Internet glossary from M to S.
A-C | C-F | G-M | M-S | S-W | W-Z
Meta search
A method to search for meta data in documents.
Meta tags
Meta tags are HTML or XHTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a Web page. Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section of an HTML or XHTML document.
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
MIDI is an industry-standard protocol that enables electronic musical instruments, computers, and other equipment to communicate, control and synchronise with each other.
MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3)
A digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage.
MPEG (Moving Picture Expert Group)
A standard codec for computer audio and video.
MPG
Another commonly used extension for MPEG files.
Multimedia (in web terms)
Multimedia is media and content that utilises a combination of different content forms.
MySQL
MySQL is a relational database management system.
Netscape
A web browser just like Internet Explorer.
Newsgroup
A newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations.
Opera
A web browser.
Page hits (Page impressions, Page views)
The number of times a web page has been visited by a user.
Page rank
A link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, with the purpose of 'measuring' its relative importance within the set.
PDF (Portable Document Format)
A file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange.
Perl (Practical Extraction and Reporting Language)
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language.
PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor)
PHP is a scripting language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages. It has evolved to include a command line interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.
Plug-In
A plug-in consists of a computer program that interacts with a host application (a web browser or an email client, for example) to provide a certain, usually very specific, function 'on demand'.
PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
A bitmap image format that employs lossless data compression (typically uses the "png" file-extension).
POP (Post Office Protocol)
A standard communication protocol to retrieve emails from an email server.
QuickTime
A multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music, and several types of interactive panoramic images.
Real Audio
A proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks.
Real Video
A common multimedia video format developed by Real Networks.
Redirect (in web terms)
The action when a web page automatically forwards (redirects) the user to another location.
Rich Media
A broad range of interactive digital media which exhibits dynamic motion, taking advantage of enhanced sensory features such as video, audio and animation.
RGB (Red Green Blue)
The combination of the three primary colours that can represent a full colour spectrum.
Learn more about RGB in our HTML tutorial
RSS
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines,audio, and video - in a standardised format.
Scripting language
A scripting language, script language or extension language is a programming language that allows some control of a single, or multiple, software application(s).
Search engine
Computer program used to search and catalog (index) the millions of pages of available information on the web. Common search engines are Google, Yahoo and bing.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via 'natural' ('organic' or 'algorithmic') search results.