18 Terms To Know As A New Blogger
In the last couple of months that I’ve been blogging, I’ve run across alot of terms that I wasn’t familiar with or that had been used in a different way then I was used to. I though it may be helpful to put together some of these terms in one place. This list is somewhat Wordpress-centric since it is the platform I am most familiar with, but alot of these terms are applicable to any software you choose.
- Adsense - Context sensitive Adds from Google. Not the only add system for blogs, but definitely one of the most popular ways to translate traffic into cash.
- Trackbacks - When you link to a post on another blog, that blog is notified that you are posting about it.
- Hosted - Mostly free, installed blogs on a server that you don’t own. Less customizable, but free and quick to get up and running. Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, Livejournal.com
- Self Hosted - Running a blog on a server you own (or rent through a hosting service). More work and knowledge needed, but alot more control.
- Backlinks - A backlink is the actual link from one blog to another. This is what a trackback notifies one about.
- Pings - A notification to servers that you have update a post or created a new post.
- Plugins - A small add on to your blog that increases functionality. Check posts for spam, hook into your flickr account, etc
- Themes - Premade styles that change the look of your blog.
- Spam - Different from the email type, Spamming can be adding frivolous comments to blogs to get a backlink (”Me too!”), adding unwanted product posts to a blogs comments, sending update pings repeatedly to the ping servers.
- Posts - The updates you make on a blog. This is a post.
- Pages - Static pages on blog that don’t change much. About me is a page.
- Stats - Mostly meant to show you how many people are viewing your blog. These can get very detailed and in depth. Google Analytics, Awstats, Webablizer, Wordpress Stats are just some programs.
- Blogroll - A list of blogs related to you or that you like.
- Comments - Messages others have left on a post.
- SEO/Search Engine Optimization - The art of making your site as visible to search engines as possible (and hopefully get a good listing on the front page).
- RSS/Feeds - A way to read and publish content through a newsreader like Google Reader. Notifies the user when new content is added.
- Permalinks - A link that contains a readable address for your posts. Most bloggers recommend this (www.blog.com/my-sweet-post/ as opposed to www.blog.com/?p=15)
- PageRank - A 0-10 ranking that Google assigns your pages based on several factors. PageRank 0 being the lowest and PR 10 being the most popular.
None of these is an authoritative definition, but hopefully it may give you a better idea on some of the term you may come across.
Update: I just ran across a Wikipedia list that contains a whole lot more terms. Here it is.
