A Web Site

web terminology

   Computers have moved deeply into every aspect of our daily life. People use computers in their homes, businesses, schools and in their jobs, for a variety of reasons, whether to balance a checkbook write a school assignment, or access a data base at work. The number of people using computers has grown steadily for the last ten years. Reliable studies show that the number of computers grew from 72 million in 2000 to 162 million in 2002, and the number of people connecting to the Internet has grown from 567 million in 2000 to well above the 800 million by the end of 2003. A web site, can give you the opportunity to reach out to all the people who are, are looking for something.

  Before we define what a web site is, let's look at some facts about the Internet. The Internet sometimes called “the Net ” is the largest network system in the whole world connecting users worldwide. The Internet existed as a secret means of internal communication on defense-related research projects, between military and university people for 20 years before the general public discovered it. Nobody had the slightest idea or could have imagined that it would become the mega giant it is today.

  It is not a single network but a loosely organized collection of thousands of networks across the globe. Nobody owns the Internet; it has no central headquarters and no centrally offered services. Although there is one authority, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The World Wide Web Consortium was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. W3C has over 350 member organizations from all over the world and has earned international recognition for its contributions to the growth of the Web.

  How is it possible for all those millions of computers to connect among each other? To access the Net, a user’s computer needs to connect to a type of computer called a server. A server will use then special software called TCP/IP (which means Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol); it is a standard that allows different types of computers to communicate with each other. The server is commonly known as Internet Service Provider ( ISP).

  The most common method to move around the Net is called browsing. Believe it or not, the computer uses a program called a browser. There are several browser programs out there, but the most commonly known are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Using these programs, people can navigate or surf the net. The cyber realm is an ocean of images, colors and information, sometimes friendly.and some times no so friendly.

  What people see and visit when they connect to the Net are called web sites; a web site is defined as an individual location on the World Wide Web. Each web site has an address technically knows as Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

URL: http://www.anybody.com/pressroom/index.dcl

The domain name is the address of the site’s computer technically called top-level domain. The last part of the domain name the “.com” represents the purpose of the organization. In this case “. com” stands for commercial.

Some of the most common top-level domains are:

   Country domains use two letters. The list of top-level domains is big, and has grown bigger as new top-level domains are being registered every year. These are the most common ones.

   As we mentioned earlier, people using a computer browser can go anywhere on the Net if they know where to go, and have an address. When people don’t know where to go or how to get to a particular place, find a product, or where to get some information,they use search engines.

   Although a browser allows the user to do just that, browse, a user needs a portal to the Net, from which a search begins. Most portals are search engines Yahoo, Google, AltaVista, Lycos, About and HotBot, to mention a few.

   These are actual companies whose business is to drive users to their services; one of those services consists of finding and redirecting the user to different web sites according to what the user is looking for.

   A search engine is software, usually located at its own Web site, that lets the user specify search terms; the search engine then finds sites that fit those terms. Search engine sites can be set as home page sites for computer browsers. A search engine does not actually go out to the web and “look around” each time a search is requested, a search engine uses software called a spider (also called a crawler or robot) to follow links across the web calling up pages and automatically indexing to it’s massive database some of the information contained on web sites. The end result of this sort of action is a list of matching results shown on the search results page.

   A web site by itself is nothing, and would only sit in the cyberspace, visited only by people who know the address. For a site to have a chance to show up on a search result list of some of the major search engines, it needs to be formally presented to them using a special form. Each search engine has its own form, and there are more than 300 active search engines, with some more coming up each year. The site owner can do it by him or herself or pay the web developer or the Webmaster, to do the presentation.

   A web site is a very powerful tool for your business, and can end up being a very successful revenue-generating tool, Once a web site has been formally introduced, it will be visited by a spider, a crawler, or a robot to be added to the search engine’s database. A site also needs to be maintained, and updated to ensure its functionality, to make sure it meets all the goals it was intended for. If not properly done, the site will end up being just a boring virtual place gathering cyber dust.

   If you don’t have the time or the technical knowledge to do this, you can for a few dollars a month, depending on the size of your web site and size of your business, hire the services of a Webmaster to do it for you. The job of the Webmaster is to take the load off the site owner's shoulders, to keep the site up-to-date and in perfect functional condition. Which neans always finding new and better ways to present you site, adding its address to new search engines, creating advantageous links to a numerous topic related sites, guarding it against intrudes or viruses, and changing any thing on the site at the owner’s request.

Here is where www.websitencounters.com can help. Visit us and feel free to ask any thing by using our contact us form