As you are blogging for the first time, you realized that there is more to blogging than just writing about stuff. It is a whole different world, with a unique set of words that you may not understand the first time you hear them.

For starters, a "blog" is actually a shortened form of "weblog," an online diary that lists your periodic thoughts on a specific topic or topics, often with the most recent entry being published on the first page. Back in the day, it is used to be referred as "online journal," but more bloggers have realized that they can impart more information that just their everyday living. Thus, we see blogs in a variety of topics and specialties.

Here are some of the basic blogging terms you need to learn. Take note that the terms are not written in alphabetical order, but rather from the more basic to the more advanced.

Index page - The front page of a blog, usually referred in your site as "home."

Header - The topmost part of a blog, usually displaying the blog title

Footer - The bottommost part of the blog, usually displaying navigational lists and copyright statements.

Sidebar - One or several columns located on one or both sides of most blog's main page. This is where bloggers put other programs they want to include in their sites.

Categories - A common factor that links a group of blog posts.

Blog entry - Also known as blog post, it is an individual article of a blog.

Comment - A response in reaction of a blog entry, inputted by blog readers or other bloggers.

Blogroll - It is a list of links to other blogs located in your sidebar.

Template - It is the design of a blog.

Tagcloud - An array of tags list or keywords in a blog, with more common tags displayed more prominently.

Dashboard - The control panel of your blog, which is accessible by logging into your blog account. It is usually the place where you post new articles, as well as edit your template.

Archive - A collection of posts published within a particular month or week.

Captcha - Shortened form of "Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart," which is a validation device used in blogs to verify whether the comment is made by a human or an automated bot aimed at spreading spam. Captcha usually appears as a box with words or randomized letters, which commenters would then have to type in manually.

Ping - Short for "Packet Internet Grouper," it helps the blog notify other blog tracking tools for updates, changes, and trackbacks.

Trackback - A system wherein a ping is sent to another blog notifying that their post has been mentioned by you. It is also known as "pingback."

Permalink - It is a link to a specific article.

Tags - An act of adding keywords or key phrases in a blog post in order to collect similar posts using the same keywords.

Sideblog - A smaller blog usually place in the sidebar of a blog. It is usually an embedded widget of a person's microblogs such as Twitter and Plurk.

Plugins - Small files that add improved functionality and new features to your blog.

Expandable post summary - It is a link placed after a teaser part of the post on the index page, usually read as "more" or "Read the rest of the entry here."

Jump - The act of continuing to read a blog post after clicking an expandable post summary.

Blogosphere - A community of bloggers, often with a common factor that links them together such as "bodybuilding blogosphere," "Australian blogosphere," etc.

Photoblog - A type of blog that predominantly contains photographs, as well as focuses on photography. People who create photoblogs are called photobloggers.

Podcasting - A type of blogging that involves multimedia files, most especially audio files, published on RSS. These files can also be distributed by downloading them and can be played back on mobile devices and personal computers. Many people consider podcasting, created by podcasters, as a "spoken form" of blogging.

Blogcasting - A combination of a blog and podcast in a single website.

Vlogging - Shortened form of "video blogging," Vlogs are a visual type of blogs created by vloggers, using videos to display their thoughts or interests instead of text.

Moblogging - Also known as "moblogs," which is a blog created and maintaining using a mobile phone.