What Do You Think a Webmaster Is?
It seems that the term Webmaster means different things to everyone who uses it. Some people think it's the person who has overall authority over a site. Others think a Webmaster is the person who does the maintenance. And there are lots of opinions in between.
What is a Webmaster in your opinion? Fill out this form and let us know.
What Other Readers Think a Webmaster Is
"While the idea of a webmaster, for many employers, is of that one person who designs, develops, ands manages an entire website from A to Z, frankly rarely is there one human brain that can operate within all of those plains. Honestly, it ends up as a management role without the recognition, managing and taking the lead on the design(s), site builds and growth processes. Along with educating others in a company how they can use the web, or web based media, as a growth/communications tool." - Lindsey
"A webmaster is a gardener. I say this because I believe a website is like a garden. A website needs attention pulling weeds, watering and planting new seeds so it grows into a thing of beauty. About.com, Google, Yahoo, imdb.com and eBay were not built in a day then let to go to seed. They are sites where the gardener attends to their needs and makes sure they feed the needs of the people using them." - Melodie
"In my position as webmaster, I do everything from video, audio, and image editing to development of new pages on the site to layout to maintenance to coding to ... just about everything. I only do a very small amount of writing for the web, though. A webmaster is a well-rounded jack-of-all-web. He or she has to be!" - Alexis
"The Webmaster is the person who gets shouted at by the CEO on Monday morning because he couldn't show off the company website to his brother-in-law after golf on Saturday." - Nick
"web master work include web design + website optimization, web promotion, track website record and maintain the particular site completly." - santosh
"A Webmaster understands the concepts of design, user interface and data management and the methods used to deploy these elements. They may or may not be proficient as a designer, programmer or network administrator but are required to bridge these assets together into a functional display." - Kevin
"The person responsible for everything on the web site." - Dorothy
"A webMASTER must be able to produce code that is correct. Without an understanding of how to code the site, a "webmaster" is not really a MASTER. I don't think all pages must validate, but unless there is a need for a specific program that cannot validate the webMASTER will have validated code." - William
"The reason that a "Webmaster" is ambiguous is that originally the webmaster combined the design, development and administrator (system administrator) activities/roles. I still consider the system administrator who is responsible for the web server to be the webmaster. I am consider myself to be the website owner, the website designer and (sometimes) the website developer. The company that issues the Certified Internet Webmaster has similar issues. It not only issues various levels it also issues various emphasis like system admin, designer and developer." - Tom
"i agree that a webmaster is someone who cares for the website in its entirety" - natalie
"yes, i agree with james. a webmaster is someone who designs the web site, like a system analyst who designs a system but has programmers to do the coding. a webmaster should have the technical-know-how in creating, setting up and maintaining a web site." - Gene
"I find a web master is who knows content about development and design both. However maynot be as proficient in design but should be in development." - nishant
"A Webmaster is someone who oversees the whole website. This could include any number of things from graphic design to server work. The word master insinuates that you know more than others but if you are in control and overseeing a website than you would know more than others about that particular site." - Christi
"As the title relates to me it involves all aspects of running, maintaining and publishing a website. These are two articles I wrote regarding 1. What a Webmaster does and the Tools I use: http://mikescomputerinfo.com/sprytemp1.htm 2.Securing the website from attacks from Hackers, spammers and spambots: http://mikescomputerinfo.com/sprytempspambot.htm I started this site in 2001 and it now has 700+ static pages and over 1500+ files and images. I maintain and update this site with no other help." - Mike
"A Webmaster should have skills in management, design, development, and maintenance. A webmaster might work with a team of specialists. I think of a Webmaster as a producer/director. A webmaster turns the vision into the finished product and manages future changes. " - Terri
"A webmaster functions as a digital publisher and editor, typically two different positions in the print world. Publisher is defined as, 'One that is engaged in publishing printed material'. Editor is defined as, 'One who edits, especially as an occupation'. A print publisher works in picas, points, and CYMK, while the webmaster works in pixels, ems, and RGB. Print uses columns and page breaks, and markup languages uses divs and tables – and so on." - Gary
