Terminology

This section summarises the terminology that is used within this document. More details about each of the terms is given in the rest of the document.

Actors and Agents

Archiving Server
A service that stores copies of web content, e.g. to provide an ongoing historical record
Browser
A user agent that accesses web content and displays the corresponding web pages for users.
Controller
A company, organization or individual who manages web content on a web server and determines what it serves.
Crawler
A user agent which accesses web content automatically
Search Engine
A service that indexes web content and provides an interface to search this index, typically including links to the indexed content and often copies of it as well.
Service Provider
A company, organization or individual who owns and operates a web server.
User
A real person. Somebody who is using a browser.
User Agent
Any piece of software that accesses web content.
Web Server
A piece of software that makes web content available on the web.
Origin Server
The web server from which particular web content originates.
Proxy
A kind of web server that relays web content
Caching Proxy
A proxy that keeps a copy of the web content that it relays.
Reuser
A web server that that reuses web content from elsewhere on the web, adding value to it by combining it with other information or transforming it, e.g. a “server-side mashup.”

Artifacts

Address
The name of a web document, by means of which a user agent can access it. Web standards call this a URL, URI or IRI.
Alias
An alternative address for a web document that redirects requests to the main address
Link
A pointer, visible within a web page, which points to a web document
Web Content
Sets of web documents.
Web Document
For the purposes of this document, anything available on the Web, such as text (plain, HTML, PDF, . . .), images, video, audio, style sheets and scripts, that is, anything hosted by a web server that may be accessed by a user agent. When the agent is a web browser, top-level access usually results in a user viewing a web page.
Web Page
What the user sees and/or hears when a web browser accesses a web document.

Actions

Access
To retrieve a web document using it address, and display or otherwise process it. Such processing may involve accessing additional web documents which are embedded or included, recursively. . .
Archive
To permanently store a copy of a web document that is hosted elsewhere
Cache
To store a copy of a web document that is hosted elsewhere and which is updated when the original web document changes
Copy
In the context of this document, the duplication of bits from one place to another place. Since copy is an imprecise term, we have tried to use more specific terms such as cache, relay, alias and include.
Relay
To provide access to a web document hosted elsewhere without keeping a copy
Embed
To include one web document (such as text, an image, some audio or a video) within a web page such that it is visible/audible to a user
Host
To provide access to a web document.
Include
To access a web document, such as an image, script or stylesheet, while processing another web document
Index
To extract information from a web document that is hosted by another server into a structure that improves retrieval of that web document, or of a link to that web document
Transform
To change a web document, for example by reformatting, resizing or transcoding
Upload
To send a file to a web server so that it is given an address and is available as a web document