A webmaster is a person responsible for maintaining one or more

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

s. The title may refer to web architects,

web developers A web developer is a programmer who develops World Wide Web applications using a client–server model. The applications typically use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the client, and any general-purpose programming language in the server. is used f ...

, site authors, website

administrator Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * N ...

s, website owners, website coordinators, or website publishers. The duties of a webmaster could include: * Creating, editing, and publishing content on the website, either independently or with other content creators * Content placement * Managing a website's appearance, user access rights, and

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

* Ensuring that the

web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...

s, hardware and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

are operating correctly *

A/B testing A/B testing (also known as bucket testing, split-run testing, or split testing) is a user experience research methodology. A/B tests consist of a randomized experiment that usually involves two variants (A and B), although the concept can be also ...

* Analysing

traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...

through the site * Ensuring the website is up to date and functioning correctly, e.g. installing updates, fixing bugs and errors, and optimizing performance * Optimizing the website's content and structure to improve its ranking in search engines (

SEO Seo or SEO may refer to: * Search engine optimization, the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines Organisations * SEO Economic Research, a scientific institute * Spanish Ornithological Society (''Socied ...

), e.g.

keyword research Keyword research is a practice search engine optimization (SEO) professionals used to find and research search terms that users enter into search engines when looking for products, services or general information. Keywords are related to queries whi ...

, link building, and optimizing meta tags and titles * Keeping the site secure, e.g. installing security

, monitoring for threats, and implementing practices for data protection * Analytics, e.g. monitoring the website's traffic and performance to make informed decisions about its content * Customer support, e.g. troubleshooting any issues that users may be experiencing. Due to the requirement for establishing a "postmaster"

email address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Engineer ...

for the single point of contact for the email administrator of a

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...

, the "webmaster" address and title were unofficially adopted by analogy for the website administrator. , which turned this common practice into a standard. Webmasters may be generalists with

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

expertise who manage most or all aspects of

web operations Web operations (WebOps) is a domain of expertise within IT systems management that involves the deployment, operation, maintenance, tuning, and repair of web-based applications and systems. WebOps is also increasingly acknowledged as crucial to th ...

. Depending on the nature of the websites they manage, webmasters may be required to know

scripting language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scripting ...

s such as

ColdFusion Adobe ColdFusion is a commercial rapid web-application development computing platform created by J. J. Allaire in 1995. (The programming language used with that platform is also commonly called ColdFusion, though is more accurately known as CF ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

, JSP, .NET,

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

and

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...

. They may also need to know how to configure web servers such as

Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...

and be a server administrator. Most server roles, however, would be overseen by an IT Administrator.

References

{{Tech-stub Computer occupations Website management

See also

References