Internet Jargon 101
By Brian Darrow
Jan. 2005
© R-Design, Inc.


Are you looking to start marketing your business on the internet, but are confused by the technobabble? Here’s a quick primer to bring you up to speed.

When you connect to the internet from home or your business, you will typically do it through an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Your ISP is simply the company that provides you with access to the internet, whether it be dial-up or broadband. America Online (AOL) and Earthlink are two popular ISPs. For some, a phone or cable company may serve as an ISP. In these cases, the connection is often “broadband”. A broadband connection provides a much faster internet experience than dialing up through a standard phone line.

Once you’re connected, you’ll use a browser. Browsers are simply computer programs, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, that allow a person to display a web page on her computer.

If you’d like to have a web site of your own, you’ll need hosting. A host is a company that provides space on a computer to “deliver” your web site for the rest of the world to see. The actual computer that makes the delivery is called a server. Servers are computers that are optimized for storage and network connections. They are often stored together in racks. Most servers lack monitors and keyboards because they are almost always accessed from remote locations.

You can think of the host/server relationship like a party. The host holds the party, and the server brings you hors d'oeuvres. When you connect to a web site, the host owns the server that delivers you that delicious slice of rdesignonline.com.

Every server has a unique ip address. The ip stands for “internet protocol”. An ip address looks something like: 11.220.66.117. It’s a universal system that allows computers to find other computers across the internet. Since ip addresses are difficult for humans to remember, however, we use domain names. Domain names allow humans to type an easily remembered address (like rdesignonline.com) into their browser instead of a confusing stream of numbers. A domain name server (also known as a DNS server) translates the domain names into appropriate ip addresses so that the user’s browser looks for the desired web site in the correct location.

So, that’s it in a nutshell. You connect to the internet through your ISP. You open up your favorite browser and type the domain name of the web site you want to visit. A DNS server converts that domain name into the ip address assigned to the host’s server where that web site resides, and voila! Information at your fingertips.