Glossary Term S – Best Affiliate Programs
Search Engine
A web tool that locates information for the user. This can be images, web pages, articles, or more. Google is a good example of a search engine.
Search Term
A word or group of words entered into a search query. The search term is used to find accurate information on the web.
Second Level Domain
The next lower level of the hierarchy beneath the top level domains. The portion of the domain name that appears immediately to the left of the top level domain. They are usually used to show business or product related terms.
Secondary Server
A server that backs-up the primary server in case it shuts down. This way all the I.P. addresses and domain names are not lost. A domain name registrar is required to have a primary and secondary server.
Security Ceritificate
Encrypted data that provides internet security. A security certificate is usually a text file.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is when ads appear alongside the results of a search engine page.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
This is when websites change in order to place higher in search engine rankings. This often involves changes in keywords, subjects, key phrases, and other things that search engines look for. Search engine optimization helps increase traffic to a website.
Server
A computer and hard disk that provides web hosting. The server usually has a local area connection. Sometimes the server refers to the hosting plan itself.
Session
The period of time where a user is viewing Web pages or a Web application in the same server or domain. This is also the time frame of an active link between two data devices.
Shared Hosting
This is the most common form of hosting and the least expensive. Your web site data is stored on a hard drive with a number of other web sites, and you are limited to a specific space allotment, and data transfer.
Shockwave
A plug-in for a browser that allows multimedia content from Macromedia to be displayed in a web page. This content includes video, sound, animations, and more.
Shopping Cart Software
Shopping cart software is appropriately named. This software is comparable to a shopping cart at store because it assists with online shopping. It shows items that are being purchased, their price, quantity of a product, tax, and allows you to add or remove items prior to purchasing.
Site Builder
Software that makes it easier to create a website. Site building software often contains templates, clip art, fonts, and more applications for building a web site.
Site Map
A part of a website that lists all the content on that site, like a table of contents for a book. Usually, the listings are also links to the part of a page they describe. This way, visitors to the site and search engine spiders can navigate easily through a website.
Source Code
The programming instructions of a web document or site. If you want to view a source code, look in your browser under View Source Code.
Spam
The misuse of a mailing list where the sender resends an email (or something close to the same email) many times. This leads to large amounts of junk email that seems to keep coming. The term is generally agreed to have originated from a Monty Python skit where the term is repeatedly used. Spam is also a processed canned meat product, and personally called the bane of computer existence.
Spider
A type of web crawling program that goes through web pages and sites then sends the data to another program. Search engines use spiders to add and update websites that are available in their search databanks.
Spyware
Spyware is software that gathers information about a user once it is installed. This is usually for adverstising purposes, but can be even more dangerous. Spyware can even find email addresses, passwords, or credit card numbers. Spyware is much worse than spam and is a curse upon the technical world.
SRS - Shared Registration System
The central system for all accredited registrars to access, register, and control domain names.
SSL - Secure Socket Layer
A protocol that provides encrypted communication between servers. This is mostly used when a user buys something over the internet and must use a credit card number. SSL was developed by Netscape.
Stop Words
These are words used in searching that will usually be ignored. Examples of stop words are and, a, is, the, and other commonly used words.
Subdomain
A domain within a larger domain. Subdomains are written as prefixes before the domain name. (Example www.subdomain.domain-name.com)
Submission
To suggest a website to be included in a search engine or directory, so that it may be evaluated and included in search results.
Submission Service
An agent or service that will submit your site to search engines for a fee. This is not necessary since it is free to submit a website, but submission services can help you get into minor directories.
Support
The means of a web hosting service to offer help to a customer or user. This is different for each company, but usually includes things like live chat, email, telephone, FAQs, and so forth.
