Date First Published: 7th August 2023
Topic: Computer Systems
Article Type: Computer Questions & Answers
Difficulty: EasyDifficulty Level: 3/10
Learn about the top 20 most commonly misused computer terms in this article.
Some computer terms are so closely related that they can be misused and confused with each other. When talking about computers, misusing computer terms can make it harder for you to be clearly understood and could result in you being corrected by people knowledgeable about the term, which can be embarrassing at times. Below are the top 20 most commonly misused and confused computer terms.
The term 'hits' is often incorrectly used to refer to page views or the number of people that access a specific website. Page views are not the same thing as hits. Hits measure the total number of files downloaded from a web server and page views measure the number of times visitors view webpages, regardless of the number of files downloaded from a web server. For example, if a visitor loaded a single HTML page which contained seven images, two CSS files, and three JavaScript files, it would generate a total of 12 hits, 1 page view, and 1 visit.
Both visits and hits are important measurements. However, page views are a more important measurement because it provides information about the people visiting a site. Hits provide information about the total number of files downloaded, whilst page views provide information about the total number of visitors to a website.
Visits are not the same thing as page views. Visits refer to the number of individual people that access a website and this metric helps determine how many people are interacting with the website, regardless of the page. A page view occurs when a website is loaded in a web browser. Therefore, a visit to a website can generate lots of page views. A high number of visits indicates that a website is popular, but if the number of page views is low, it could indicate that people are not clicking through enough pages on a website to view content.
Some people often confuse the terms "internet" and "intranet" with each other. The term "intranet" is sometimes mistaken for a misspelling of the internet, but it is not a misspelling. An intranet is a private internal network used within an organisation, school, company, or government, and restricted to the people in that enterprise, whilst the internet is the largest WAN that is open to the entire world. Another difference between the internet and an intranet is that lot of intranets exist around the world, but there is only one internet.
Although these terms are sometimes used synonymously, web developers and web designers do not have the same role. It is important to know the difference between the two. Web developers usually focus on the backend of a website, which includes the databases and programming aspect of creating a website, whilst web designers manage the look and feel of websites and only focus on the frontend. Web developers may also be involved in designing a website, whilst web designers only design web interfaces using HTML and CSS. For more information about the difference between the two, see this article.
Do not confuse a web host with a domain registrar as they are not the same things. A domain registrar is simply a company that provides users with domain name registration services and allows them to buy domain names and configure the settings, such as DNS records, redirects, and more. A domain name is simply the alphanumeric URL of a website that can be seen in the address bar of a web browser. For example, 'example.com' is a domain name. A domain registrar does not provide users with any server space that allows them to store their website files and it is incorrect to say that they 'host' a domain name. However, some domain registrars may also provide web hosting services.
Some people incorrectly refer to their broadband or internet connection as "Wi-Fi". For example, someone might say that they are switching Wi-Fi providers or that their Wi-Fi is not working on a desktop computer that connects using a wired connection. Wi-Fi is just one type of broadband used for connecting nearby devices to a wireless router through radio signals. Broadband refers to any high-speed data transmission connection, which both includes wired and wireless technologies.
People often use these terms identically. However, a virus is just one type of malware. Malware refers to any type of malicious software that harms a computer system and a virus copies itself in order to infect other devices. Not all types of malware are self-replicating. For example, a Trojan horse is not self-replicating since it requires users to manually download and install it to become infected. Therefore, it is incorrect to say 'Trojan horse virus' or 'Trojan virus'.
It is commonly believed that a modem and a router perform the same functions, but they do not. A modem directly connects to the internet, decodes the signal from the ISP, does not set up a LAN, and is not responsible for Wi-Fi. A modem is a box that allows networks to connect to the wider internet. It will connect the source of the internet from a home to an ISP. The modem is connected to the router, which has the role of allowing all wired and wireless devices in a network to use that internet connection at once. It routes data to other devices, forms a LAN, does not decode the signal from an ISP, and a modem is required to connect it to the ISP.
Both these two terms are related to search engines, but they are quite different. Search terms are the queries that people enter into search engines to find what they are looking for. Keywords are words or phrases that describe the content of webpages to search engines. They are sets of terms that website owners and advertisers target with the goal of ranking for user's search terms.
The terms trolling and cyberbullying are sometimes used synonymously, but they are quite different. Trolling is when someone intentionally says something off-topic, upsetting, controversial, or disturbing to attract attention to themselves and disrupt a discussion people are having online.
Cyberbullying is more harmful than trolling and happens when someone is continuously harming or intimidating someone online, unlike trolling, which may only happen once or twice. Another difference between trolling and cyberbullying is that trolling usually happens in a public place where anyone can write a post, like a forum, chatroom, or comment board, whilst cyberbullying targets specific individuals and is usually sent by private messages.
Not everyone is familiar with the terms 'bounce rate' and 'exit rate', but they are still commonly misused. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that land on a single page and leave. For example, if a visitor landed on Page A and a few seconds later, they went back to the search engine results page, that would be considered a bounce.
Exit rate is the percentage of visitors that leave a certain page. For example, if a visitor landed on Page A, clicked on an internal link to Page B, and closed their web browser, that would increase the exit rate of Page B as they left on that page. They did not originally land on Page B, so it is not a bounce. Also, they clicked on something on Page A, so it is not a bounce on Page A either. Exit rate is the percentage of visitors that exit a certain page after visiting any number of pages on the website.
The terms "cloud computing" and "cloud storage" are slightly different. The main difference between cloud computing and cloud storage is that cloud computing refers more to the usage of resources over the cloud, such as processing power and allows users to work on and complete projects and cloud storage refers more to data storage capacity that is made available over the cloud and allows users to store files. Cloud storage is simply a data storage service, whilst cloud computing allows users to remotely work on and transform data. Cloud storage is a type of cloud computing as data has to be moved to the cloud before using cloud computing systems.
The main difference between conversion rate and click-through rate is that conversion rate measures the percentage of the number of people that complete a desired action on a website, such as filling out a contact form, purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or sharing a post on social media and click-through rate measures the percentage of visitors that click on an online ad and are directed to the advertiser's website. Conversions and click-throughs are very different. A conversion is not limited to clicking through an ad and more clicks will eventually lead to more conversions.
Some people confuse pharming with phishing, but it is quite different. Phishing is the practice of impersonating trusted companies to steal sensitive information from users. Phishing usually comes in the form of email, where the phisher makes the message look like it has come from a legitimate company and wants the user to click on a link to a phishing site to trick them into giving their personal information away, such as card numbers, usernames, and passwords.
Pharming is a type of phishing that involves redirecting traffic from a legitimate one to a fake one. Instead of sending an email that pretends to be from a trusted company, pharming actually redirects the user to a fake one without any user interaction. It does not require the user to click on any links to visit the fraudulent website. This type of social engineering attack has been called 'phishing without a lure'.
CPM (Cost Per Mille) is closely related to RPM (Revenue Per Mille), which is how much a publisher will earn every 1000 impressions, but instead of measuring the revenue per 1000 impressions, CPM measures the advertiser's costs. CPM is often incorrectly used to describe how much revenue a publisher will get for every 1000 impressions. Technically, it is incorrect to use this measurement on the publisher's side because it does not cost them money for every 1000 impressions. They earn revenue for each 1000 impressions.
The terms 'ROM' and 'RAM' look similar, but they are two completely different types of memory. Read-Only Memory (ROM) is a form of memory that the computer can read but not write to. RAM can be read and written to. Another difference between ROM and RAM is that ROM is non-volatile, whilst RAM is volatile. This means that ROM keeps its data, even after the power is turned off, whilst the contents stored on the RAM are lost when the computer turns off.
Do not confuse the terms 'website' and 'webpage'. A website is a collection of several webpages held together to form a site, whilst a webpage refers to a single page of a website. For example, this article is a webpage that is part of the Computerhelp4all website that consists of hundreds of webpages. Knowing the difference between these two terms to avoid misusing them can save a lot of embarrassment.
Although a web host may also act as an ISP (internet service provider) some people get these two terms confused and use them identically. A web host is an organisation that maintains, configures, and provides the physical servers that store websites. An ISP provides internet access for both homes and businesses, usually for a monthly fee, but may also provide web hosting services.
Open-source software is not the same thing as freeware. Freeware is a type of software that is free to use, but the source code is not always open. For example, Google Chrome is free to use but the source code is closed and unavailable, meaning that the software cannot be modified. But, if the source code of the freeware software is open, then it is also open-source software.
RAM is often referred to as the 'memory', even though there are other types of memory available in a computer and it is completely unrelated to the amount of file storage a hard drive has. Some people incorrectly use the term 'memory' to refer to a storage device. For example, someone might say that they don't have enough memory to install a video game. The correct word for this type of memory is storage space.
The measurements of data transfer rate are often confused with the measurement of storage capacity (bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes). A byte is eight times bigger than a bit. For example, if an ISP provided a data transfer rate of 50 Mb/s, it would only be capable of transferring 6.25 megabytes per second as 50 รท 8 is 6.25.
Proper capitalisation is also important. For example, a megabyte is written as MB, whilst a megabit is written as Mb. The same goes with kilobytes and kilobits, and gigabits and gigabytes.
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