TGM Designs

TGM Designs created this glossary of web design and related terminology to help our clients to know and understand what services we provide. The terms cited are used regularly throughout Web development and design documentation. If you are starting a new website project then you will find these terms very helpful. This glossary's intention is to be relevant and beneficial to your understanding rather than be comprehensive.

Samples Per Inch

Samples Per Inch (SPI) indicates the number of data points per inch that a scanner captures (i.e. input). As opposed to Dots Per Inch, Pixels Per Inch, or Lines Per Inch - all of which refer to output. Although most scanner manufacturers refer to Dots Per Inch, they really should refer to Samples Per Inch. Scanners use Charged Couple Devices ( CCDs) to capture information, and they do this by taking a fixed number of samples per inch. The thing to watch out for in scanners is optical resolution vs interpolated resolution. If a flatbed scanner is making claims of higher than 600 DPI, you can be pretty sure that they're referring to interpolation. Interpolation increases the resolution by software. The highest resolution a scanner can capture without interpolation is the optical resolution.

Saturation

The color intensity of an image. An image high in saturation will appear to be very bright. An image low in saturation will appear to be duller and more neutral. An image without any saturation is also referred to as a grayscale image.

Scanning

In usability, scanning is the process of skimming text and picking out keywords, sentences and paragraphs while skipping over other parts of a web page. People tend to scan web pages rather than read them word by word. Use headlines, bullets, lists and frequent paragraph breaks for items you wish to highlight. These elements will grab a user's attention during a quick scan.

Scope Creep

The expansion of a project beyond its original objectives. It is a term used when clients who don't realize the ramifications, make individual changes and minor modifications to projects, which can lead to budgetary increases and time delays.

Screen Font

A part of the font suitcase (of Adobe Type 1 fonts), describes the shape of each character to the operating system so that the font can be seen on a computer screen.

Script

Another term for macro or batch file, a script is a list of commands that can be executed without user interaction. These commands are read by the shell. Because the shell itself is a program, scripting is possible without using a programming language such as Perl or C.

Scripting Language

In web terms: A simple programming language that can be executed by a web browser or a web server. See JavaScript and VBScript.

Search Engine

A search engines is a program that searches documents (i.e. web pages, which are HTML-documents) for specified keywords and returns the list of documents. A search engine has two parts, a spider and an indexer. The spider is the program that fetches the documents, and the indexer reads the documents and creates an index based on the words or ideas contained in each document.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing (SEM), is a set of internet marketing strategies that are designed to promote a website's visibility and web traffic, the bottom line being selling the product and offering the website services to a greater number of users who are indeed interested. Search engine marketing includes:

	Paid placement
	Paid inclusion programs
	Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising
	Banner advertising
	Email marketing
	Affiliate programs
	Article writing

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a division of the larger Search Engine Marketing world. Unlike the internet marketing methods that involve paying for listings on search engines, search engine optimization is a strategy that aims at increasing the website's performance on the search engines in organic, or natural, means.

Such organic search listings are based on the search engine's crawler visiting the website and finding it relevant for a number of reasons to the user's specific search. The search engine will then rank the website or page higher on its search results, thus increase visibility and help drive traffic.

Secure Socket Layer

The Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a programming method for encrypting all data sent in and out of a network connection on a computer system. Designed by Netscape. SSL is used mostly in communications between web browsers and web servers. SSL provides three important things, Privacy, Authentication and Message Integrity.

Security Certificate

Information stored on a web server that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection with another computer. Security Certificates contain information regarding ownership, issuer, a unique serial number or other unique identification, and valid dates.

Selector

In CSS, selectors are the parts of a rule that select the elements to be styled with the associated declaration block. They are constructs that identify the elements within your markup that will receive the properties and values you assign. Selectors can apply to a named HTML element, such as a H3 element or P element, an HTML element with a named attribute value, particularly a class or id value. A simple selector is one which matches an element name only.

SEM

Acronym for Search Engine Marketing.

SEO

Acronym for Search Engine Optimization and/or Search Engine Optimizer.

SERP

Acronym for Search Engines Results Page. This is the page that users see after typing their search query into an engine.

Server

A central computer that (serves) handles requests for data, email, file transfers, and other network services from other (client) computers

Server Side Include

A server side include (SSI) is type of HTML comment inserted into a web page to instruct the web server to generate dynamic content. The most common use is to include standard header or footer for the page.

Shareware

Software distributed freely, but with certain conditions applying to it. Either the software is released on a trial basis only, and must be registered after a certain period of time, or in other cases no support can be offered with the software without registering it. In some cases direct payment to the author is required.

Shell

An interactive programming language interpreter that runs in a Terminal window. Shells are what allow a user to access the kernel. Shells are actually programs that interpret command lines and run other programs. A shell can read command lines from a terminal or from a file called a shell script or shell program.

Shockwave

Is a plug-in that enables a web browser to display rich media content.

Shopping Cart

Software that acts as an online store's catalog and ordering process. Typically, a shopping cart is the interface between a company's website and its deeper infrastructure, allowing consumers to select merchandise; review what they have selected; make necessary modifications or additions; and purchase the merchandise.

Silverlight

A browser plugin developed by Microsoft that allows web applications to be developed with features like animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback - features that characterize a rich internet application.

Site Let

A small and often temporary section of a website, usually focused on a particular topic or purpose. Most site let addresses are often used as an alternative to domain names in magazine and direct mail advertisements.

Site Map

A section of page within a website, which maps out the layout of the complete website.

SGML

Acronym for Standard Generalized Markup Language. This is a standard for how to specify a document markup language. It is a meta language because it is used to define markup languages. SGML is not in itself a document language, but a description of how to specify one. It is is based on the idea that documents have structural and other semantic elements that can be described without reference to how such elements should be displayed. The actual display of such a document may vary, depending on the output medium and style preferences.

SKU

Acronym for Stock Keeping Unit. This is a unique identifier of a product. The SKU is used to track inventory and may or may not be shown to customers when shopping online.

SMIL

Acronym for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language. A markup language by the W3C that allows Web developers to separate the content of multimedia into distinct files and transmission streams such as, text, images, audio, and video. They can then be sent to the users' computer separately, and then reassembled and displayed as intended.

SMM

Acronym for Social Media Marketing. When products or services are marketed via social media websites. It combines internet marketing with social media. Social media marketers use webstie such as Flickr, Digg and other social media sites to gain links, brand exposure and recognition for their clients.

SMTP

Acronym for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This is a standard communication protocol for sending e-mail messages between computers.

SOAP

Acronym for Simple Object Access Protocol. This is a standard protocol for letting applications communicate with each other using XML.

Social Graph

A graph that shows interconnections between you, your friends and your friends' friends. And example of this can be found on Linkedin.

Social Media

Social media is the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with each other. Think of it as online communities in which people share. They may share experinces, preferences or websites they like. Examples of social media websities are: Digg, Facebook, and Small Business Brief.

Social Networking Site

Describes any website that enables you to create public profiles within that website and form relationships with other users of the same Web site who access their profile. "Social networking sites" can be used to describe community-based websites, online discussions forums, chat rooms and other social spaces online.

Social networking services are designed to build upon interactions to create communities of people online, and provide the required software to do this. People use social networking sites for a huge number of personal reasons. Some may want an easy way to keep in touch with family and friends, some may use it for business or job finding, others may use it for dating or just to find like-minded individuals online.

Social Web

Refers to technologies that focus on social media (community building) on the web such as Facebook and MySpace.

Solaris

Computer operating system from SUN.

Spacer

Also called spacer images or spacer gifs. These are small transparent images placed on a page, usually in a table used for layout. They help to place text and images on the page for a visual effect.

Spam

In web terms: The action of sending multiple unwelcome messages to a newsgroup or mailing list.

Spam Bot

A robot that scours the internet looking for e-mail addresses, which the bot owners then send spam or sell the address to spammers.

SPI

Acronym for Samples Per Inch.

Spider

Also known as a "robot" which is an automatic software program that serves a search engine by exploring the Web and collects Web page addresses and stores them in a huge database.

Splash Page

A website's introduction page, usually utilizing Flash or animated graphics.

Spoofing

Addressing a web page or an e-mail with a false referrer. Like sending an e-mail from a false address.

Spyware

Computer software hidden in a computer with the purpose of collecting information about the use of the computer.

SQL

Acronym for Structured Query Language. This is an ANSI standard computer language for accessing and manipulating databases.

SQL Server

A database system from Microsoft. Mostly used on high traffic web sites running on the Windows platform.

SSI

Acronym for Server Side Include.

SSL

Acronym for Secure Socket Layer.

Statement

In CSS, a statement or sometimes called a rule consists of a selector, property and value. The term applies to whatever form the selector takes and however many declaration pairs are present. A style sheet is comprised of statements. A statement has two parts, a selector, and a declaration. The selector specifies which parts of an HTML document are affected by the statement, then the declaration specifies how these selected elements should be rendered.

Static IP Address

A number that is assigned to a computer by an internet service provider (ISP) to be it's permantent address on the internet.

Stickiness

This refers to a website's ability to engage a visitor by providing interesting, useful and informative content. Stickiness is often measured in terms of the average number of hours that a user spends on a site in a given month. Know as tracking individual users. This type of measurement requires some type of registration/login mechanism or cookies placed on users' PCs, both of which have their own drawbacks. (Example: Ebay - with a typical user spending around 2 hours per month on the auction site).

Stop Word

Frequently used words such as you, for, with, a, etc. that are ignored by search engines

Storyboard

A sequence of sketches showing major actions or outlining a process, such as the steps of interacting with a computer or website. They are commonly used in television and advertising. They are akin to paper Prototyping. They are useful for presentations and for checking that the steps of a process make sense once the details are sketched.

Streaming

This is a technology that permits continuous audio and video delivered to you computer from a remote Web site. It requires a high degree of compression to transfer audio or video.

Streaming Format

The format used for files being streamed over the internet such as Windows Media, Real Video and QuickTime.

Style Attribute

The style attribute sets inline style for a single occurrence of an element. The browser uses the style properties to render the contents of just this one instance of the element.

Style Element

The style element sets style information for an entire document. It is placed in the head section.

Submission Page

A web page that contains a form so that users can send information via a browser to a web server.

Surfing

A term used for exploring the internet, as in "surfing the net". Most often used in reference to accessing sites on the World Wide Web.

SVG

Acronym for Scalable Vector Graphics. A language for vector graphics coded in XML . XML documents can have these graphics placed directly into the document, with many advantages. SVG produces graphics that are smaller, transmit more quickly, are scalable without loss of resolution, can have searchable text labels, and allow links to part of an image.