Have
you ever read an article by one author using computer terms
and jargon in one way... and then hours later read another
article by a different author using the same terms in a totally
different way? Enough to put you in a mind warp!
Or how
about the email you got from your web host telling you that
all you need to do to fix your problem is FTP the axee to
rop and that it's probably all your fault because you dongled
your SEX.
Confusing?
Yes!
Frustrating?
You bet!
Trying
to communicate clearly while doing business on the internet
can often be a hair pulling experience. In fact some days
pulling out your hair can be more fun!
For example
I bet half of you don't really know what URL stands
for. You might know that it stands for a website address,
but do you know what URL is an acronym for?
In order
to communicate clearly, it is important to speak the same
language as everyone else... and since most dictionaries haven't
caught up to the internet phenomena, we've put together a
mini dictionary of some of the most commonly used internet
jargon, slang and acronyms.
Here's
your guide to what those saying really means ...
ASCII
American
Standard Code for Information Interchange.
That
was enlightening, wasn't it! What it means is totally unformatted
text. No special fonts, no bold, no italics, no underlining,
no color. Nothing. Just plain text.
Most
email comes in this form. If you have an email program that
allows you to use specialized fonts, colors and text styles,
use it carefully because people getting your email may not
have programs capable of reproducing it... all they will see
is a pile of junk code, and your message gets lost in the
mess.
Autoresponder
As the
word implies an autoresponder sends an automatic
response in the form of an email. A visitor can request
information by sending an email to the autoresponder or by
clicking on an online link.
You can
set up autoresponders to send out sales information, letters,
follow-up inquiries, or notices. For example, if you are not
able to answer your email inquiries quickly, you could set
up an autoresponder to send a note informing email senders
that "I am not able to answer my mail right now, however you
will receive a reply within 48 hours" or something to that
effect.
Some
web hosts offer autoresponders for a fee. You can also set
up an unlimited number of your own autoresponders using software
such as Mailloop. You can get more information on the Mailloop
software at http://www.marketingtips.com/mailloop.html
Browser
Software
that goes to an internet address and reads HTML, Javascript,
CGI scripts, etc. It turns a page that looks like this...
<html>
<head>
<body>
<p><b>Hi!!</b></p>
</body>
</head>
</html>
into
this...
Hi!!
The most
common browsers are Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer,
both of which you can download for free at http://www.netscape.com/
and http://www.microsoft.com/
respectively.
CGI
CGI stands
for Common Gateway Interface. The "common" means that any
browser is compatible with it. It is a "mini-program" that
resides on your web host's computer (server). CGI scripts
are commonly used for processing forms. For example, you might
have a short sign-up form for your newsletter on your website.
The CGI script takes that information off the website and
sends it to you for so that you can include it in your database.
There
are hundreds of free CGI scripts at http://www.cgi-resources.com/
Cookie
A heavenly
food group! Also a source of much suspicion and controversy.
When you visit some sites, a small file called a cookie is
written onto your hard drive either using CGI or Javascript.
This file is basically used as an ID number. When you go back
to visit the site they know you are visiting again.
Unless
you provide them with your name and other information, they
have no way of knowing who you are... and only the site
that placed the cookie can track it.
Why use
them? Well, the obvious reason is to differentiate new visitors
from repeat visitors and to be able to track where visitors
are going in a site. But there are other applications... I'll
give you two examples.
I have
a friend who frequently visits a site that provides TV and
movie listings. When she first visited the site, she was given
the option of either customizing what theatres she wanted
to see and what television stations she wanted listings for.
This information was linked to a cookie on her hard drive.
Now, whenever she visits the site, information customized
to her specifications is automatically displayed. If she went
to the same site using a different computer, none of her customized
information would be displayed. Why? Because the cookie is
on the computer's hard drive... it is NOT linked to her.
A second
example is related to our Associate Program. When a visitor
follows a link from one of our associates to our site, a cookie
is placed on the visitor's hard drive. The cookie links the
visitor to the associate. When the visitor makes a purchase
of our Insider Secrets Course, the cookie allows us to track
who sent the visitor to us... months or even years later.
This helps us to make sure the associate who sent us the visitor
is credited with the sale and gets their proper commission.
Basically
a cookie is an ID number, it doesn't take up much space on
your hard drive and unless you provide your name, phone number,
etc... there is no way to tell who you are. Cookies are only
useful to the site that gave it to you.
Directory
A giant
listing of millions of URLs organized by categories. A directory
is not a search engine, though many people think it is. It
is organized by categories, not by keywords. You are severely
restricted to the number of listings you can have in a directory...
whereas in a search engine you can list an unlimited number
of key words.
Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com/
and LookSmart http://www.looksmart.com/
are examples of directories.
Domain
Name
A name
that identifies one or more URLs. For example, in the URL
http://www.marketingtips.com/mailloop.html
, the domain name is marketingtips.com.
Every
domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain
it belongs to. The Internet started out with a limited number
of top level domains including:
gov -
Government agencies
edu -
Educational institutions
org -
Organizations (nonprofit)
mil -
Military
com -
commercial business
net -
Network organizations
ca -
Canada
Because
of a shortage of top level domain names a new batch of suffixes
were added in 1998.
Domain
names are what you advertise, the way people get to know you
and what visitors type in as a URL... however the Internet
is really based on IP addresses (a string of numbers) not
domain names. Therefore every Web server requires a Domain
Name System (DNS) server to translate domain names into IP
addresses. When you purchase website space with a web host,
they assign an IP address to your domain name.
Ezine
An electronic
magazine that is emailed to a list of subscribers.
FTP
The long
form is File Transfer Protocol. This is a method of
transferring and downloading files. It used to be the only
way, now there are simpler methods such as email attachments,
pdf and html files. Uploading files to your website is done
using FTP.
HTML
Hypertext
Markup Language is the code that browsers read and translate
into a pretty looking web page. It tells the browser how to
format and where to put text, graphics, forms, tables, sound
and video.
To see
a sample of the HTML and what it looks like in a browser,
see the definition of "Browser"
above.
Hyperlink
When
you click on a hyperlink you are transferred to a different
place in space. This could be to a different spot on the same
page, to a different page on the same website, or to a different
website all together. Hyperlinks are normally underlined and
in a color like this When
they are activated they change color like
this. Hyperlinks can also be in the form of arrows,
buttons, or graphics.
IP
Address
The format
of an IP address is a set of four numbers separated by periods.
Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 30.148.12.135
could be an IP address.
On the
internet IP addresses are unique sets of registered numbers
and are often called Internet addresses. The InterNIC Registration
Service assigns Internet addresses that identify a particular
network and a host on that network. Your web host provides
you with an IP address that is linked to your domain name.
Because
the number of unassigned Internet addresses is running out,
a new scheme called CIDR will gradually replace the present
system.
ISP
ISP stands
for Internet Service Provider... this is the company
that provides you with access to the Internet.
The ISP
is connected to the Internet 24 hours a day (theoretically).
If you have dial-up access, your computer's modem dials your
ISP's phone number, which connects you to the Internet and
allows you access to your email. If your ISP provides cable
service, you too have access to the Internet 24 hours a day
simply by having your computer turned on.
Keyword
A keyword
is used by people when using the search engines to surf the
web. Keywords can be used in combination or as a phrase to
find web pages that are of interest to the surfer.
For example,
people might use the keywords "internet marketing", "internet
sales" or "Corey Rudl" to find our Insider Secrets Course.
Meta
Tags
Meta
Tags provide keyword and site specific information to search
engines. This information is not visible to the web surfer
unless they view the source of your webpage.
PDF
PDF stands
for Portable Document Format. It is another way of
formatting a file... like html or ASCII. It is promoted and
marketed by Adobe Systems Inc. If you receive a PDF file it
can be read using Adobe Acrobat Reader and can be used by
both windows and Mac users. PDF files are increasingly found
in e-books and by large companies and government departments.
To get
a free copy of Acrobat Reader click here http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/main.html
Redirect
A redirect
happens whenever you type in the address of one page... and
arrive at an entirely different address. Redirects are normally
done through CGI scripts or Meta tags. For example if you
type in www.marketingtips.com/track/affiliate/
you will be redirected to www.marketingtips.com/affiliates/
Redirect
pages are useful if you are removing a page from your website
that has a lot of existing links to it... or if you want to
move people to a different site.
Search
Engine
Search
Engines are used as a tool to find other relevant websites.
When you visit a search engine site you type in keywords or
phrases. The search engine uses their technology to find websites
that best match the keywords you are looking for. Each search
engine has different criteria by which they "rate" and list
websites. You will get different results by searching for
the same keyword combinations using different search engines.
Getting
your website or webpage ranked high in the search engines
is an important part of bringing in traffic to your site.
These
are a few of the most common search engines:
Excite:
http://excite.com
InfoSeek:
http://infoseek.go.com
AltaVista:
http://www.altavista.com
HotBot:
http://www.hotbot.com
Lycos:
http://www.lycos.com
Webcrawler:
http://www.webcrawler.com
Northern
Light: http://www.northernlight.com
Secure
Server
If you
are going to collect money or personal information at your
website you need access to a secure server. The secure server
encrypts personal information to make sure it cannot be "stolen"
by unscrupulous sorts.
There
are different "images" to show that you are on a
secure page. If you use Internet Explorer, you will see a
closed lock symbol, 
and with Netscape, you will either see a solid key symbol
or it now displays a lock symbol similar to the one Microsoft
uses, 
Please
note, you do not have to have your entire site secured ...
just your order page that includes personal information including
credit card information.
Spam
Unsolicited
email sent to a large quality of people. It also relates if
you post something off topic to a large number newsgroups.
Your
ISP may shut down your email account for sending spam and
your webhost may suspend your service for sending spam, so
careful is the keyword here!
Spamdexing
Keyword
stuffing in your Meta tags to get a higher ranking on search
engines. This isn't as dangerous as Spamming, but can cause
you to not be listed on a lot of search engines if they figure
out what you are doing!
Spider
When
search engines are "indexing" or registering a site they send
out spiders to "crawl" though the site. The search engine
then indexes the site through an ever changing set of algorithms.
The algorithms determine how your site is ranked. Some search
engines spiders use Meta Tags... others don't.
Web
Host
Often
used synonymously with ISP... this is the service that sells
(or gives) you computer space for your website. The web host's
computers are hooked to the Internet 24 hours a day.
UCE
Unsolicited
Commercial Email. Spam, just a different way of saying it..
And for
those of you who don't know...
URL
Uniform
Resource Locator. The unique address of a website or a webpage.
Those are some of the more common internet terms. Now when
someone asks you to FTP information to their to their ISP's
URL ... you'll actually know what they are talking about!
And when I mention spiders and meta tags you'll know I am
probably talking about search engines!
However...
what I've given you above is only the tip of the iceberg.
According to the New Hacker's Dictionary (something
you can find it at any good bookstore) there are thousands
of words relating to computer and internet jargon. Try these
on for size... ScumOS, search-and-destroy mode or how about
daemon? In the hackers world even the word SEX or dongle
will give you a giggle. But I'm not going to give it away...
not a chance! You'll just have to go and see for yourself!
In case
you run across a term or acronym you aren't familiar with,
you can look them up at http://www.elsewhere.org/jargon/
which has one of the easier to use versions of the Dictionary.
