Several people have asked for this, so here ya go. I'll add to it as time goes by, so if you don't see something here that you're curious about, let me know. I'll do my best to add it when I get a chance. You can email me at amylynnandrews (at) gmail (dot) com with "Glossary" in the subject.
"Above the Fold"
This phrase is a nod to newspaper publishing and the concept that the most valuable newspaper space is "above the fold" (i.e. the top half of the newspaper). It's valuable because it's the portion of the paper that eyeballs see first. In blogging, "above the fold" refers to the portion of your site which can be seen immediately without having to scroll down.
Blog
A type of website with posts (entries) displayed in reverse chronological order, that is, the newest at the top.
Blogging Platform
A blogging platform is what takes your basic typed words and transforms them into a beautifully packaged bunch of posts on the internet. (See my Blogging is Like Ice Cream post for a more thorough, and fun, explanation.) WordPress, Blogger and TypePad are three of many blogging platforms.
Bounce Rate
Your bounce rate is the percentage of visits that are only a single page. In other words, a visitor lands on your site and looks at the page they landed on, but does not explore any other pages on your site. They have seen only one page. Not good. You want visitors to stay a while and click around. The lower your bounce rate, the better. You can find your Bounce Rate in Google Analytics –> Audience –> Overview. Read more about bounce rate here.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) tell HTML how to display elements on a page. Here's more about CSS.
Domain or Domain Name
The "address" of your site. For example, BloggingWithAmy.com and AmyLynnAndrews.com are domain names. Read more about domain names here.
Feed
Your blog's feed is a way to deliver your content to readers who subscribe. So, instead of them having to come to your site to see if you have new content, they subscribe to your feed which sends them the latest from your blog whenever it is updated. (See also, RSS).
Google Analytics
Google Analytics lets you keep track of your blog stats. Use it to find out how much traffic you're getting, where it's coming from, the most popular pages on your blog, your bounce rate and much, much more. Check out this beginner's guide for the basics. And here are my stats tips.
HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is what webpages are made of. With the use of tags and attributes and together with CSS, you can make a webpage do or look almost anyway you'd like. Here's a great HTML tutorial.
Hyperlink or Link
A hyperlink allows you to jump around the web ("hyper" as opposed to "linear" which would take you from one item to the next item in line). Text or graphics (images) can be hyperlinked, meaning, they are linked elsewhere and if you click on them, they take you to another place on the web. The term "link" is used for short.
Niche
The general topic your blog is about. The niche for this site might be blogging tips. Other niches are decorating, food, frugal living, crafting, homeschooling, photography, etc. Read more here and here.
PageRank
Per the words of Google, "When Google was founded, one key innovation was PageRank, a technology that determined the 'importance' of a webpage by looking at what other pages link to it, as well as other data." I admit, I don't pay much attention to PageRank because it's updated infrequently and doesn't seem to hold a lot of weight by itself. But if you'd like to read more, TentBlogger has a good post about it here.
Pingback
A pingback is a notification you receive when someone else links to your site.
RSS
Real Simple Syndication (RSS). Here's a video that explains the idea pretty well.
URL
The entire address of a website or webpage including the "http://" and the domain name (mentioned above). So, the URL for this site would be http://BloggingWithAmy.com.
WordPress
WordPress is software you can use to create a blog or website. It is one of many blogging platforms. (See also, Blogging Platform.) More about WordPress in Blogging is Like Ice Cream.
