name:___________________________________________ per._______________
Web Design Vocabulary and Terms
Resources: http://www.quackit.com/html/ & http://www.amyhissom.com/glossary.html
Vocabulary
Anchor Text: The words that appear clickable in a text link.
Browser: Often called a Web browser, it is simply a software application used to interpret HTML commands and display page content. The most popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), Safari
and Chrome.
Content: A word you'll likely see around a lot is "web content" and by definition, content is the 'stuff' that
makes up a web site. This could be words, pictures, images or sounds. In essence however, when we talk
about web content, we are essentially referring to content in a textual nature. Content therefore is the
'information' in text form a web site provides.
Crawler (aka "spider"): Component of a search engine that gathers listings by automatically "crawling" the
web. A search engine's crawler (also called a spider or robot) follows links to web pages. It makes copies
of the web pages found and stores these in the search engine's index.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): A simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web
documents. Not all browsers (of specific versions) implement the full specification of CSS.
Domain Name: An unique name that identifies one or more IP addresses. Domain names are used in
URLs' to identify particular Web sites. Every web site is located by its unique IP address.
Heading: HTML tag of up to 6 sizes: <H1> through <H6>. Text within <H1> [headline] and <H2>
[sub-headline] tags are given more weight by search engines when indexing page content and therefore
are a good place to fit in keywords.
Homepage: It is a first page (also referred as an opening page, start page or main page) of a Web site. This
would technically be your index page or default page of your directory.
IP (Internet Protocol): The method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on the
Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it from all other computers on the Internet.
JavaScript: JavaScript is an object-based, client−side scripting language developed by Netscape. Embedded in the head section of a web document, It can produce interactivity to a web page dynamically.
Link (Hyperlink): An element in an electronic document that links to another place in the same document
or to an entirely different document. Typically, you click on the hyperlink to follow the link. Hyperlinks
are the most essential ingredient of all hypertext systems, including the World Wide Web.
Pixel: Refers to how monitors divide the display screen into thousands or millions of individual dots to
display an image. A pixel is one dot.
Resolution: The resolution of an image describes how fine the dots are that make up that image. The more
dots, the higher the resolution. When displayed on a monitor, the dots are called pixels. A 640 x 480
screen (resolution) is capable of displaying 640 distinct dots on each of its 480 lines, or about 300,000
pixels.
Search Engine: A server (computer) or commonly a collection of servers dedicated to indexing internet
web pages, storing the results in a giant database and returning lists of pages which match particular
searched queries from within its database. The indexes are normally and automatically generated using
spiders.
Tag: An HTML tag is a formatting command written into a document that specifies how it should be
formatted. A web browser interprets these tags and outputs the intended command (action).
Template: HTML templates are skeletal HTML pages with the main content left out. Templates provide an
effective solution in creating many pages with an identical look or navigational structure but different
content.
name:___________________________________________ per._______________
Title: The most important area on a web page for keyword placement to affect search engine rankings.
Google uses this text as the anchor text linking to your page from the SERP.
Usability: Refers to the level or degree of a page's operating friendliness for the user.
WWW (World Wide Web): Is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. Browsers,
such as Internet Explorer or Safari are utilized to access the vast collection of interconnected (hyperlinked) documents on the web.
WYSIWYG: ‘What You See Is What You Get’ HTML editors such as Dreamweaver and FrontPage.
TAGS
<html>: The first tag that any Web page must have is the <html> tag. It tells the browser that the following text will be marked up in HTML format. The closing tag </html> is required and is the last tag in your
document.
<head>: The <head> tag is used to define information for the browser that may or may not be displayed
to the user. Tags that belong in the <head> section are <title>, <meta>, <script>, and <style>. The closing
tag </head> is required.
<title>: The <title> tag belongs in the <head> section of your document. It is the title of your Web page,
and is usually displayed by the browser at the top of the browser pane. The closing tag </title> is
required.
<body>: The <body> tag is where all your HTML information and content belongs. It defines the primary
portion of your Web page. With attributes of the <body> tag, you can define the background color of
your Web pages, the text color, the link color, and the active and visited link colors. The closing tag
</body> is required.
<li>: The <li> tag is used for specifying a list item in ordered and unordered lists. This element can be
used in conjunction with the <ol> and <ul> elements to provide each individual list item within those
elements. The closing tag </li> is required.
<nav>: The <nav> tag is used for declaring a navigational section of the HTML document. Websites
typically have sections dedicated to navigational links - links that enable the user to navigate the site.
These links should be placed inside a <nav> tag. The closing tag </nav> is required.
<div>: The <div> tag is used for defining a section of your document. With the <div> tag, you can group
large sections of HTML elements together and format them with CSS.
A sample Web page would look like this:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title> This is the title of the page. </title>
</head>
<body>
The body text goes here.
</body>
</html>