AVS
Adult Verification Service: Sets up a password-protected entrance. This is used to keep minors (and those without credit cards) out of your adult site. Often used as a source of traffic as well as making money from selling memberships into the AVS service.

BBS
Bulletin Board System: A dial-up computerized meeting and announcement system for carrying on discussions, uploading and downloading files, and generally obtaining online information and services. Rarely used in todays internet climate. The earliest form of the pre-internet revolved around clusters of BBS's sharing info, files and messages (orignal email took around 48 hours to get a response back from one sent via an interchange network of BBS's)
Very popular during the 1970's thru the early 1990's. The internet has replaced the vast majority of them. VNWR's President, Voltar, was the system operator and co-operator of several adult and work related BBS's and adult chat forums and networks prior to his coming to the net.

BW
BandThe amount of data sent through a network connection measured in BPS (bits-per-second). Important thing to look into as far as limitations of BW when choosing a paid host. It will affect your montly cost greatly.

Browsers
The programs which allow us to surf the web. All browsers are slightly different from each other. Most commonly used browsers are MSIE (Microsoft Internet Explorer) and Netscape (Navigator or Communicator). Different versions of each are available for free download on the net. See www.microsoft.com and www.netscape.net for the current versions and updates.

CGI
Common Gateway Interface: A means for a webserver to pass on information via an application program and to receive data back. Some CGIs are remotely hosted off of other servers while others may be used for low to no cost hosted directly off your own server.

Chargeback
What happens when a surfer cancels his membership with the sponsor via his credit card company. Chargebacks will result in cancelation of referral fees paid to the webmaster.

Click-Through Sponsor
This type of sponsor pays you per click rather than per sign-up. Some sponsors have a set conversion ratio (see defenition below) while others simply pay you per raw/unique click. Make sure you read the rules regarding payment per click as some sponsors pay higher depending on conversions, total hits sent in a given period and other factors.

Content
Anything you offer to your surfers on your site: images (thumbnails & full size pics), videos, chat, erotic stories, etc. This can be on either a free site OR a membership site. Obviously, membership sites would offer much more in the way of content than a free site.

Counter
A program that tallies up the number of hits to your site from surfers. This program can also be used to track a number of statistics including: raw vs. return hits, browsers used to view your site, country/location of surfer coming to your site and much more. Some counter programs also count your outgoing traffic to help you track your hits to partnership and other sponsored programs. Most comonly someting that is provided by paid hosting via servr stats and only gives a visable traffic leak for free sites and thus except in special occasions should not be used. And only then at the bottom of the website.

Conversion Ratio
Very important vocabulary term that you need to know! Your conversion ratio is based on how many sign-ups you get out of the total number of clicks you send during each time period. This can affect your payout and is a great way for you to evaluate the quality of the traffic you are sending/receiving.

Directories
A website that features gathered and categorized information on other websites on the net. Sort of like a search engine in that it is a searchable database, but is unlike a search engine in that it works on an entirely different premise. See SEARCH ENGINES below and see VNWR's resources tutorial section and the Past NPOW's for additional information on working with Directories and Search Engines to optimize your web presense.

Domain Name
The address that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names consist of at least 2 parts. The part on the left is the name of the company, institution, or other organization. The part on the right identifies the highest subdomain. This can be a country, such as ca for Canada, fr for France, or the type of organization: com for commercial; edu for educational, etc. The IP address is translated into the domain name by the DNS.

FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions: Always look for this section when signing up for sponsored programs and link lists (including TGPs, etc.) because often it will have questions and answers that will help you in determining how to use their service and whether or not that particular service would suit your needs.

FH
Free Hosting: Free hosting services for webmasters. Make sure the service allows adult sites. Most allow you about 1-5 megs of space and unlimited bandwith. Check the rules carefully: most do not allow submissions to picposts and/or TGPs. Nothing is 100% free. Check out other members pages to preview how many banners these programs require be put on your site. Some have as many as 5-7 banners at the top and bottom and others have simple text links or 1-2 banners only.

FPA
Full Page Ad: Pretty much what it says. A great advertising tool to help sell your sponsors to your surfers. Allows you more space/freedom to hype up the site. Some sponsors have pre-made FPAs & some allow you to make your own.

Freeware
Software that is free for use by the internet public. Beware: some freeware programs, images, utilities are limited for use on NON-commercial sites. As soon as you add a banner to your site you are considered commercial. Make sure you don't violate any terms of use to avoid fines, etc.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol: A method of moving your files from your computer to your server to be used on your website. There are many freeware and shareware versions of FTP software available. Check the rest of our RESOURCES sections for more information.

GIF
Graphics Interchange Format: A format for images to be used on the WWW. GIF images (versus JPGs and others) are the only form that can be animated for use in banners, web pages, etc.

HTAccess (.htaccess)
Hyper Text Access: A form of password protection to be used on HTML files and main server directories.

HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language: The standard for encoding webpages in a uniformed fashion. There are different levels of HTML being used throughout the internet, as new rules and ideas are being created all the time. Make sure your HTML codes work on all browsers or your pages will look drastically different and may be un-readable to some of your surfers. Learn and use this instead of ANY webpage building software. It is the building blocks of the online business and takes only a couple of days to master the basics. You will need to know this.

HTTP
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol: Standard rules for transfering or exchanging files (HTML, video, sounds, images, etc.) on the WWW.

Hyperlink
A link made using HTML coding for webpages used to direct the surfer to a new location or site. Check our resources on basic HTML coding for information on how to create a hyperlink for your website.

ICQ
An excellent program used to help people to communicate in real time (live) on the net. A very efficient way of getting things done - especially for webmasters. If you don't already have an ICQ account, sign up today. There is a listing of NETPOND members' ICQ numbers on the members resource boards. Grab ICQ now

IP Address
Internet Protocol Address: The numerical address for your actual website which is translated from your domain address. IE: 148.345.122.163

IRC (mIRC)
Internet Relay Chat: Another excellent tool used by webmasters to communicate. More than just a chat program, IRC allows you to communicate effectively with Live People via a group setting in most cases. A chat room. Download your IRC server interface today at either Tucows OR Download.com

ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network: Digital telecommunications lines with 2 channels that can yield a combined capacity of 128 kbps.

ISP
Internet Service Provider: A host company that provides internet services and resources for individual and commercial accounts. There are many ISPs to choose from. Read all the facts, check the rules/requirements and make sure you find the type of service needed for your specific site before signing on with an ISP. There are a lot of variables to consider before jumping in to a new hosting situation.

LMK
Board posting or chat term short for "let me know".
LOL
Board posting or chat term short for "laughing out loud".

LTS
Link Trade Sunday. The only day of the week where its allowed for link lists to openly spam thier link sites for webmasters and thier sites to be submitted to them. It's a very fun day on the VNWR message board with a growing list of link sites each week for webmasters to submit thier own sites to for listings and traffic generation.

Lurker
Someone who reads message boards but rarely - if ever - posts. There are usually a LOT of lurkers on webmaster boards that show up just to absorb the information shared there rather than become a part of the discussion.

Mirrored Entrance Pages
Commonly on Free Sites, you trade links with other people for traffic trades. After around 6-9 of these the page starts getting full and slowing down its load time. By Copying that page, using new link trades on the copy and naming it a different name such as start.html, begin.html, first.html, etc.. instead of just the one index.html page for your site, you have created a mirrored entrance page and can get alot more traffic to your website.

Newbie
A new webmaster. Also many webmasters are now considering themselves to be eternal Newbies, learning how to change and adapt with the changing ebbs and flows of business on the internet. Which has become a full time job for those serious as webmasters. There are many here at VNWR who believe this is true and this view is shared by Voltar and as you will see many of the newbies that show up at VNWR have been around a long but keep up with current trends and ways of making profits is thru networking on VNWR's message board.

NPOW
Newbie Project Of the Week. Every Monday evening Voltar posts a new project for the week which is open for all webmasters on the VNWR message board to do and involes learning new skills in building and traffic generation and manipulations. (See the resources section of VNWR for past NPOWs)

Partner Programs
Another type of sponsorship program to use on your sites. Partnership programs usually pay you a percentage of sign-up and continue to pay you recurring charges for continuing members to their site. Others just pay you a set rate per sign-up. With everything else on the web, make sure you read all the rules and terms before signing up and using a partner program.

Pic Post
A tool for attracting traffic to your site. Sort of like a TGP (see below), a Pic Post is where webmasters submit image content from their site to be linked on a grouped page (usually by type: lesbian, amateur, gay) for the surfers to find. An instant boost to your traffic but Pic Post traffic - like TGP traffic - doesn't usually convert as well as other types.

Proggie
Shortened slang for "program" usually referring to a sponsor's partnership or click-thru programs for webmasters.

PVN
Proud to be a Voltar Newbie

ROFL
Rolling On the Floor Laughing. use when you find something very funny and amusing, the strong version of LOL.

SEs
Search Engines: Search engines are the sites that collect the data from the internet supposedly so sites, information and content can be found more easily. Examples of such search engines are Alta Vista, Excite and MSN Search. There are many, many search engines on the internet.

Server Side Include (SSI)
A file, or value of an environmental variable, that is included in an HTML document, so that information such as last date modified, file size, author etc. can be automatically included.

Shareware
Software that can be used in a trial period to "test out" before you purchase. Many different webmaster utilities are available via shareware. Usually there is a 30-day trial period set and then you agree to purchase if you continue using the software beyond that point. Some shareware programs automatically quit working after the trial period or have limited usage throughout the trial.

SPAM
No, it's not that nasty meat bi-product in a can! Internet SPAM is just as distasteful. An unwanted, obtrusive advertising that gets sent to you via email or is posted on newsgroups or boards is considered SPAM. Sounds harmless but can be very annoying when you are visually assaulted with it on a regular basis. Email SPAMMING is against most rules set up by sponsorship programs and you can be fined for it or lose your ISP access if complaints are filed against you.

SPONSOR PROGRAMS
This is one of the largest and most common ways to make money in the adult industry. You promote and provide a specially coded link to a Paysite from your website. Each time a surfer clicks on this link and goes to the sponsor's site, you stand a chance of making money. See: Click-Through Sponsor and Partner Programs.

TGP
Thumnail Gallery Post: Submit your gallery of thumbnailed pics (clickable to fullsize pics) to these sites for an instant traffic boost. Read all rules before submitting to TGPs.

URL
Universal Resource Locator: An address you use to tell your browser where to find a particular Internet resource. For example VNWR's URL is www.vnwr.com

VNWR
Voltar's Newbie Webmaster Resource, Where you are now.

WTG
Way to go! A congradulations on something or some event.

WWW
Of course this is short for the World Wide Web....that thing you're surfing on!

Webmaster
The person responsible for providing the information, content and programs available at the website. Usually the person who designs the site and maintains it. A gender neutral term that can apply to either sex.