WordPress Web Dictionary

A-Z of WordPress and the general language of the web. Concise, simplified definitions of many website and blogging related terms.

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Above the Fold
A term describing the upper half of a newspaper – the area literally above the fold or a newspaper folded in half. The term is also used to describe the area of a web page that is immediately visible upon first loading prior to any scrolling. As screen sizes vary widely there is no definitive height in pixels for this area. The significance of the above the fold area is usually referred to in relation to advertisement or important content placement strategies.

Analytics

Apache

Avatar
The graphical representation of a user on the internet – an alter-ego or character. Usually a small two-dimensional image inserted onto a profile page, a post or comment to identify the user. They are also widely used on forums, online chats and messaging services. In gaming they also can be three-dimensional in form to interact with a virtual world.

Blockquote
Blockquote is the term used in HTML coding language to define a text quote as opposed to regular paragraph text.

Cache
Pronounced ‘cash’, essentially it is stored information in order to be quickly accessed at a later time. There are many types of caching processes including browser cache, memory cache, disk cache, processor cache, page cache, database cache etc.

A web browser will cache images and scripts so that a page will load quicker the next time you visit it. This can includes both a page cache and a database cache depending on the type of website. Your computer and hard-drive will also store cache in their RAM (random access memory) for performance improvements.

Call to Action

Categories
A blog post can be placed into a Category to both help the author organise their content and allow users to find related content more easily.

CDN
Content Display Network

Child Theme

Churning

CMS
Content Management System
WordPress is described as a ‘Content Managed System’ as it is focused around users being able to create, modify and manage their own website content.

Colophon

Contact Form 7

Control Panel

Cookies

CPM
Click per mille

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
A coding language that defines the style and formatting of web pages. CSS enables a single style to be applied to multiple elements across a page or an entire website. CSS also allows a page to display different styles depending on the device being used.

CTR
Click Through Rate

Custom Fields

Dashicons

Database

DNS

DreamWeaver

Dropbox

Emoticon

Featured Image
In WordPress, each page or post may have the option to attach a Featured Image. If, or how this displays largely depends on your chosen theme. The Featured Image usually displays at the top of a post to help illustrate the content that follows.

FileZilla

Footer

FTP
File Transfer Protocol
FTP is a network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host. FTP connections require a login procedure with a username and password.

FTP Client
An FTP client is an application designed to automate the FTP connection process.

Functions.php file

Google Analytics

Google Webmaster Tools

H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 or H6

Header

Hosting Provider

HTAccess

HTML
HyperText Markup Language
A coding language used to create the basic structure of web pages.

Inbound Links

Inbound Marketing

Link Target

Jetpack
Jetpack is the name of a plugin created by WordPress specifically for their websites that extends the core functionality, allowing users to do many cool things. Jetpack comprises of smaller modules that can be activated individually. Features include subscription widgets, spelling & grammar check, website stats, auto publishing to your social networks and related post links.

Keywords
Usually described in relation to SEO strategies, keywords are the words or phrases typed into search engines by internet users. These keywords are consequently used within the content of web pages to help the page rank highly within search engines results for that given search term.

Keyword Density
A somewhat dated SEO strategy/factor used to determine how well optimised a web page is for a given search term. It was/is thought that there exists an optimal density of keyword use within a body of text. The word density refers to the ratio of keyword usage to the total amount of text on a page.

Media Library

Metadata
In essence it means data about data. The metadata for a web page or blog post might include, for example: the author’s name, a short description of the contents, a creation date, the language, a category/genre etc. Metadata for online content can be structured into meta tags or microformats for better accessibility and readability by computers. A growing trend is to geotag a file by adding its source coordinates – ideal to determine the location a photo was taken from.

Optimisation

Ordered list

Parent Theme

Permalinks

PHP
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (previously ‘Personal Home Page’)
A general purpose server-side scripting language designed to produce dynamic web pages. Essentially this means that data is interpreted by a web server’s PHP processor module that in turn produces new data to be read by the web browser.

phpMyAdmin

Pingbacks
A pingback is a type of incoming link, that is linking back to your website. Pingbacks enables authors of websites/blogs to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. WordPress allows you to display a summary of the source and content of this link in the comments section.

Plugins
In WordPress, plugins extend the natural functionality of your website. They can easily be installed, activated or deactivated on your site using the built-in plugin manager module. Plugins can help you to combat comment spam, give you new editing tools, add an SEO manager and even allow you to sell products online. The opportunities are endless. Explore WordPress plugins here.

Posts

Preformatted (Pre)

Read More Tag

Responsive Web Design
An approach to website design that focuses on creating an optimal viewing experience for users whatever device they use to browse online. RWDs generally incorporate fluid or flexible layout designs that intelligently adapt to the browsing device (desktop,laptop,tablet,smart phone).

RSS
Rich Site Summary (aka Really Simple Syndication)
Commonly called a feed, web feed or channel, RSS is a summarized display of the published content on a website or blog. RSS feeds can be subscribed to, which helps readers to keep a track of newly published content.

Save For Web

SEM
Search Engine Marketing
Similar to SEO, but differs as it defines the broader discipline of website promotion. SEM incorporates both paid for inclusion to search results as well as SEO to achieve organic/natural search results.

SEO
Search Engine Optimisation
Strategies employed to improve both the quality and quantity of potential consumers visiting your site from an online search.

Sidebar

Slug

Source code

Spam, Spammers, Spamming

Table

Tag Clouds
A tag cloud is a type of visual presentation of the tags used on a website. Typically they display the tag words in varying sizes and/or orientation to denote their popularity of use.

Tags
Tags are a means of categorizing your content into related groups. Tags are similar to, but generally more specific than categories.

Taxonomy

Trolls, Trolling

Templates (Page templates)
In WordPress, there is an option to choose a page template for each page. The options available depends on the theme you are using. Templates display the content of your page in a unique way.

Themes
WordPress themes gives your website its visual look and design. There are basic themes and premium themes. The better themes can include additional functionality and tools for you ‘behind-the-scenes’ to make it easier to create more advanced websites. Themes can be quickly chosen and swapped in WordPress. You can deactivate and activate your own folder of themes that you’ve previously installed. Themes are also upgradable much-like the WordPress core and plugins.

TinyMCE
TinyMCE is an open source WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) text editor. This web based platform is utilised by WordPress to give authors the necessary tools to edit their content quickly and efficiently.

Trackbacks
(See Pingbacks)

Traffic

Unordered List

URL
Uniform Resource Locator
A formatted string of text used by web browsers to define the location of a file/document/web page etc. Commonly called a web address.

Users

Widget Area
Widget areas are specific locations on your website’s page layout that can have single widget or multiple widgets placed into them. Widget are usually horizontally and/or vertically stacked in a grid-like formation.

Widgets
In WordPress, widgets are essentially containers designed to display snippets of information on your website. A widget can display a multitude or things depending on it’s built-in functionality. You can, for example display your latest blog posts, your Twitter feed or Facebook fans. Sign up forms, videos, images or just plain text etc.

WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a company that produce excellent plugins for WordPress websites. They are possibly best known for their WooCommerce plugin that allows users to create a shop to sell products (both virtual and physical) on their website.

WordPress
WordPress is a free and open source tool for creating websites using a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. WordPress was used by more than 22.0% of the top 10 million websites as of August 2013.

WYSIWYG