45 Tech Terms Translated Into Plain English

 Ever seen the movie The Social Network about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook?

In the movie, people kept saying "he's wired in" or "they're wired in" over and over again in reference to people coding intensely with their headphones on.

Not knowing anything about programming, I always imagined that being "wired in" meant the programmers were somehow listening to the computers, or that they were connected to the code somehow ... or something weird that us non-programmers would never understand.

Turns out it just meant they were concentrating really hard with headphones on. Well, good thing I never hypothesized out loud.

We all misinterpret some of the techy terms floating around web and product design nowadays -- but now more than ever, marketers need to be familiar with this vocabulary so we can communicate better with our IT, web design, or product development departments.

To help bridge the gap, here are 45 techy terms every marketer (and human) should understand.

(For a few of these, we drew on these 60 marketing acronyms every industry pro should know.)

301 Redirect

A permanent redirect from one URL to another -- usually from a company's old website to their new website. They're also used to redirect web traffic from those old web pages to the new ones that have replaced them.

404

Web visitors see 404 error pages when they try to reach a web page that doesn't exist. This usually happens when the web page has been deleted or the visitor mistyped the URL. Check out HubSpot's 404 page here.

Alt Text

"Alternative text," or "alt text." The text associated with an image. It's usually the file name of that image, but alt text can be customized using most content management systems (like HubSpot's). When an image isn't able to load in an email, website, or blog post, the alt text is displayed instead. 

It's important for all the images on your website to have alt text because it's the only way search engines like Google can understand what an image is about, which helps you optimize your website for search. It also makes images accessible to the blind because screen readers can read aloud the alt text.

API

"Application programming interface." A computer programming term meaning a series of rules. APIs allow an application to extract information from a service and use that information in their own application, or sometimes for data analysis. It's kind of like a phone for applications to have conversations -- an API literally "calls" one application and gets information to bring to you to use in your software. APIs facilitate the data needed to provide solutions to customer problems.

HubSpot has APIs that developers use to get information from our software into theirs. It’s important for marketers to understand what APIs can do to factor them in to their marketing strategies. Learn more about how marketers can use APIs here.

AWS

Amazon Web Services is a service that helps web developers and ecommerce owners in developing certain shopping-related features of their websites. 

Browser Cache

The appliance or instrument through which a browser saves the data needed to see a website, like images and HTML. When you revisit a web page, it'll take less time to load than the first time you visited it because a cached version of the page was already saved the first time you were there. Because you have a cached version of the page, your browser doesn't need to send a new request to see that page. Learn more about browser caches here.

"Cached out" can also be slang for really, really tired.

Blockchain

In simple terms, blockchain is a ledger system that uses an open, distributed record to keep track of transactions — transactions could mean cryptocurrencies, medical information, voting or home records, and more.

Cart Abandonment

When people add products to online shopping carts but don't check out and actually purchase those products. According to Fireclick, 62.30% is the average online cart abandonment rate. It's a common problem for many ecommerce stores. Learn 8 reasons for cart abandonment and how to combat it here.

CDN

"Content delivery network" or "content distribution network." A system of servers on the internet that provides content rapidly to multiple users by duplicating the content on multiple servers and directing the content to users based on proximity. CDNs enable better performance and availability -- plus, they offload traffic served directly from the content provider's website. They're especially good for streaming audio, video, and internet television programming.

To give you a better idea of how the system works, CDN operators get paid by content providers (like media companies and ecommerce vendors) to deliver their content to end users. In turn, CDNs pay ISPs (internet service providers), carriers, and network operators for hosting its servers in their data centers.

Cookies/Tracking Cookies

A small file that a web server automatically sends to your personal computer when you browse certain websites. The identifying information they contain includes login credentials (including usernames and passwords), shopping cart information, and preferences. They're stored as text files on your hard drive so servers can access them when you return to websites you've visited before.

Ever made a return visit to a website like Amazon and seen content tailored to your user preferences? That’s because on your first visit, a cookie was installed. When you came back, the website server read your cookie and recognized you.