As used in reference to the World Wide Web, “hit” means a single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server; thus in order for a web browser to display a page that contains 3 graphics, 4 “hits” would occur at the server: 1 for the HTML page, and one for each of the 3 graphics. “hits” are often used as a very rough measure of load on a server, e.g. “Our server has been getting 300,000 hits per month.” Because each “hit” can represent anything from a request for a tiny document (or even a request for a missing document) all the way to a request that requires some significant extra processing (such as a complex search request), the actual load on a machine from 1 hit is almost impossible to define.

Several meanings. Originally, the web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. “Check out so-and-so’s new Home Page.” Another sloppier use of the term refers to practically any web page as a “homepage,” e.g. “That web site has 65 homepages and none of them are interesting.”

See Also: Browser, Web

Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network. It is quite common to have one host machine provide several services, such as WWW and USENET.

See Also: Node, Network

(HyperText Markup Language) - The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear, additionally, in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or a word, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a World Wide Web Client Program, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer.

See Also: Client, Server, WWW

(HyperText Transfer Protocol) - The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).

See Also: Client, Server, WWW

Generally, any text that contains links to other documents, words or phrases in the document that can be chosen by a reader and which cause another document to be retrieved and displayed.