A blogging glossary, in plain words

The software you write, file and publish with, without touching the site's code. WordPress, Ghost and Typoza are CMSs; a site written by hand in HTML has none.

See also: Hosting, Markdown

The servers that answer when someone opens your address. A hosted service such as Typoza includes it in the price. With software you install yourself, you rent the server and keep it running.

See also: Content delivery network (CDN), Certificate (HTTPS)

Your address on the web, such as example.com. You rent it by the year from a registrar, and it stays yours when you change tools: point it at the new one and your readers keep the same address. Typoza lets you connect your own from the Collective plan.

See also: Subdomain, DNS

A name placed in front of a domain: blog.example.com. Every Typoza workspace gets one on typoza.com for free. Once you connect your own domain, the typoza.com address redirects to it.

See also: Domain name

The directory that turns a domain name into the address of a server. You connect a domain to a service by adding records where the domain is managed. Typoza usually asks for two: one that proves the domain is yours and one that points it at us. A change takes from a few minutes to a few hours to spread.

See also: Domain name

The document behind the padlock in the address bar. It proves the site is the one it claims to be, and the browser uses it to encrypt the connection. It expires and must be renewed. Typoza issues and renews it for its addresses and for your own domain; on a server you run yourself, a missed renewal puts a security warning in front of every reader.

Copies of your pages kept on servers around the world, so each reader gets them from one nearby. A reader in Montreal does not wait for a server in Lille.

See also: Hosting

The readable end of a post's address: my-first-post. Every link shared after publication points at it. When you change the slug of a published post, Typoza keeps the old address as a 301 redirect to the new one.

See also: 301 redirect, Canonical URL

A server's answer that says “this page has moved for good” and gives the new address. Search engines carry the old address's ranking over to the new one; a broken link loses it. You can add your own in a Typoza workspace's settings, for instance for the addresses of a site you are leaving.

See also: Slug

A text can answer at several addresses: with and without www, with tracking parameters, or copied to another site. The canonical tag names the one that counts. Without it, a search engine may split the ranking between the copies. Each Typoza post names its own address, and you can name another when the text first appeared elsewhere.

See also: Search engine optimisation (SEO)

The work that helps search engines find, read and rank your pages: the text first, then titles, descriptions, speed, links from other sites and the shape of your addresses.

See also: Structured data (JSON-LD), Sitemap

The two lines a search engine shows for your page: the title as the link, the description under it. Neither appears in the body of the page. Each Typoza post has a field for both; left empty, the description comes from the post's excerpt, or from the start of the text.

See also: Search engine optimisation (SEO), Share image (Open Graph)

A block of code, invisible to readers, that tells a machine what the page is: an article, its author, its dates. Search engines use it for richer results. Typoza adds it to every post.

See also: Search engine optimisation (SEO)

A file listing the addresses of a site, so search engines miss none. Typoza builds it from what you have published, so a new post is in it as soon as it is out.

See also: robots.txt

A file at the root of a site that tells crawlers what they may read. Each crawler chooses whether to follow it, and nothing forces it to. On a Typoza site, it gives the address of the sitemap and turns away the crawlers that train AI models, unless you let them in.

See also: Sitemap

The picture shown when someone pastes your link into a messaging app or a social network. Without one, the link appears as bare text. A Typoza post uses its cover, or a card drawn from its title when it has none.

See also: Title and description

A file listing your latest posts, which a feed reader checks for your readers. They follow you with no account to create, and no algorithm picks what they see. Every Typoza site has one.

A notice one site sends another when it links to it. Pingback is the older form, the one WordPress sends by default; Webmention is its successor, a W3C standard since 2017. Typoza receives both and keeps a mention only after checking that the citing page links to yours. It also sends them when your posts link to a site that accepts them.

See also: RSS feed, Search engine optimisation (SEO)

A way to format text with plain signs: asterisks for emphasis, hashes for headings. A Markdown file is plain text, so any editor opens it, with no special software. The Typoza export gives you your posts in Markdown.

See also: Export

Getting back what you wrote, in open formats, to take it elsewhere. On Typoza, the export is open on every plan, even for a workspace that a downgrade made read-only: your posts in Markdown, your data in JSON, and the address of every image.

See also: Markdown

A category files a post in one place, like a shelf in a library. Tags describe it, and a post can carry several. A Typoza post takes one category at most.

A small piece of text a site stores in your browser. One that measures or tracks you needs your consent first. A visit to a Typoza site sets none. A reader gets one only by asking for something, such as a dark background, a larger text or a comment under a post, and the law exempts those, so the site shows no consent banner.