Admin aka Administrator or webmaster. A WordPress Administrator has full power over the site. Administrators can create more Administrators or other levels of user authority, remove users, and change user roles. Admins have complete control over posts, pages, uploaded files, comments, settings, themes, imports, and other users.Nothing is off-limits for Administrators, including deleting the entire site. We recommend having only one administrator per blog and assigning limited authority levels, such as Author, to other people involved with maintaining the website, and only add users whom you know and trust to your site.
Adsense Google’s contextual ad network, a free, simple way to earn money by placing ads on your website. You dedicate the space for the ad and then Google chooses and places ads in that space.
Adwords Google’s targeted ad program. You create an account, set your budget, write your ad and decide where and when you would like it to appear in other people’s search results.
Backlink A link or direct access from one website to another.
Blog A type of website that is sometimes compared to online journaling, run by an individual or small group.Blogs are typically updated frequently and written in an informal or conversational style.Blogs come in many varieties, usually focused on a particular topic. Most blogs incorporate an interactive element such as comments or surveys and are comprised of posts displayed in reverse chronological order, rather than static pages.
Bot An automated software program that can execute certain commands when it receives specific input (like a ro-“bot”). Web searching bots, also known as spiders and crawlers, methodically search the internet and retrieve, then record, the information and links found on websites and blog pages. Then they generate massive electronic catalogs of the sites that have been “spidered.” These catalogs make up the index of sites that are used for search engine results.
Browser A software program that allows computer and mobile users to access the Internet, such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. The purpose of a web browser is to read HTML documents and display them.
Category Categories provide a helpful way to group related posts together, and to quickly tell readers what a post is about. Categories also make it easier for people to find your content. Categories are similar to, but broader than, tags.Categories are used for general groupings of post topics, while tags are generally used to describe your post in more detail.
Chrome One of the most popular software programs known as a browser that allows users to access the internet. Made and maintained by Google, Chrome is a free download that works on desktop and laptop computers with a Windows operating system, most tablets and Android cell phones. https://www.google.com/chrome/
Content Content is the reason and the essence for every website. It is the words and graphics displayed on the screen, which may differ according to the type of website.
For example, retail sites typically feature a catalog of products, with photos and descriptions of what they are selling. University sites contain information about their campuses, curriculum, and faculty. News sites show the latest news stories as text, slideshows or video.
On a blog, content consists of articles, also called “posts” or “entries” that might optionally contain illustrations such as photographs, charts, maps, video or clipart.
Cover Photo The large picture at the top of a Facebook profile, right above the profile picture. Cover photos are available for viewing by the public. Users upload a graphic file to Facebook and designate it as a cover photo, and can be changed as often as desired. The photo or artwork must be at least 399 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall. On computers it displays at 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall, and on smartphones at 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall. Cover photos do not display on feature phones.
CTA Call to Action (CTA) is an instruction or invitation to the reader that will provoke an immediate response, such as “call now.” The main goal of a web site CTA is either a click or tap, a scan of a qr code, or to fill in and submit an online form or place an order.
Dashboard The first screen you see when you log into the Administration area of your blog. The dashboard gives you a place where you can get an at-a-glance overview of what’s happening with your blog and access to specific areas to change settings, add or delete posts and pages, and moderate comments.
Dead Link A link that does not lead to a page or site. Sometimes the destination site has been moved or deleted, sometimes the other web site has been hacked or taken down.
Domain name A domain name is used to identify a website and is like your internet address. To access a website, you enter the domain name in the browser’s address bar and the domain name is translated to a specific number called an “IP address.” This translation is performed by a system called DNS, which directs the browser to the appropriate location and displays the content on your computer or mobile device.
When you register a domain, the exact name plus the domain suffix (.com, .net, .org, etc) are what you are purchasing. Domains are unique, and are first come, first served. By registering a domain, you have purchased the right to use that address for your site for one year or the length of the term purchased – which can be up to five years. As long as you renew the name before it expires, you retain the right to use that name.
Draft Your page or post content is saved as a draft to allow edits or approval before publishing it for public view or access.
Error Codes When a browser attempts communication with a web server, such as requesting the home page of desired web site, an error might occur. This is a short list of common HTTP error messages that you might see when trying to visit a web site:
403 Forbidden The request was a legal request, but the server is refusing to respond to it.
404 Not Found The requested page could not be found, but may be available again in the future
500 Internal Server Error A generic error message, given when no more specific message is suitable
503 Service Unavailable The server is currently unavailable (overloaded or down).
Feed A stream of posts or comments that is updated when new content is published. Also called RSS, interested visitors can subscribe to a feed and view your content in the future without having to re-visit your actual website.People can monitor your blog, along with other websites they are interested in, and aggregate them together through applications known as feed readers.
Footer The area below the main post or page content which usually includes information such as copyright notices, the theme, and hosting information. Some themes allow customization of the footer area to change colors, edit text, and some allow adding widgets to increase functionality or navigation from each page.
Front page Generally, the first page retrieved when accessing a Website, also known as the home page, or home. This is the starting point for a user to access information on the site. The “home” page usually has some type of table of contents for the rest of the site information or other materials, sometimes shown as a menu bar or as a widget in the sidebar.When creating Web pages, the “home” page has the filename “index.html,” which is the default name.The “index” page automatically opens as the “home” page.
Header The header of your site is typically the first thing people see. From this masthead or header art across the top of your page, people make sweeping judgments about what they are about to see and read. Most WordPress themes allow you to customize the header with graphics of your choice, which may include photos, logos, telephone numbers and other text. The size of a custom header will differ according to the theme’s requirements.
Header image The most important visual element of a website, the header image establishes the look and feel of the site, and reinforces your band. Using the same or similar image in other advertising and social media sites helps visitors easily identify your company or organization. Most WordPress themes have a default header image that can be easily changed using the Admin dashboard by clicking on “Appearance” and selecting “Header.”
Home page Also known as the front page or entry page, this is the first screen that visitors see when they come to your site. Note, however, this is different from a “Landing page,” which is an internal page that visitors use to place an order or to contact your representative.
HTML Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is code that describes web documents (web pages) for viewing on a computer or mobiles device.
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) enables communications between clients (a browser or computer) and servers.
Inbound Link When another web site has linked to your site, so their viewers can come directly to your site without having to type the address of your site in their browser or having to search for it.
IP Address Your IP address is a unique code number that identifies your computer on the Internet. Also known as an “IP number” or just “IP,” this code is made up of numbers separated by three dots based on your Internet Service Provider and your physical location while connected. Every computer, router, tablet and mobile phone requires an IP address to connect to the Internet. It is assigned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). You can find your IP by pasting this link into your browser’s address bar: http://www.sharpened.net/resources/internet/ip_address
ISP Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a company that offers access to the Internet and to email, usually for a monthly fee. Often a local telephone company or cable company that provides the wires from the street to the outside of your residence or business, and from the outside connection to a modem within the premises.
jpeg A compressed image file format not limited to a certain amount of colors. The JPEG format is best for editing and processing photographic images or graphics with a lot of intense colors. Other image formats include PNG and GIF. All three formats upload and display well on the WordPress platform. Compression helps reduce the file size so it takes up less memory resources and loads faster on your screen.
Keyword A word or short phrase that describes content. They can be used to describe images, text documents, database records, and Web pages. A user may tag pictures or text files with keywords that are relevant to their content. Keywords are used as search terms for search engines, and are words that help website visitors find specific content within your site.
Link A word, group of words, or image that you can click on to go to a different section within the current page, or to a new page or a different website. Links can be displayed in the menu bar, in the sidebar, in the header or footer and within posts or pages. To add links in your posts or pages, use either the Visual editor or the HTML editor.
Menu A list of links that are displayed as the main navigation for your site, usually at the top of the page, either above or below the header. The menu location can vary depending on your theme and your device. Some themes offer additional menus, but usually additional links are displayed in the sidebar using widgets.
META widget A tool that makes it easy to log in and out of your blog/website, access your dashboard, and retrieve RSS feeds from your sidebar.
Outbound Link When your site links to another web site or page, so your viewers can go directly to the other site without having to type the address in their browser or having to search for it.
Page views When a user visits a Web page, it is called a page view. Also called impressions, pageviews are tracked by website monitoring applications to record a website’s traffic. The more page views a website has, the more traffic it is receiving.
Password An un-spaced sequence of characters used for authenticating a user on a computer system. Usually a second type of verification used with a unique username. A strong password is designed to be hard for a person or program to guess or discover, to keep unauthorized people or hackers from accessing your account or site.
Pixel Little dots that make up the images on computer displays. Each pixel can only be one color at a time, but since they are so small, pixels can appear to mix together to form various shades and blends of colors. Pixels are also used as a form of measurement to specify the size of images.
Platform A computer’s operating system or type of program used as the framework of a website.
png A graphics format designed as an alternative to the GIF format that does not lose any detail when compressed. PNG files are easily uploaded to WordPress and Facebook, whereas GIF files are not permitted on Facebook.
Post Title The line of text above your post that serves as a headline. The post title is indexed separately by search engines and often shown in search results to establish relevancy to the item or key words being sought. Titles are meant to describe the main subject of your post and entice viewers to read the post. We recommend reading this excellent article on creating post titles:
http://unbounce.com/content-marketing/how-to-write-an-attention-grabbing-blog-post-title/
Posts Website entries or articles on the home page or on a blog that include various elements or features, such as text, graphics, videos, and/or links. Blog posts are listed in reverse chronological order, however, if you have created a “sticky post,” that will appear before the other entries. Posts can be found within the website using links in the Archives, Categories, Recent Posts, and other widgets in a sidebar. Searching a site for key words used in a post is another way toview a list of relevant articles. Posts are also displayed in the RSS feed of the website/blog. You can control how many posts are displayed at a time by editing the Reading Settings.
PPC Pay Per Click (PPC) is how advertisers are charged for ad placement, search results and the customer traffic generated by search engines. You only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad to visit your website, or calls you.
Profile picture The main photo of you on your Facebook profile. Your profile picture appears at the top left of your Facebook page and as a thumbnail next to your comments and other activity on Facebook. Profile pictures are public, which means anyone will be able to see them. On desktop and laptop computers, the profile picture displays at 160×160 pixels on your Facebook page; at 140×140 pixels on smartphones and most tablets; and at 50×50 pixels on most feature phones. To upload your profile photo, it must be at least 180×180 pixels and will be cropped to fit a square.
Publish To make the contents of your website available online for others to view. Once the website is created and stored on a server, it has an address. For others to view your site, they type an address into their browser and a page of your site is displayed on their screen. However, they cannot view your pages and posts until you publish them. You can control viewing permissions and when the pages appear by using settings accessed from the WordPress dashboard.
RSS An acronym for “Rich Site Summary,” which is a format for sharing content (such as news items )among different Websites. Other sites can publish some of your content by creating an RSS document so users can readthe distributed content on his/her own site without having to visit your actual website.
Search Comparing what you are looking for against a compiled index of the contents of websites and displaying the results in a list.
Sidebar A narrow, vertical column used to display information on a web page. The theme and settings determine if the sidebar is located on the right, left or both sides of the primary content of the page. The sidebar provides lists of links for easy navigation and other information, such as a field to search the site, statistics, and meta data. Sidebar displays can be modified by adding or removing widgets, and be suppressed by modifying the page layout files.
Social Media Websites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and content, send and receive messages, and to developsocialand professional contacts. Popular social media sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Vine, and Reddit.
Spider A program that visits websites to “read” their pages and other information in order to create entries for a search engine index. The major search engines all have such a program, which is also known as a “crawler” or a “bot.”
Static Something that stays the same or does not move.The opposite of dynamic.
Tagline Short phrase, or sentence, used to convey the essence of the site. A slogan or subtitle.
Tags Tags provide a useful way to group related posts together and to quickly tell readers what a post is about. Tags make it easier for people to find individual posts. Tags are similar to, but more specific than, categories. The use of tags is completely optional.
Target A file, device or any type of location to which data is moved or copied.
Template The files that control how your WordPress site will be displayed according to the theme settings and the device used to access a website.
Theme A collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a website or blog. A Theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. WordPress offers a selection of free themes and premium themes designed for use on the WordPress platform that have been checked and inspected for performance standards. Select, install and activate or remove your choice of themes using the Appearance panel on the dashboard.
Thumbnail A miniature version or display of a page or graphic.
Traffic The amount of data transmitted over a network. Website traffic can also refer to the number of visitors to your site, which is tracked and displayed as a graphic on the WordPress dashboard.
Upload Transmission of a file from one computer system to another, usually from a smaller system, such as your laptop, to a large system, such as your web server. Also a way to add files to a collection already established on a website. Some people refer to this action as “send.”The opposite of upload is “download,” which some people refer to as “receive.”
For example, to include a photograph in your post, you first format, size and optimize the photo, then you upload the photo to your WordPress Media Library and use the Add Media button to insert the photo link to the Media Library in your post that you publish. A visitor can then right click on the photo in your post and download it to their own PC.
URL Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web, sometimes called “web address.”
USB drive A portable, removable storage device that connects to a computer port to transfer files or programs between the two devices. Sometimes called a Flash drive.
User People who can add or delete content, photos, comments and/or links to a WordPress website are called users and are given access by an Administrator. The Admin adds new users via the dashboard and assigns user roles that determine their access level or permissions by giving them a username and password.
WordPress User Role Levels
Administrator – has full power over the site.
Editor – has access to all posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, and links.
Author – can write, upload photos to, edit, and publish their own posts.
Contributor – has no publishing or uploading capability, but can write and edit their own posts until they are approved and published.
Follower – can read and comment on posts and pages.
Username The name you use to login the WordPress site or other internet accounts.
Webmaster An individual who manages a website; adding, editing and deleting content and making sure the site functions as designed. Depending on the size and complexity of the site, the webmaster might be responsible for any of the following:
- Making sure that the web server (both hardware and software) is running properly, updated and secure.
- Designing the website layout, installing widgets and creating aesthetically pleasing features.
- Creating, updating and publishing web pages
- Moderating comments, replying to user feedback and deleting spam
- Monitoring traffic through the site and making sure they can easily and predictably navigate through the site.
Website A collection of files stored at a designated location on the World Wide Web.
Widgets Pre-made programs that perform a specific, limited function on a website. WordPress widgets add content and features to the sidebar and other customizable areas of the web page. They can be added, edited, removed and rearranged using the Theme Customizer on the Admin dashboard.
Wi-Fi The wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to provide high-speed Internet access and network connections.
Sources we recommend for additional technology-related definitions and explanations:
https://en.support.wordpress.com
https://codex.wordpress.org
http://pc.net/glossary
http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/netterms.htm
http://www.webopedia.com/
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definitions