Web Jargon Buster

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My blog is about blogging and website tips without the jargon.  That doesn't mean I never use jargon here.  The difference is that I try to avoid using jargon unnecessarily; if I do use it, I explain what it means.

Even if you've been reading my blog since the beginning, or you've gone back to read some of the older posts having subscribed partway through, sometimes it really helps to have lots of jargon defined in one place.  So here it is: the Ben Barden dot com "Web Jargon Buster".

Consider this a work in progress.  I will add new jargon to this page in the future.  Please feel free to comment if you have any ideas for jargon that could be included - acronyms or buzzwords, it doesn't matter.  However, please don't write your own definition - I'll take care of that.

I've tried to avoid including things like programming languages - they are probably too technical for this page.  Things like PHP, Javascript, AJAX would take a bit too long to explain here.

For the time being I'll leave this on the blog so it comes up on my home page, but when it disappears from the front page I'll move it to Tutorials.

So without further ado, here's the initial list...

Blogosphere - This basically refers to all blogs and the links between them.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets.  This is used to control the design of a web page.
Digg - A popular social bookmarking site where users "digg" the best content and "bury" the worst.  The content with the most "diggs" is the most visible.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language.  In simple terms, it's the language that's used to define the structure of a web page.  You can read a more detailed explanation here: An introduction to HTML
Permalink - or permanent link, to use the full name.  The address or URL you use to get to a blog entry or a page on a website.  The "permanent" aspect means that the address of the page will always work unless the page is deleted.
Ping - A way of notifying a site that you have updated your blog.  Some blogging platforms can do this automatically when you post, although this can be configured if you do not want it to happen.  Technorati is one site that relies on pings to determine when sites are updated.
Post Slug - This term is specific to the WordPress blogging platform.  It refers to the title of a post after it has been stripped of punctuation, capital letters and spaces - so, the title that appears as part of the permalink (see above for more on permalinks).  For instance, if I used WordPress for my site, this page would have a Post Slug of web-jargon-buster.
RSS - Really Simple Syndication - although confusingly, it can stand for a couple of other things too.  It's used for site feeds, which provide a way to stay informed of new content on a site.  You can read a more detailed explanation here: What is RSS?
Search-engine friendly links - These use some or all of the words from the title of a post in the address of the page.  An "unfriendly" link might look like this: www.yoursite.com/blog/page?id=1.  A "friendly" link might look like this: www.yoursite.com/blog/how-to-attract-new-readers.
SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.  Refers to a number of techniques that can be used to help your placement within search engine results.
SERP - Search engine results page.  When you search the web, the results are displayed on a SERP.  (Why this needs to be an acronym is beyond me.)
StumbleUpon - A site where you can discover new websites.  You install a toolbar and you can use the thumbs up icon to give a site a good rating, and the thumbs down icon to give it a bad rating.
Tags - Keywords or phrases that can be used to find a page in future.  For instance, a news story about broadband speed might have the following tags: broadband, high-speed internet, networking.
Trackback - A method of notifying another site that you have linked to them.  Most of the time a trackback looks like a comment, although some blogs display the trackbacks and comments separated.  The trackback is posted automatically by the blogging system.

Please help to make the page really useful by bookmarking it and linking to it, and commenting if you have any jargon that you'd like me to define.  If the list gets too long, I may split it into several pages - e.g. one for websites, one for acronyms and so on.  Hopefully it'll help a few people out.  Thank you!

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