E-commerce glossary
Thirty-five short definitions, written for a merchant reading a quote, an audit report or a message from a supplier and stumbling on a word. Each page says what the term means, where it shows up on a real shop, and what happens when that thing goes wrong.
Who this glossary is for
People rarely land here out of curiosity. They land here because a quote mentions an override, because a host talks about TTFB, because an audit complains about a missing canonical tag, or because a developer answered "it's the cache" without saying which one. Technical vocabulary is not decorative: while it stays vague, there is no way to tell whether what is being proposed answers the problem.
These definitions assume nothing and try to impress no one. They stay deliberately short: the point is to understand a word in a minute and go back to the conversation you were having, not to sit through a computing course.
How the glossary is organised
The thirty-three entries are listed alphabetically, but they fall into five natural families. Shop vocabulary: back office and front office, slug, permalink, checkout funnel, variation, product attribute, module. Server and data vocabulary: DNS, SSL/TLS, CDN, FTP/SFTP, cron, database and index, SQL query, serialisation, webhook, REST API.
Then performance: cache, TTFB, LCP, Core Web Vitals. Search: canonical, hreflang, sitemap, robots.txt, 301 redirect, migration. And finally development and diagnosis: 500 error, debug mode, hook, override, child theme, payment gateway. If you don't know which family to look in, start from the word you read: each definition links to the neighbouring terms it relies on.
Why this vocabulary matters when you talk to a supplier
One example makes the case. "Clear the cache" means nothing until you say which one: a shop commonly stacks four — the platform's application cache, PHP's opcode cache, a module or intermediate server cache, and the visitor's browser cache. Clearing the first touches none of the other three. A great many "my change isn't showing" reports come from exactly that confusion, and one precise question settles the discussion.
The same goes for module, extension and plugin, which name the same idea on three different platforms, or for override, which on PrestaShop means a specific file under override/ and not any change to the code. Knowing what a word covers lets you ask the deciding question: does the proposed work touch the core, the theme or a module, and what happens at the next update.
An understandable quote is not a simplified quote: it is one whose every line you can check. That is what this glossary is for.
Four definitions to read first
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Cache
The different cache layers on a shop, what each one stores, and which to clear for a given symptom.
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Hook
The attachment point that lets a module add behaviour without changing the platform core.
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Override
Overriding a core class: what it allows, what it breaks, and why two modules can fight over one.
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301 redirect
The permanent redirect, the basic tool of any rebuild or migration that doesn't want to lose its rankings.
Frequently asked questions
Do these definitions apply to both PrestaShop and WooCommerce?
Do I need this vocabulary to run my shop?
Are the definitions enough to do the work myself?
Why are the definitions so short?
Describe your need in one minute
A few targeted questions so I can reply with an estimate rather than another questionnaire.