Glossary

W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium. It sets guidelines and standards to "lead the Web to its full potential and ensure long-term growth for the Web". Validating a website's code ensures that it adheres to these standards. One of the benefits of doing this is ensuring that it is accessible to everyone.

A domain name is a name + extension, (sunwisedesigns + .ca) that is registered through an official registrar on the internet.

File Transfer Protocol. This is the protocol used to upload files onto the internet.

Internet Protocol Address. A web address is actually a number, called an IP address. It looks something like 216.27.61.135. When you type in an address, (a URL), your browser actually translates this address into its IP number and searches for it.

The internet has millions upon millions of websites now. A search engine is a service that allows you to search for something with a few relevant words or a phrase called "keywords". Like Google. Did you know that Google has now become a verb?

People who run websites want theirs to be found when relevant keywords are entered into a search engine. Optimization is a way of tweaking a website so that it is found by spiders and listed high up towards the top of search results.

An algorithm used by Google to rank the popularity of links/pages. The algorithm was created by Larry Page and is named after him (coincidentally). You can check the rank of a page here

A collection of websites and tools based on user-generated content. Social Media is the new generation of web interactivity. Facebook, Twitter and DIGG are some examples, but there are thousands more. Read More.

These are algorithms that search the internet and categorize what they find. A search engine then displays this content based on keywords and rankings.

Responsible Web Development with green practices and low environmental impact from conception to production.

Universal Resource Locator. This refers to the address you type into your browser, (http://www.sunwisedesign.ca).

In order to make a website available to everyone on the internet, it needs to be saved onto a computer that is connected to the internet 24/7. This is called a "server". A web hosting company has one or more servers that are dedicated to this task with many other features like statistics and support for web applications. When you pay for hosting, you are paying to make your website accessible on the internet and for these other features.