WordPress is the most powerful content management system in this world and supports more than 40% of websites. Unlike free site building tools, self-hosted WordPress platform needs steep learning curve and requires understanding of the fundamentals. Understanding the terms used among WordPress community is necessary to make the site building experience fun and quicker. Here is the complete list of WordPress glossary terms with simple explanation, which you can refer and benefit for free.
If you see a term is not listed in this glossary, then please contact us so that we can add it for the benefit of all webmasters.
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| 403 | An HTTP status code indicating a user is forbidden from accessing a page or resource. This may happen due to incorrect permissions or security settings in WordPress. |
| 404 | An HTTP status code meaning the page a user is looking for cannot be found. Often occurs if a post or page has been deleted or its permalink has been changed. |
| 500 | An HTTP status code indicating a server-side error. Could result from plugin conflicts, theme issues, or incorrect PHP code. |
| 503 | An HTTP status code meaning the server is temporarily unavailable. This may occur during updates, maintenance, or server overloading. |
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| Accessibility Mode | A feature in WordPress (in classic mode) aimed at enhancing usability for users with disabilities, often available in the widgets section. |
| Admin Area (Admin Panel) | The back end of a WordPress website where site management and content creation occur. Only accessible to registered users with appropriate permissions. |
| Admin Bar | Admin bar is the top toolbar shown on the admin dashboard. It has quick links to site’s home page, shop page, WordPress.org documentation and links from installed plugins. |
| Administrator | Administrator is the highest level of user in WordPress. Administrators can do all types of actions from the dashboard like modifying theme files and add / delete plugins. |
| Affiliate Marketing | Promoting affiliate products or services via blogs or dedicated landing pages for commissions. |
| Ajax | A technology enabling tasks like loading new content without refreshing the page. |
| Akismet | A plugin that helps filter spam comments on blogs. |
| Alt Tag | An attribute for images to provide descriptive text, improving accessibility and SEO. |
| API (Application Programming Interface) | A set of functions and protocols allowing external applications to interact with WordPress. |
| Archives | Organizes posts by date, category, or tags for easy navigation. |
| Aside Post | A post format for short, tangential content or updates. |
| Attachment | Attachment in WordPress refers a file uploaded to a post or page. The uploaded files can be seen under “Media > Library” menu with the information of the post or page it is linked to. |
| Audio Post | A post format designed primarily for embedding audio content. |
| Author | A user role responsible for creating and managing their own posts. |
| Autosave | A feature in WordPress that periodically saves drafts to prevent content loss. |
| Avatar | A profile picture displayed in comments or user profiles (also called Gravatar). |
| Awstats | A third-party tool often used with hosting to analyze website traffic. |
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| Back End | The part of a WordPress site where admins manage content, settings, and themes. |
| Backup | Backing up a WordPress site is a process of duplicating the live site to another place for emergency restore or testing purposes. Backup has two steps – downloading the database which has site content and copying the site files like themes and plugins. |
| bbPress | A dedicated WordPress plugin used for creating discussion forums. |
| Biographical Info | A field in user profiles for displaying author details. |
| Block Editor (Gutenberg) | WordPress’s default editor, where users build content using blocks for various elements, such as text, images, and videos. |
| Blocklist | A security feature for banning specific IP addresses, URLs, particular words, or email addresses. under “Settings > Discussion” section. |
| Blocks | Individual content units in the Block Editor (Gutenberg). |
| Blog | A collection of posts displayed in reverse chronological order. |
| Blog Page | A dedicated page that displays all blog posts. You can create a page with the slug as blog and assign the number of posts to be shown under “Settings > Reading” section. |
| Bookmarklet | Bookmarklet is a button available on the browser’s bookmark bar allowing users to do certain actions quickly. the “Press It” bookmarklet available in WordPress helps users to quickly link the content they are viewing on the browser to their blog. The “Press It” button is available under “Tools > Available Tools” menu of WordPress admin dashboard. |
| Bootstrap | A popular front-end development framework that provides a structure for responsive and mobile-friendly design, often integrated with WordPress themes. |
| Breadcrumb | Breadcrumb is a navigational structure contains collection of links that helps users to browse through the website easily. This helps the user to know at any point of time where exactly he is in the site and move to the up or down the level structure directly. Smaller sites with single category or independent pages may not require an additional breadcrumb navigation since the site’s menu may satisfy the navigational need of a user. But bigger sites with large number of categories and parent-child page structure needs additional breadcrumb to inform the users where exactly the current page is located relative to the whole site. |
| Browser Caching | Speeds up loading times by storing site assets locally on users’ devices. |
| Bulk Edit | A feature to modify multiple posts, pages, or comments simultaneously. |
| Button Block | A block that creates interactive buttons linking to other pages or actions. |
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| Cache Purge | The process of clearing cached data to ensure users see the latest content or design. |
| Calendar | A widget to display dates, often linked to posts. |
| Caption | Text displayed beneath images or videos, offering context or credit. |
| Category | Categories help users to group related content together for easy retrieval. By default, WordPress only allows to group blog posts under different categories and pages don’t have category function. But users can create custom categories for pages and other custom post types. |
| Child Theme | Child theme is a WordPress theme which derives functions from the parent theme. A child theme should contain a style sheet file as a minimum. Any functions added using functions.php file will be appended to the parent theme’s function. Other PHP files like header.php, single.php, etc. if used in child theme will overwrite the corresponding files in parent theme. Child theme is used to protect the custom changes getting overwritten when parent theme needs to be updated. |
| Classic Editor | The previous default WordPress content editor, replaced by the Block Editor (Gutenberg) in WordPress 5.0. The Classic Editor provides a simple, traditional text editing experience similar to a word processor, using a single editing box for content. It is still available as a plugin for users who prefer the original editing experience without blocks. |
| Cloaking | An SEO practice where content shown to search engines differs from what users see; generally used for affiliate linking purposes. |
| CMS | CMS stands for Content Management System. WordPress is one of the popular CMS helps users to organize the content on the hosting server. |
| Code Editor | It is an option to see the back-end code of the content in Gutenberg editor. It is called “Text” mode in old Classic Editor. |
| Color Scheme | The predefined set of colors available in themes or the admin dashboard. Admin color scheme can be changed under user profile section. |
| Columns Block | A block used to create multi-column layouts. |
| Comments | Comments are the opinions from users for the written article on a post. Generally, comments are enabled for blog posts and disabled for individual pages. The submitted comments can be approved or rejected under “Comments” section of admin dashboard. |
| Compression | Techniques like GZIP to reduce file sizes and improve loading times. |
| Contributor | A user role allowing the creation of content, but not publishing it. |
| Cornerstone Content | Key, comprehensive posts or pages that form the foundation of your content strategy. It is also called Pillar Content and can be identified using SEO plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math. |
| Cover Block | A block used for creating full-width banners with background images or videos and text. |
| cPanel | cPanel or Control Panel is one of the popular tools to manage the hosting account. Some popular WordPress hosting companies like Bluehost and HostGator offer cPanel hosting account. |
| Crawler | Crawler or Spider is a piece of script used to collect the information of all the web pages available in the web. |
| CSS | CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets used to define the style of HTML elements in a web page. CSS instructs the browser how markup elements should appear on a web page displayed to the users. The main purpose of CSS is to define the layout and decorate the elements. All specifications of CSS are maintained by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). CSS was initially proposed by Håkon Wium Lie along with many other style sheet languages in October 1994. W3C then adopted his recommended standards along with the recommendations from Bert Bos during 1996 and released CSS1. |
| Custom CSS | Additional styles added to sites for customization beyond theme defaults under “Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS” section. |
| Custom Fields | Custom fields are created by users and can be used to control different functions based on the coding. By default, custom field meta box can be viewed under post content in visual editor. |
| Custom HTML Widget | A widget to insert and display custom HTML code. |
| Custom Post Type | WordPress by default allows to create different types of content like posts, pages, links, audio, video, etc. If the default post types are not sufficient then users can create custom post types for their need. |
| Customizer | A WordPress tool allowing users to preview and modify their site’s appearance in real-time. |
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| Dashboard | Dashboard is the home page of the WordPress administrator interface. It can be seen when you logged in to the interface or navigating to the “Dashboard” menu. |
| Database | WordPress uses MySQL database to store all text content of a website. For example, all posts created are stored under “wp_posts” table of MySQL database of the site. Periodic back up of WordPress database is important to keep the content safe. The backed-up database can easily be restored when required. |
| Date Format | The format in which dates are displayed, configurable under “Settings > General” section. |
| Debug | A mode for identifying and fixing errors, often using the wp-config.php file. |
| DHTML | DHTML is not a language, but a term used to describe the way of making dynamic and interactive web pages using HTML, JavaScript, CSS and DOM. |
| DNS | The Domain Name System; translates your site’s domain into an IP address. |
| Document (Gutenberg Sidebar) | The settings sidebar in the block editor, providing options for the entire post or page. |
| Document Overview | Option in Gutenberg editor to see List View and Outline structures of the content. |
| Domain | The unique address (URL) of a WordPress website on the internet. |
| Domain Mapping | Domain mapping is the mechanism to instruct WordPress to use domain names for individual sites on the network. |
| Draft | Draft is one of the statuses of the post or page which indicates that the content is saved but not yet published online. |
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| Editor | A user role in WordPress with permissions to publish and manage posts by all users, including editing content and pages. |
| Elements | Basic building blocks, like headings or images, in the block editor. |
| Email Marketing | The use of plugins and tools to collect emails and send newsletters. |
| Embeds | A feature to integrate external media like videos or tweets into your site. |
| Emoji | Unicode emoji symbols supported in WordPress posts, comments, and pages. |
| Ep-texturize | A function converting plain quotes and dashes into smart typographic entities. |
| Error Establishing Database Connection | A popular WordPress error appears when the site cannot connect to the database. |
| Etag | A mechanism for caching to validate resources. |
| Excerpt | Excerpt is the summary of the article which can be entered with the “Excerpt” meta box shown under the post during editing. If not entered, it will be auto generated from the first 55 characters of the content of the post or page. |
| Export | A tool to download site content, often used for migrations or backups. |
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| FAQ | A section or block for frequently asked questions and their answers. |
| Fatal Error | A critical issue preventing the site from functioning, often caused by PHP errors. |
| Featured Image | Featured image is the special image uploaded to a post or page and not shown on the published article. It can be uploaded using the “Featured Image” meta box while editing the post and the usage depends on the theme in use. Generally, the featured image is used when sharing content on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. |
| Feed | Feed is the mechanism to provide latest content, and WordPress uses RSS to automatically create feed for a website. Generally, the feed can be accessed with the URL – https://www.yoursite.com/feed. |
| FileZilla | FileZilla is a free open-source FTP software facilitates the file transfer between a local client and a web server. |
| Footer | The bottom section of a WordPress website, typically containing widgets, copyright information, and links. |
| Forum | An online discussion board, often created with plugins like bbPress. |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a mechanism for transferring files between a local computer and a web server using standard TCP / IP protocol. |
| functions.php | A theme file where custom PHP code can be added to modify or extend WordPress functionality. |
| Full Width | A layout option where content spans the entire width of the screen. |
| Fullscreen Mode | An editor view that hides menus and toolbars for distraction-free writing. |
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| Gallery | Gallery is a block used to insert set of images that can be seen within the post or page along with thumbnails. You can also use the Gallery post format. |
| GDPR | General Data Protection Regulation, a European law governing data privacy. |
| Google Analytics | A tool for tracking website traffic and user behavior. |
| Google Ads | A platform for running pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. |
| Gravatar | Gravatar is a small image used in comments to show the profile picture of the commenter. It is a external service offered by Automattic Inc. the company owns WordPress.com. The image is linked to an email id and shown in the comment when the email id is used for commenting. |
| Group Block | A block that groups multiple other blocks for easier organization. |
| Gutenberg | Another term for the Block Editor, introduced in WordPress 5.0 to replace the Classic Editor. |
| GZIP | A compression method that reduces the size of files for faster website loading. |
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| Header | The top section of a WordPress website, usually containing the logo, navigation menu, and site title. |
| header.php | A theme file controlling the header section of a site. |
| Homepage | The main landing page of a website, often assigned in “Settings > Reading” section. |
| Hooks | PHP functions that allow users to insert custom code into WordPress’s core files, categorized as actions or filters. |
| Hotlinking | The unauthorized use of images or files by linking directly to their source. |
| HTML | HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language in which web pages are written and instructs browsers the how content is to be presented to users. |
| HTML Sitemap | A human-readable version of a sitemap for easier navigation. |
| HTTP | HyperText Transfer Protocol, the foundation of data communication on the web. |
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| Image Block | A block used to add images in content area, sidebar and footer. |
| Image Size | Preset or custom dimensions for uploaded images. |
| Import | A tool for uploading content from another site. |
| Inactive Widgets | Widgets that are saved but not currently in use on the site. |
| Index Page | The main page displaying blog posts in reverse chronological order, often the site’s homepage. |
| Integrations | Third-party services or plugins that can connect with WordPress for additional functionality, like email marketing or social media. |
| IP Blocking | Restricting access to your site for specific IP addresses, often for security (under “Settings > Discussion”). |
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| JavaScript | JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to create interactive web pages. Browsers can interpret JavaScript without a need of separate compiler like HTML tags. |
| Jetpack | A multifunctional plugin providing security, performance, and marketing features. |
| JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) | A data format used for transmitting data between a server and a web app, often used in REST APIs. |
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| Keyword | A word or phrase that users search for, targeted in WordPress posts to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization). |
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| Last Modified Date | The most recent date a post or page was edited. |
| Latest Comments | A widget or block showing the most recent user comments. |
| Latest Posts | A widget or block displaying a list of recent posts. |
| Lazy Loading | A technique where images or content are loaded only as users scroll to them. |
| List Block | A block for creating ordered or unordered lists. |
| Live Preview | A feature to view changes before publishing them. |
| Localhost | A local server environment used for testing and development. |
| Logo | A graphical representation of your site, often placed in the header. |
| Loop | The primary PHP code structure used to display WordPress posts on the front end. |
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| Maintenance | A mode activated during updates, temporarily disabling public access. |
| MAMP | MAMP is a free application used to install server environment in a local OS X based Mac or Windows based PC and owned by appsolute GmbH. |
| Marketplace | An online platform for purchasing themes, plugins, or services. |
| Media Library | The section of WordPress where all uploaded files, such as images, videos, and documents, are stored. |
| Media & Text Block | A block for displaying images or videos alongside text. |
| Membership | A system for managing paid or free subscriptions to a site. |
| Memcaching | A caching method that speeds up dynamic sites by storing frequently used data in memory. |
| Memory Limit | The maximum amount of server memory allocated to a site, configurable in PHP. |
| Menu | A navigation element allowing users to browse your site’s pages or links. |
| Meta Box | A custom field area in the post editor for additional settings or information. |
| Meta Description | A brief description of a post or page that appears in search engine results. |
| Minify | The process of reducing file sizes by removing unnecessary characters, such as whitespace or comments. |
| Moderation | The process of reviewing and approving comments before they appear publicly. |
| Multisite | As the name indicates, WordPress multisite indicates controlling multiple sites in a network through a single installation. This is generally used for easy content management and effective resource utilization of resources. |
| MySQL | MySQL is the database system used in WordPress to store all content. SQL stands for Structured Query Language and is an open source database system. |
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| Navigation Menu | A menu that helps users navigate a site’s pages, typically found in the header, sidebar, or footer. |
| Newsletter | A tool or service for sending updates or content to subscribers via email. |
| No Follow | A link attribute that tells search engines not to pass SEO value to the linked page. |
| No Index | A directive to prevent a page from being indexed by search engines. |
| Nonce | A unique token added to WordPress URLs to verify requests, preventing unauthorized actions and CSRF attacks. |
| Noreferrer Noopener | Link attributes added to external links to enhance security and privacy. This prevents the new page from accessing referrer information or controlling original page’s behavior. |
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| Open Source | Software with publicly accessible source code, allowing anyone to modify and distribute it. WordPress is an open-source platform. |
| Options Table | A table in the WordPress database that stores settings and configurations for a site. |
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| Page | The static content is published in WordPress as a page which generally not change with the time. Pages can be arranged hierarchically but can’t be grouped into categories. |
| Permalinks | Permalink is the term used in WordPress to indicate an URL where the content is stored permanently. This is used to generate pretty clean URLs for blog post and pages in WordPress. |
| PHP | PHP is a reverse acronym for “Hypertext Preprocessor” and is one of the popular and most used server side, cross platform scripting language. |
| phpMyAdmin | phpMyAdmin is an open-source interface for maintaining tables of MySQL database. All popular cPanel hosting services offer phpMyAdmin interface for editing and managing content of WordPress database. |
| Pingback | Pingback is a notification method to know when someone is linked to your content on their site. It is to be enabled under “Settings > Discussions > Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new article”. |
| Plugin | Plugins are external programs installed in a site to enhance an existing feature or add a new feature. |
| Post | It is one of the content type is WordPress for creating content. Posts can be categorized into groups and generally time dependent in nature. |
| Post Format | This is the format of post for creating content in WordPress. Besides standard post and pages, there are nine different post formats supported by WordPress – image, link, video, audio, chat, aside, gallery, status and quote. Support of post formats depend on the theme and individual theme may support all or only few post types based on the design. |
| Post Type | The different types of content in WordPress, such as posts, pages, and custom post types. |
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| Query | A request to the database to retrieve content; in WordPress, it usually refers to The Loop, which queries the database for posts. |
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| Responsive | Responsive is a technique to optimize a website for all type of devices like laptop, mobile and tablets in order to provide better user experience. Huge variety of smart phones and tablet devices resulted in wide range of screen sizes and there was a definite need of simple and cost-effective site layout to fit into all these devices without additional cost and effort. The layout of responsive sites automatically detects browser’s view ports and fills the width and height of the browser window. |
| Redirect | A method of sending visitors and search engines from one URL to another, often used when a page is moved, deleted, or has a new URL. Common types include 301 redirects (permanent) and 302 redirects (temporary). Redirects are essential for preserving SEO value when URLs change. |
| Robots.txt | A “robots.txt” is a text file stored in the root directory of a site which informs the search engine crawlers what are the content not allowed to be crawled in that site. |
| Role | A set of permissions assigned to users, defining what actions they can perform on a WordPress site (e.g., Administrator, Editor, Contributor). |
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| Screen Options | Screen options is the collection of administrative options for that screen and available on top right corner. Generally you can enable or disable meta boxes on the screen under “Screen Options”. |
| SEO (Search Engine Optimization) | Techniques used to improve a WordPress site’s visibility on search engines. |
| Shortcode | A small piece of code within square brackets used to add functionality within posts or pages. |
| Sidebar | Sidebar is a column used in websites beside the main content to accommodate site-wide additional details to be displayed on all pages. The main content area is accessible using an URL and the sidebar content is loaded on all the requested URLs regardless of the main content. It is necessary to add certain widgets to all pages of your site and adding individually on each page is a cumbersome task. To avoid this difficulty and to accommodate site-wide content, most of the themes provide a sidebar. Webmasters can drag and drop widgets to the sidebar to make them visible on all pages. |
| Slug | Slug is a term used in WordPress to indicate URL friendly version of the post or page title ad generated automatically based on permalinks. |
| SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) | A security protocol for encrypted communication between the server and browser; essential for site security. |
| Status | This is the current status of a post indicating whether it is saved as a draft, published or scheduled to be published in future. |
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| Tag | Tag is the keyword used on the post and can be used across posts to link posts to similar keyword. Tags are like index of the page while categories are like table of content. |
| Taxonomy | Taxonomies are used for classifying similar content so that it is easy to extract them. Post categories, link categories and tags are the default taxonomies used in WordPress. Users can create custom taxonomies to group content. For example, you can create “Glossary” as post type and “Glossary Category” as taxonomy to classify glossary posts. |
| Templates | Templates are the predefined layouts used to put together different HTML / CSS / PHP codes. For example, “single.php” is the default template used by themes in WordPress for the post layout. WordPress uses template hierarchy which means when the parent template is not found WordPress will use child template for that layout. |
| Theme | Theme is a collection of files to define the layouts and functions used on a WordPress site. A WordPress theme should contain at least one style sheet file and one template file. |
| Theme Editor | Theme editor allows you to edit the theme files. You can access the theme editor under “Appearance” menu. |
| Trackback | Trackback is the notification service in WordPress when someone link your content on their blog. You can enable trackback notifications under “Settings > Discussions > Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new article”. |
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| User Role | A specific set of permissions assigned to users of a WordPress site, such as Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber. |
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| Visual Editor | A content editor in Gutenberg that allows for text formatting without needing HTML. It is called “Visual” mode in Classic Editor. |
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| Web Hosting | Web Hosting is a service that allows the websites to be available online. Companies offering hosting services are known as web hosts. Web hosting companies offer services to customers to store the content of website on their servers and retrieve the data when requested through accepted protocols. |
| Widget | A widget is the placeholder to showcase content on the sidebar and footer of a WordPress site. Examples of widget includes social sharing buttons, related post list, advertisements, etc. The theme will have default widgets and additional widgets can be added using individual plugins. The appearance of the widgets on the sidebar and footer can be controlled under “Appearance > Widgets” menu in admin interface. |
| WooCommerce | A popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress, adding online store functionality. |
| WordPress.com | WordPress.com is a hosted version of the famous open-source blogging platform WordPress allows webmasters to create a free blog or site. |
| WordPress.org | WordPress.org is a free open-source content management system and popular blogging platform which needs a premium hosting service to create your site. |
| WP-Admin | The directory and URL for the WordPress admin area. |
| WP-CLI | A command-line interface for managing WordPress installations, useful for developers and power users. |
| wp-config.php | wp-config.php is a configuration file located in the root directory of a self-hosted WordPress site contains database and security details. |
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| XML (Extensible Markup Language) | A markup language used to store and transport data. In WordPress, XML is commonly used for sitemaps. |
| XML Sitemap | A structured list of all pages on a website, formatted in XML, that helps search engines like Google discover and index content. XML sitemaps improve SEO by providing a clear map of a website’s structure, helping search engines find new or updated content quickly. |
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| Yoast SEO | A popular WordPress plugin that helps optimize content for search engines and improve overall SEO. |
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| Z-index | A CSS property that determines the stack order of elements, often used in theme customization. |
