PageRank of a page is defined recursively and depends on
the number and PageRank metric of all pages that link to it
("incoming links"). A page that is linked to by many pages
with high PageRank receives a high rank itself. If there are
no links to a web page there is no support for that page.
Link popularity
Link
popularity is a measure of the quantity and quality of other
web sites that link to a specific site on the World Wide
Web. It is an example of the move by search engines towards
off-the-page-criteria to determine quality content. In
theory, off-the-page-criteria adds the aspect of
impartiality to search engine rankings. Link popularity
plays an important role in the visibility of a web site
among the top of the search results. Indeed, some search
engines require at least one or more links coming to a web
site, otherwise they will drop it from their index.
Search engines such as Google use a
special link analysis system to rank web pages. Citations
from other WWW authors help to define a site's reputation.
The philosophy of link popularity is that important sites
will attract many links. Content-poor sites will have
difficulty attracting any links. Link popularity assumes
that not all incoming links are equal, as an inbound link
from a major
directory carries more weight than
an inbound link from an obscure personal home page. In other
words, the quality of incoming links counts more than sheer
numbers of them.
Website Terminology from
Wikipedia ;
Google Technology.
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