A record
An A record is one of the most basic DNS records. This takes your domain (yoursite.com) or subdomain (www.yoursite.com) and…
Absolute Path
The path (URL) to a page or file. http://www.yourdomain.com/your-file-name.jpg is an absolute path whereas /your-file-name.jpg is a relative path.
Admin Area
This is the section of your website where you administer your post and page content. It’s often referred to as ‘wp-admin’…
Admin Bar
The black bar that sits at the top of your WordPress site when you’re logged in. This bar contains links…
Administration Screens
CMS pages and sections where you administer parts of your website. WordPress separates out the content into Posts, Pages, Menus…
Administrator
This is the highest WordPress user role. Administrators have access to every section of your CMS – from pages and…
Advanced Custom Fields
An awesome WordPress plugin that we use on all the sites we design and build. This plugin is a favourite of many WordPress…
Anchor
This is the term used to describe a link to another page. An anchor can link to an internal or…
Anchor text
This is the text that’s hyperlinked. This anchor text is very important for search engine optimisation.
Attachment
Similar to attachments in email, a WordPress attachment refers to an image or file that is uploaded to a post…
Author
In WordPress, both pages and posts have ‘authors’. These are the people that have access to your site. Not all…
Autosave
WordPress automatically saves your posts and pages as you write them, just in case you lose connection as you work.
Back-end
The admin section of your website (see also front-end)
Backlink
A link back to your website from another external website. If the site linking to you is a good site,…
Bad Neighbours
This term is used to refer to other sites that share the same server as you do that use more…
Bespoke WordPress theme
This is a WordPress theme that has been created specifically for you and your website. It will have been created…
Category
WordPress uses categories to organise and display posts on your site. Categories are an important part of WordPress search engine optimisation and…
Child Theme
If you use an off-the-shelf theme and need to customise it, it’s crucial to create a child theme first. Child…
Cloudflare
A third-party app that hosts your DNS records and provides caching and other options to speed up your website. We…
Comments
Comments hail back to WordPress’ roots as a blogging platform. When you create a post on your site, you can…
Content Management System (CMS)
WordPress is a CMS. Content management systems pretty much do as the name suggests, they allow you to manage the…
Contributor
This is a user role within WordPress. A contributor is a basic role that allows the user to log into the…
Cookies
These are small files that your site stores on visitors computers to store information. In light of the GDPR, we do…
CSS – Cascading Style Sheets
CSS is the ‘code’ that makes your site look how it looks. It is basically the ‘style’ of your site….
Custom Fields
Custom fields extend the content section of WordPress posts and pages by allowing you to add extra sections to the…
Database
Your database holds all of the information that you add to your site (except files). When you add new content,…
Dedicated Hosting
This is a hosting account on a server that hosts your site and no one else’s. Dedicated hosting is more expensive…
Default Theme
When you install WordPress, it ships with its own theme. This is WordPress’ own theme and they update it each year….
DNS
Stands for Domain Name System. This is how your domain name is converted into an IP address for your site….
Domain Name
The website address of your website and part of your email addresses. DNS converts your domain name into a range…
Editor
In the WordPress world, there are several editors, but this term most usually refers to the WYSIWYG (what you see…
Excerpt
The excerpt is an important part of a post that’s often overlooked. When you have a list of posts (an…
Featured Image
Every post (or page if enabled) in WordPress has the option to add a featured image. This image can then…
File size
The size of an image, Javascript or CSS file in bytes. For example 343k. In all things web, it’s important…
Footer
The bottom of your website. Basically where you’ll have links and other contact information. Footer is also an HTML5 tag…
Front-end
This is what developers call the public-facing site of your website. See also back-end.
FTP
File transfer protocol. A method of transferring files directly to the server. WordPress developers will often ask for your FTP…
functions.php
This is an important WordPress template file that controls lots of functions on your website. Errors in the functions.php file often…
Google Search Console
A tool that is linked to your site and provides information on data about the health of your site, backlinks,…
Gutenberg
The new WordPress editor (currently in beta as we write this) will be the new standard editing experience in WordPress….
Header
The top-most part of your webpage. The information displayed in your header is often consistent across your entire site. It’s…
Homepage
The main page of your website. Most of the traffic your site gets will land here first. This makes your homepage…
Hosting
Your hosting is where your website lives. There are 1000s of hosting companies offering services from a few pence a…
htaccess
A small text file that sits at the root of your server and controls certain aspects of your website (such…
iFrame
An iFrame is basically a ‘window’ in your website whereby other HTML or files can be loaded in. iFrames are…
IP Address
An IP address is basically the numerical version of your domain name. Using DNS and A records, your domain name…
JavaScript
Javascript is an object-orientated programming language that is commonly used to create interactive effects and elements within web browsers.
jQuery
This is a Javascript library that allows developers to use pre-built JS functions to make stuff happen in your visitor’s…
Localhost
A computer networking term. Localhost means this computer. When you connect your WordPress site to a database, the location of this…
Loop
The loop is the core of WordPress. It is what displays the content from your database on the front end…
Media
This term usually means anything that you’ve uploaded to your WordPress site. Images, videos and PDFs are all referred to as…
Media Settings
Within WordPress, you can control the settings for many different types of media, but the main one is image sizes….
Memory Usage
Your site sits on a server (computer). The more complicated your site is, the more memory it needs to do…
Menus
WordPress has a built-in system for managing site menus. You are able to create (navigation) menus for your site and…
Multisite
We could write an entire essay about this one, but multisite is a different way of using WordPress. A multisite allows you…
MySQL
Your website’s database. MySQL is an open-source database that’s nearly always used for WordPress (unless you’re trying to install WP…
Nameservers
Nameservers Nameservers are part of the domain name system. Your nameservers are often controlled by the company that you bought your…
Open Source
Open Source Open-source software is source code that anyone can inspect, modify and enhance. For most WordPress users, this also…
Page
Page This is a page on your WordPress site. Pages are usually used for top-level content such as ‘who we…
Parent Theme
Parent Theme See child themes.
Performance
Performance We talk about performance, or more accurately site performance a lot. Going to all the hassle and expense of…
Permalinks
Permalinks Permalinks are fundamental to WordPress. Your permalink structure is how the URLs of your site are organised. These need…
PHP
PHP This is the script language used on your WordPress site. PHP is also open source.
Pingback
Pingback This is a function built into WordPress where your install tries to alert you about links from other WordPress…
Plugin Editor
Plugin Editor The plugin editor is an admin section that allows you to edit the source code of plugins. Its…
Plugins
Plugins Plugins are third-party ‘apps’ that extend the functionality of your WordPress site. They should be used sparingly, as each…
Post Formats
Post Formats Just like pages have templates, a post can also be set to display certain types of content such as…
Post Slug
Post Slug This is the part of the URL that follows the last slash (/) in your domain name –…
Post Status
Post Status When you add a post to WordPress, you don’t have to publish it straight away. Its status can…
Post Types
Post Types These are the different types of content that WordPress can hold. They include post, page, attachment and revision…
Query
Query A PHP function that does stuff such as (in English), ‘get me all the posts from December’ or ‘display…
Redirects (301)
Redirects (301) A 301 redirect tells the search engines that content has been moved permanently. Use with caution and consideration…
Responsive Theme
Responsive Theme A theme that adapts the look and design of your website to the device on which it is…
Revisions
Revisions When you edit a post or page WordPress stores your revision in the database. These revisions can be restored,…
Robots.txt
Robots.txt A small text file that sits on your server and controls access to search engine bots.
RSS
RSS This is defined as ‘Really simple syndication’ or ‘Rich Site Summary’ and is built into WordPress. In a nutshell,…
Screen Options
Screen Options You can use screen options when editing WordPress content to change the way the editing screen is laid…
SEO
SEO Search engine optimisation – needs no introduction, simple to say, endless complex in nature. SEO is the process by…
Server
Server Your server is the computer where your website is hosted (see Hosting). Depending on what you pay for your server,…
Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting See hosting.
Shortcodes
Shortcodes Shortcodes are a built-in WordPress function that allows you to call in certain plugin functions directly into posts and…
Sidebar
Sidebar Lots of sites have these. The sidebar is an area of content that usually sits to the left or…
Slider
Slider Sliders in WordPress usually refer to banners at the top of the page that contains two or more areas of…
Slug
Slug This is the last part of your URL and is important for Search Engine Optimisation. www.yourdomain.com/this-is-the-slug Slugs should contain…
Spam
Spam In WordPress terms, spam is unwanted comments. If you have comments enabled on your site and you are getting…
SSL
SSL SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and is the standard security for creating an encrypted link between your website…
Subdomain
Subdomain Not strictly part of a WordPress glossary, but important just the same. A subdomain is the first part of…
Subscriber
Subscriber The lowest level of WordPress user. Visitors can join your site as subscribers to receive automatic emails when new content…
Tags
Each post on your site can have tags, but they should be used sparingly and must make sense to the…
Taxonomy
Taxonomy The WordPress taxonomy consists of categories and tags. The taxonomy is used to organise your content.
Template
Template A template is a theme file that is used to control the design and layout of your content on…
Text Editor
Text Editor This is the HTML version of the WYSIWYG editor. WordPress allows you to toggle between normal and HTML…
Theme
Theme A WordPress theme is a collection of PHP, HTML, CSS and Javascript files that control your site. WordPress themes can…
Theme Editor
Theme Editor An admin area within the WordPress CMS where you can directly edit the theme’s files. Great care should…
Theme Framework
Theme Framework Theme frameworks are incredibly complicated themes that enable non-technical users to edit their websites and control the layout…
Theme Options
Theme Options Many off-the-shelf themes come with a huge array of options. This is where you can choose fonts. colours…
Thumbnail Sizes
Thumbnail Sizes When you upload an image to WordPress, the thumbnail sizes control what WordPress does with the image. In…
Time to first byte
Time to first byte This refers to how quickly your server responds to a request. The quicker the TTFB, the…
Trash
Trash Just like your Mac or PC, WordPress has a trash (called Bin) where deleted post and pages sit before…
Updates
Updates These are crucial to keeping WordPress safe, secure and running properly. One of the best things about WordPress is…
User Role
User Role WordPress has a range of user roles built into the CMS that control who can do what on…
Visual Editor
Visual Editor This is the visual version of the WYSIWYG editor. WordPress allows you to toggle between HTML and visual…
Widgets
Widgets There is a section in the admin for Widgets. Widgets are used to give you more control over what…
WordPress.com
WordPress.com This is the ‘other’ version of WordPress. It’s basically a stripped-down version of a self-hosted WordPress install and is…
wp-config.php
wp-config.php This is a crucial file in the WordPress install. It controls lots of different settings for your WordPress site…
WSOD
WSOD White screen of death. A common occurrence in WordPress where PHP syntax errors take the site down, replacing it…
XMLRPC
XMLRPC The XMLRPC is a system that allows remote updates to WordPress from other applications. For instance, the Windows Live Writer…
Yith
Yith A rather strangely named set of premium and free plugins for WooCommerce. We have a developer licence with these clever…
Z-index
Z-index A bit of a strange one, but we needed something for Z. This controls the order of items in…