Web Design Terms

Hyper Text Markup Language is the basic language used in web pages. It is designed to run in different browsers and different computers. It consists of a list of instructions that tell the browser how to render the page i.e. text size and colour, where to place graphic images etc. HTML has the limitation that, apart from hypertext links, it lacks interactivity. This is the most widely used language for web pages and is adequate where there's a requirement to display fixed information.

Dynamic Hyper Text Markup Language - A combination of coding languages most frequently used to add animation, functionality and advanced interactivity to web page elements.

Search Engine Optimization - Various uses of keywords and phrases to gain rankings and placement in search engines.

A tool for creating interactive and animated websites. Flash is vector-based which is the creation of images using points and connecting lines instead of raster images. This can be helpful in creating animations and advanced interfaces with a smaller file size and faster download speeds.

The domain of a site is the title that is shown in the site's address, ie sitename.com. A domain is unique to a machine or IP address, and tells the browser where to find the site which the user is looking for.

Uniform Resource Locater - A string of characters that is the path that points a web browser or data-collecting application to a resource on the internet.

A URL specifically for use in a web browser. Web addresses contain “http://” (although you do not necessarily have to type in “http://” in most modern browsers.)

Pages that have a specific Document that they are generated from.

Pages that are generated from a compilation of sections of documents and/or databases with the use of an advanced language such as PHP

This term is often used to mean "web page," but there is supposed to be a difference. A web page is a single entity, one URL, one file that you might find on the Web. A "site," properly speaking, is an location or gathering or center for a bunch of related pages linked to from that site.

If you have a static HTML website then to update your content you must edit your HTML files and upload them to the server. This is fine if you have a good knowledge of HTML but if you don't then you'll have to pay a programmer to do it. With a Content Management System, your pages contain the required code to pull content stored on an online database and write it into your pages. The Content Management System will include an easy to use interface that allows you to update the content held in the database without the need to know HTML or any programming techniques.

JavaScript is a scripting language that allows more interactivity than HTML and is normally embedded within HTML documents. JavaScript is so commonly used that all except the oldest of browsers can handle it. In contrast to HTML, which is only a list of instructions processed in list order, JavaScript is a proper programming language that allows decision branches to alternative instructions depending on set conditions. Since JavaScript can output HTML, this allows a script to effectively rewrite an HTML page depending on things such as the date or the content of a user's JavaScript cookie. JavaScript is an example of a client side scripting language i.e. the JavaScript instructions are downloaded by the server and the client (the browser) takes care of parsing the script.

CSS is a language which is being used more and more commonly as an alternative to HTML. A Style Sheet will set a number of instructions that will be applied to pages throughout the site, for example fonts or background colours. Using CSS is a more efficient way of creating sites as one set of instructions can be used across the whole site instead of setting properties for each bit of text or image.

Active Server Pages is popularly known as ASP. It is a technology that facilitates you to make dynamic and interactive web pages. ASP uses server-side scripting to actively produce web pages that are not affected by the type of browser the user of a web site. VBScript is the default scripting language used for writing ASP. But you can use other scripting languages like Microsoft's version of JavaScript, called JScript.

Extensible Markup Language - A simple and flexible text format originally created to help with extensive electronic publishing.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor - Yes, the acronym is use inside the expansion of the acronym. PHP is a popular scripting language that can be implemented directly inside HTML. PHP is used for dynamically generated web-pages and is especially powerful in database driven content.

a graphic on a Web page that is divided into parts which link to different Web pages.

an HTML tag located in the non-displaying portion at the head of a Web page. Meta tags contain useful information about the page - creation date, page title, page description, keywords associated with the page. The information is contained in the file but invisible who views the page in their browser.

a link from one Web page to another, either on the same site or somewhere else on the Internet.

A collection of information organized electronically for easy access by your computer system. Think of a database as an electronice filing system.

File Transfer Protocol, most commonly used to download or upload files to a server.

Joint Photographic Experts Group or JPEG is a lossy compression format used by images on the Web. JPEG format is generally used for photographs.

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmapped graphics file format used on the Web. The color space is limited to 256 colors and therefore GIF format is best used by solid colored graphics and some illustrations but is not recommended for photographs.

The amount of data or information that can be transmitted through your Internet connection.