Web Design SEO Glossary C

CGI – Common Gateway Interface
The rules that describe how a CGI program communicates with an Internet server. CGI programs often handle forms input or database queries and are stored in a folder usually called “cgi-bin”.

CSS – Cascading Style Sheet
Cascading Style Sheet is the World Wide Web Consortiums (W3C) standard for coding the styles used to dictate the visual presentation of web pages. The style sheet holds a list of rules. For example, one rule may determine the size and color of headings. Since the elements on the page create a hierarchy, the styles are said to cascade. When several rules cover the same area, such as the alignment of a paragraph within a division, the rule with the greatest weight or at the bottom of the cascade applies. CSS determine the way information is presented and the HTML or XML provides the structure in which the information is presented. Prior to the use of CSS, the web designers coded the presentation information into each page. With the use of CSS, some websites have reduced their sizes by 30% by concentrating all or most of the information such as font size and color in one file. Web designers can change the look and feel of a web design merely by changing the information in a CSS file. The world hopes Internet Explorer will catch up with Firefox, Safari and Opera in correctly rendering CSS.

Cache
A memory area in a browser’s or server’s hard drive that stores copies of web pages for faster refresh and less bandwidth usage if a visitor opens a page more than once.

Case Sensitive
Describe whether it is important to use capital letters or lower case letters, usually applies to password creation.

Clickthrough Rate
The number of times website visitors click on hyper-linked text or a hyper-linked image (like a banner ad) on a web page. Clickthrough rate is calculated as a percentage of the number of clicks per the number of times the web page is presented.

Cloaking
Cloaking is an unethical search engine optimization technique where a website presents one version of content to web visitors, but gives a different website version with different content to the search engines. Usually these websites are discovered and the cloaking technique as well as the alternate content results in the URL and the IP address getting delisted and banned by the search engines.

Communication Protocol
An international standard that allows computers in different nations to interact according to the same rules and language. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) standardizes the way files are moved over the Internet and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) standardizes the way web servers deliver web pages to web browsers. W#C oversees the creation and maintenance of these communication protocols.

Content Management System
A content management systems allow non-technical website owners or editors to post, remove or edit content to their websites. IMCD utilizes such content management systems as WordPress (websites and blogs), Joomla, Drupal and other article managers to allow website owners to more easily add web content, both text and graphics that is informative and helpful to website visitors.

Cookie
A cookie is a message given to a browser by a script on a website. Cookies are stored on the website visitor’s computer. Cookies are used to identify website users and visitors, such as after logging into a website to allow permission to go to different areas of the website or, for marketing purposes, spyware places cookies to track web traffics’ buying habits. Retailers often use cookies to track buying preferences and deliver customized pages.

Cyberspace
The online world of the Internet and computer networks.