Web Jungle:: web lingo

Definitions

Lots of our clients get confused by the lingo of the internet, websites, domains and hosting. So here is a list of quick & simple explanations..

Internet

The internet is not just out there in space.  When you look at a website, it is a document on a computer somewhere in the world. The internet is a network connecting millions of computers. 

Internet Service Provider

ISP in short. This is a company that provides access to the internet. This access can be dial-up, broadband or wireless.

Dial-up Connection

A way of accessing the internet. Temporary connection is established through a modem & telephone line - when you’re online, the phone is engaged, and when you’re offline the phone can be used to make calls. It’s considered very slow these days and therefore only suitable for those who don’t use the internet a lot or cannot get broadband.

Broadband Connection

Broadband provides high-speed and high-capacity transmission.  You access the internet through a special modem - when you’re online, your telephone can also be used. You can be permanently online.

IP

Short for Internet Protocol. An IP address is a unique number that identifies any Internet-connected computer. It’s four groups of digits separated by dots.

DNS

Short for Domain Name Service. It is a system that translates domain names into IP addresses. It’s easier for a human to remember a domain name, but computers & the internet are based on numbers. So every time you use a domain name it is translated to an IP address via the DNS settings.

URL

Short for Uniform Resource Locator. It is a unique world wide web address that identifies a file (or webpage) on the internet. They generally begin with http://. You can use the IP address instead if you want to.

Website

A collection of interconnected pages that can be accessed on the internet by a unique URL. Webpages can contain text, graphics, images, text, sound, video and other media. These files are normally stored on a computer (a server) that can be accessed via the internet.  Most websites have a home page or index page that links to other pages on the site.

Domain

It’s a name by which a website is identified and connected to the internet. The last three letters represent different categories e.g. .gov is government; .com is commercial; .org is non-profit organisations; .co.uk is Britain; .de is Germany etc. The url of a webpage starts with the domain name, e.g. www.ediandesign.com/blog/

Web host

A company that provides storage space on their server for your websites’ files. They also provide many web services and maintenance tools.

 A good webhost guide can be found here