Glossary Term G - Web Hosting Glossary

Gateway
There are a number of definitions for gateway in relation to computer terminology. 1. a device that is used to connect two computers that are using different set standards or rules for communication, or protocols. A gateway will allow for these two systems to communicate with each other. 2. relates to a specific web page that is being used as a gateway to attract visitors to another site. The gateway page is used to draw visitors in and then send them to another web page. Other gateways to be familiar with are payment gateways and residential gateways.

GB - Gigabyte
A gigabyte is a unit of measure for storage of digital information. The base unit is one byte. 1 gigabyte is approximately equal to 1 billion bytes. Gigabyte is often abbreviated GB. In web hosting you will often see GB information telling you how much disk space or bandwidth is available for you to use for a website.

Generic Top Level Domain
A top level domain name that is open to registrants around the world in contrast to country code top level domains that are often restricted to registrants located in a particular country or region. .com, .net and .org are all considered to be generic top level domains.

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. This is a format used for image storage that is great for simpler images and animations. GIF has a 256 color palette which makes it suitable for simple images but not commonly used for photographs or other images with continuous color.

Gigabit Ethernet
A Gigabit Ethernet is a high speed Ethernet standard approved by IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Gigabit Ethernet supports existing Ethernet and provides increased network bandwidth with operating speeds from 10 Mbps to 1000 Mbps.

Glue Record
A glue record is a record type used in a name server delegation to provide the IP address directly to the requestor. A glue record is an effective way of keeping the IP address connected with the domain name system (DNS) because every fully qualified domain name has to match the fully qualified domain name of the DNS in one of the name servers (NS) records in a delegation.

GoLive
GoLive is an HTML editor from Adobe Systems. GoLive works as a web site management tool that allows the user to drag-and-drop files and then guides them through the process of saving the files in web-supported formats. GoLive is coded in the C++ programming language.

Graphics
Graphics can be drawings or pictures. In the computer industry a graphic is usually made by a computer and portrayed on a screen. Any image that you see on a webpage is a graphic.

Guestbook
An area on a website where visitors can leave comments for the webmaster or for others that visit the site to see. Has become a popular method for web spammers to create link farms.

GUI - Graphical User Interface
A graphical method of controlling how a user interacts with a computer to perform various tasks. Instead of issuing commands at a prompt, the user performs desired tasks by using a mouse to choose from `a dashboard' of options presented on the display screen. These are in the form of pictorial buttons (icons) and lists. Some GUI tools are dynamic and the user must manipulate a graphical object on the screen to invoke a function; for example, moving a slider bar to set a parameter value such as the scale of a map.