Glossary of Internet Terms

The Internet is full of confusing technical terms and there are very few sites that explain them with any clarity. This section of our web site is designed to give a short introduction to the basic terms. Click on a link to find out about a particular jargon word used on the Internet.

Caching	Getting information more quickly	Domains	Giving a Name to a Site
Errors	Decoding Server Error Reports	Virus	Server Virus Attacks
Sockets	Making the connection	SecureFTP	Transferring files securely
Port	Connecting to the Service	IP Address	Your unique access address
Query	Getting information from a user	HTML	Displaying WWW Pages
DNS	Looking up a site's name	HTTP	Getting at the information
CSS	Giving style to a web site	Registrars	Getting a domain name registered
Google	Google the leading search engine	Hyper Links	Links are at the heart of the Internet
URL	Specifying what you want to access	Firewall	Protecting the Server
FTP	Transferring files	Ping	Checking a Server is working
Cookies	Keeping track of user visits	Log Format	Logging accesses to a web site
ISP	Providing access to the Internet	Keywords	Specifying what a page is all about
Log Files	The server's log file has many answers	Ranking	Determine how important is that web site
MIME	Specifying information format	Proxy	Indirect access to the Internet
HTTPS	Secure access to information	Traffic	Monitoring visits to a Web Site
TCP/IP	Communicating over the Web	Watch	Track accesses to key pages
RFC	Internet Standards and Proposals	Referrals	Looking at how visitors find your site
Robots	Automated Internet Access	Browser	Surfing the Internet
Speed	Is access speed acceptable	Availability	Make sure the server is always up
Hosting	Choose the most appropriate web host for your business	Scripts	Make a web page much more lively
Spider	Checking all the pages on a web site	Search Engines	Finding the right site
Whois	Finding out about the owner

If you would like an excellent layman's guide to the Internet please try How Stuff Works

The Site Vigil product produced by Silurian Software is designed to help you manage web sites without burying you in all the associated technical jargon.