Archives
The main area in your blog where past posts are stored – a link to each archive will normally appear in the sidebar of the blog and will allow you to look back at posts in terms of when they were poosted. You can usually choose the length of time that these categories cover but in most blogging platforms, the standard is monthly and this is probably the best option for most bloggers.

Astroturfing
A term in Public Relations to describe an organised PR project, campaign or action which is designed to give the impression that it has happen spontaneously as if from a “grassroots” effect – the analogy is that it looks as though it has come from the grassroots but is in fact not the case, in the same way that astoturf looks like grass but is in fact fake.

Blog
The term “blog” is a contraction of “Web Log” which rightly shows how blogs were initially used, that’s to say as a “log” or diary (remember ‘Star Trek’ and the Captain’s Log?) which was published on the internet. Now blogs cover many different sorts of writing from business to personal and also refers generically to the technology used to create them. (see also Blogging Platform)

Blogging
The act of creating and posting a blog

Blogging Platform
This will usually refer to the software which is used to create the blog – there are many different options in the market which range according to the requirremnets of the blogger. Some of the most popular are Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type and Joomla.

Blogger
Someone who blogs – a personal blogger may maintain their blog as a type of personal online journal, sharing their thoughts and opinions. A blogger who focuses more on the business side will have a more focused content, generally with a view to demonstrating their expertise in their an area or niche.

Blogosphere
A overall term given to the blogs on the internet

Blogroll
A set of links to other blogs that a blogger considers to be particularly valuable to read either with specific reference to their own blog or their own tastes. Basically a recommended reading list.

Business Blog
The use of blogging technology for business uses. This will ususally be set up with a business purpose in mind and will focus on a particular area or subject with the end goal of creating business relationships with a set of people or campanies.

Category
In some blogs you can categorise each individual post under one or many Categories that you have set up in your blog – this allows visitors to easily find posts on a particular topic or area.

Comments
One aspects of a blog which defferentiates it from websites is the ability of the visitors to post remarks or ask questions regarding a certain blog post. These remarks etc are generally refered to as “comments” and hence teh functioanlity is referred to in this way.

Feed
This will normally refer to an RSS feed which allows you to subscribe to receive information that you consider to be of interest. You will need a Feed Reader (or Aggregator) to be able to read these and, generally, RSS feeds are identified by small orange rectangles with RSS or XML in them although a new orange symbol is now being adopted by most of the major players.

Permalink
A permalink is the permanent URL or address of a post on a blog which allows it to be found and referenced easily. For example, in this blog, it you click on the title of the post, you will be taken to its individual page – if you then look at the ‘address’ bar in your browser (which starts http://www.betterbusinessblogging.com/) then this is the posts permalink.

Ping
In terms of blogs, a ping is where you automatically inform blog search engines and tracking services that you have updated your blog. The search engine then visits your blog to immediately record and index the new content – this means that these search engines contain literally up to the minute information of what is being written about, unlike mainstream search engines which visit less regularly. You can set this up to happen automatically or you can manually “ping” them, perhaps using services such as Pingomatic or Pingoat which will inform many servers at the same time for you.

Post
This refers to an individual article that appears on a blog – it is also known as a posting.

RSS
Short for either Really Simple Syndicatin or Rich Site Summary depending who you are speaking to. A great way to share information with others or to collect information if you look at it from the other point of view

RSS Reader
Also known as an RSS Aggregator, this is the piece of software that you need to receive and read RSS feeds that you subscribe to

Splog
A contraction for “Spam Blog” which is a blog that has been created automatically and then filled with a non-sensical set of words, or articles which have been taken from other sites with the sole intention of creating links through to a separate “target” site

Trackback
A trackback is used to help follow and track conversations going on between different blogs on the subject and allows a blogger to show that they have commented on an orginal post in their own blog. If I respond to or expand on a post on somebody’s blog, then when I post it, I include a trackback which automatically sends notification to the original author and creates a link to my post in their comemnts section. So for example, to create a trackback to this page, you would make sure that you were on the individual page (ie. just click on the post title) and then you would find the trackback address in the “Archived Entry” box in the right hand sidebar. Adding this into the trackback box in your blog software when you write your post woud create the link.

URL
Stands for Uniform Resource Locator but, to you and me, the URL is effectively the address of the page on a website or a blog

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1. Getting the best out of Permalinks
2. Promoting and Marketing your Business Blog (Blog specifc methods)
3. SEO in Blogs 4: keyword rich URLs