Dictionary of Key Website Terms

Equal to either 7 or 8 bits, depending on whether it requires an extra bit, called a parity bit, for error correction. A byte stores a single character of information such as the letter A.

Conversion rates are distinct measurements that determine how many visitors take your preferred action step. The conversion section can be broken into two areas - contact details and buying online (for those with shopping carts). It shows you how many people clicked the contact us page or purchased online – please note this does not show whether or not people actually contacted you via the contact form or actually made a purchase, just that they visited those pages while visiting your site

The unique name that identifies an Internet site. A domain also identifies the area of the Internet which a site belongs, i.e. commercial (.com); government (.gov); education (.edu); military (.mil); and non-profit organisation (.org).

Graphic Interchange Format. A bit-mapped color graphics file format that is the preferred one to use if you want to put a graphic (as opposed to a photo) on a Web page. Web browsers only recognise two image formats, GIF and JPEG (or JPG).

Approximately one billion bytes, or one thousand megabytes.

A home page is an initial point of entry to a web of related documents. It contains introductory information, as well as hyperlinks to related resources. A home page often contains internal navigation buttons which help users find their way among the various documents that the home page makes available.

An ISP is a company which provides access to the Internet to computer users for an agreed price. E.g. Xtra, Ihug, Orcon.

Joint Photographic Expert Group. A file format using a compression technique to reduce the size of a graphics file by as much as 96 percent. JPEG is the preferred file format to use if you want to put a photograph on a Web page.

A thousand bytes (actually 1024 bytes).

Local-Area Network. A group of computers, usually in one building, that are physically connected in a way that lets them communicate and interact with each other.

A word or phrase emphasized in a hypertext document that acts as a pointer to related information. Links in a Web browser are usually underlined and are a different color than the rest of the text.

A computer that holds email messages for clients on a network. If you have an e-mail account, your e-mail goes to your service provider's mail server to be held until you are ready to download it to your computer.

Portable Document Format. A standard used by Adobe Acrobat to display any sort of document on any computer. The Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded as freeware. For more information about PDF, see our Acrobat Reader Help Page

Unsolicited e-mail messages or Newsgroups postings, usually advertising a product.

Every page on the Internet has a unique identifying address or URL. Datum Connect’s URL is http://www.datumconnect.co.nz.

A Web browser is the software program that you use to view WWW pages. The most popular are IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari.

A computer that is connected to the Internet and stores files written in HTML (hypertext markup language) that are publicly available through an Internet connection

This is a global hyper-text-based information system which allows users to explore that Internet around the world. It is an attempt to organise all documents on the Internet as a set of hypertext documents which are searched via "links".