Website and WordPress Concepts & Terminology

A group of World Wide Web pages usually containing hyperlinks to each other and made available online by an individual, company, educational institution, government, or organization.

A website that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks, videos, and photographs provided by the writer. A blog contains entries, known as blog posts. Typically blog posts are presented in reverse chronological order.

Uniform Resource Locator – this is the address where a specific webpage is found. A URL typically starts with http:// or https://. HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The S in HTTPS stands for secure. A website that uses HTTPS uses cryptography to ensure the communication between the web browser and the website is secure.

A domain is the name for a website. Domains are rented from a service provider that provides Domain Name Registration. The Domain Name service provider manages a Domain Name Server (DNS), that tells web browsers where a specific website is hosted.

The host is the server (special computers) where the webpage data is stored.

The Web Browser is the software that is used to access the website.

A tool used to manage your website hosting. It includes the tool to install WordPress as well as tools to manage email forwarding and creating subdomains. In addition, there is where you access the file manager.

The tool on cPanel that shows you all the apps that you have installed. It will show you where you have installed WordPress, and provides a few WordPress management tools.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): A lot of online marketing is all about making your site appear at the top of searches. SEO refers to the things that are done to improve the likelihood of your page appearing at the top of search results. The different things that we do in this class will help you appear higher on the list. Most employers will Google you before an interview. You want to help ensure they see the best of you.

WordPress is a type of Content Management System (CMS). A CMS is a system that contains content and determines how that content is presented or retrieved.

The direct link to a specific blog post. It stands for Permanent Link. You should not change your permalink configuration after you have published blog posts, as that would change the permalink for existing posts. If anyone has linked to the specific post, it will cause the link to break.

A linkback is a link on someone else’s blog that points to a blog post on your blog. WordPress will inform you when someone links back to one of your posts. These are often shared as post comments.

The feature image is a special image that is used as the thumbnail image for a given blog post. It may also be the large image at the top of a single Page or Post.

A single web page on the website. Pages typically contain content that doesn’t frequently change.

A single blog post on a WordPress website. Posts are presented on the “Posts” page, often in reverse chronological order.

The block editor is also known as Gutenburg, as that is the name of the project that implemented it. The block editor allows each block of content on the page to be configured individually, allowing for various customizations.

An individual piece of content on a page or post.  Blocks allow you to control each item you put on the page. There are 1000s of blocks. You can use plugins to add additional block functionality.

A reusable block is a block you configure and save. For example, if you had a specific image you want to use as a divider, rather than adding that image each time, you can save it as a reusable block and add that when you need it. If you decide you want a different divider later, you can edit the reusable block and it will update that block wherever it occurs on your site.

A preconfigured group of blocks that you can add to your page or post. When you select a pattern it is copied to your page or post. Once added, you can edit the blocks to suit your need. The original pattern is not changed by your modifications.

The theme controls the look-and-feel of your website. There are 1000s of themes, which support different WordPress functionality (e.g. menu appearance, number of columns, headers, footers).

Plugins can be installed to your site to add functionality. For example, the Spectra plugin adds additional blocks that you can use on your pages and posts.

Full site editing one of the newer WordPress features. The full site editor allows you to use blocks to customize any part of your website. This allows you to create your own look and feel without needing to know how to code a theme.

Templates define the structure of a page when using the full site editor. They are similar to master pages in PowerPoint. You can select specific templates for each page on your site.

Template parts are a group of blocks that are repeated over multiple templates. For example, there are template parts for header and footer, as you typically want these to be the same on all pages. When you edit a template part, it updates all templates that use that template part. This is similar to how reusable blocks behave within the block editor.