Define Ecommerce and Web-Internet Terms

What is the Web and where did it come from?
It all started with a military scheme to rule the world, but we won't get into the roots, just the visible part of the tree! If you want the story in full, click here.The public internet was proposed by nuclear physicists in 1989. It didn't become a commercial reality until 1991. The web was a private network for eggheads (yes this could be rocket science) stored on a single computer (called a server) for about a year until it was made public in 1992. That year the number of internet servers (computers) took a jump to fifty, a year later in '93 there were over six hundred of them! 1994 saw an increase to more than twenty five hundred servers, and the growth has been phenomonal since then! This year there are an estimated quarter million servers that make up the web. All of them connected via phone lines. You can see where the analogy of a web came from!


May 17, 2001, was the tenth anniversary of the World Wide Web, when the first server running http and HTML was cranked up by Tim Berners-Lee at the European particle physics lab in Geneva.

Define Ecommerce for me This term is everywhere! Go here now!

Could you send the "server" for more coffee?
As you spend more time on the internet you will see confusing references and technical terms scattered about the place like toys all over the floor of a kid's room. Most often you can ignore them because even if you knew the definition, it still won't mean anything to you. Try talking to your mother about servers. Web authors will use terms that they believe the whole world knows, when really, only web authors understand them. They forget that only one percent of the human population has a computer, yet they think that every visitor to a web page should understand their lingo! To see a typical geek definition of server go here and remember to come back to definitions for the rest of us!

Sprinkled about the definitions below are underlined words called "links" that will take you to the underlined places. If you want to come back here after clicking on those links just use the "Back" button on the toolbar at the top of your screen.

 

Basic Web-Internet Terms
Browser?	That guy is just a lookie-loo! He never buys anything! A Browser is a program on your computer, it is the generic name for the software that allows you to view and navigate web pages. The browser translates HTML coding (definition below) into nice looking pages on your computer screen! You probably have a browser called "FireFox" or "Explorer" on your computer.
Domain Name?	See also definition of URL below. A Domain name is an alphanumeric method of navigating via a web browser to a web server to see a web site on your computer. A domain name is typically a business name or generic word or phrase and includes the famous dot com, dot net, and .org extensions. Here's a complete tutorial on Domain Names to help you learn everything about choosing a name for your web site and how domain names work to help you navigate the web. Get your Business Domain Name for $7.95, Right Here, Right Now! .com .net .org .info .biz .us
Ecommerce?	E has taken on a meaning all it's own, but it used to mean electronic commerce. but if you put an E in front of ANYTHING now it means that it's on the web! I'll bet there are more domain names that begin with E than any other letter! Ebay, Eloan, Etrade, Etc! We define Ecommerce as business done online. Any site with a shopping cart can be said to be doing Ecommerce. Here is a complete tutorial on Ecommerce, shopping carts, payment gateways and merchant accounts.
FAQ?	The acronym for Frequently Asked Questions is itself so overused that it's nearly become an accepted word for "Look here before you bug us with your dumb questions so we don't have to talk to you or answer your e-mails until you know everything already."
FTP?	File Transfer Protocol is the method used to "Download" stuff like software, text, pictures or games from the remote computer it's stored on to your computer via the internet. Another nerdy acronym. We should convince our politicians to speak in shortened forms like this. Maybe they could handle business more quickly. Senator, could you MALSS? (make a long story short.)
Host?	When you have a web site, you need a web host to store your web pages on a server that serves up your web pages to visitors. That is very different from your ISP or Internet Service Provider, which gives YOU access to the web. A web host simply gives your web site a home accessible by others on the web. WebSite101 is hosted by Pair Networks and we highly recommend them as one of the top hosting companies for small business. Here's a complete tutorial on web hosting to give you a better understanding of what a web host does.
HTML?	Help! This is Making me Loony! It's more computerspeak for the language the browsers understand. You'll never see it unless you learn to write web pages from scratch! Don't worry about it unless you want to learn Hyper Text Markup Language! If you do want to learn HTML click here! It's free and easy if you've got a few spare days! To look at the HTML coding for any web page click here. Here's our complete HTML tutorial to help you better understand the basic language of the web. We've also made available a free Text to HTML Converter for Web Publishing that inserts <p> tags, allows HTML lists, bold headings, clickable hyperlinks and automates other normally tedious HTML coding tasks.
HTTP?	HyperText Transfer Protocol. We're convinced that when the web matures a little more, some of the original terms will fade to obscurity. Let's start with this one O.K.? There are times when we just don't need to know medical terms, car parts and nerdy acronyms for computer language. Think of it as just the beginning of a web address and leave it at that. If you look at your "address" at the top of your browser window, you will see that all page addresses begin with this. If you ever see HTTPS you'll know you're on a "secure" server and can use your credit card online or feel comfortable providing information that you don't want broadcast to the world.
ISP?	It's a Silly Pseudonym that stands for the company that gives you internet access and e-mail. The guys who keep the computers and modems in the back room that you know as your Internet Service Provider
Link?	A link is simply that, a connection, shortened from "Hypertext Link". A link connects one spot on a web page with another place on the same page, or to another page in the same web site or to another web site entirely. If your browser supports e-mail, some links will open your mail window and automatically enter an Email Address when you click on them! Banners, buttons or underlined text are usually links. The way to know whether a graphic element or text is a link is to place your cursor over the item and watch it turn from an arrow into a small hand "pointing" and then look at the "status bar" at the bottom of your browser window where you will see the "destination" or "URL" of the link you are pointing at!
Netiquette?	Say this three times fast, Internet etiquette, Net etiquette, Netiquette. Zowie! Three syllables where once there were six! Just be nice and remember that typing messages in all capital letters is the internet equivalent of SHOUTING! so don't leave your "Caps Lock" key down when sending e-mail or participating in "chats." And remember not to "Spam." Here's an article about business Email etiquette.
Search Engine?	That sounds like a missing motor! A search engine is just another computer (or several of them) that catalogs the millions of web pages that exist out there on those thousands of other computers. These guys help you find a list of web pages that have words on them that you have typed in to the "search box". Sometimes the list can be overwhelmingly long! If you know the business name or web site TITLE your search will be much more fruitful! The search engine below will perform a search on Website101 only! Give it a try!   Web WebSite101.com
Server?	Hello, my name is Betty, and I'll be your server today! It's just the tech-name for the remote computer that stores the web page you want to see! You could actually imagine it to be your waiter serving you web pages instead of dinner.
Spam?	The origin of this term is a comedy skit by Monty Python TV show during a comedy routine in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of ``Spam, spam, spam, spam...'' increasingly louder to drown out all other conversation. Internet users picked up the word to describe the commercial e-mail flooding their mailboxes and overloading their computer servers, in essence drowning out other conversation in cyberspace. It is the internet equivalent of junk mail. The most common "spamming" is done by get-rich-quick-schemes and scams that send unsolicited e-mail to literally hundreds of thousands of or even millions of email addresses. Spam Kills! Read More here.
URL?	URL is a nerd! It's a term for web address meaning Uniform Resource Locator. It tells your computer where to find the other computer that stores the web pages you're after. http://www.mycompany.com is a URL. When you reserve a Domain Name for your small business web address, it could be the most important thing you do as you begin your business online!

Get your Business Domain Name for only $7.95, Right Here, Right Now!

.com .net .org .info .biz .us

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