What is a Webmaster?

Exactly what is a Webmaster? This term has become quite popular for anyone slinging Websites or online ads, but does that make somebody a Webmaster? I think the term has been liberated over the years, but is still adapting and in some cases struggles to be taken seriously.

When a word has over 300 million results in Google, you can assume it’s fairly popular. Webmaster is one of these words. And it’s probably no big leap to assume that Google’s Webmaster Central has made the word Webmaster more popular with nearly anyone who has a hand in running a Website.

Traditionally, the phrase Webmaster is an individual who runs a Website, usually having total control over the site, the contents, and the server. These days, it’s fairly acceptable to consider yourself a Webmaster if you play a significant role in the administration or maintenance of a Website, but the concept of total control is changing.

Website content is no longer the responsibility of one or even a team of people. With the social Web on the rise, there are new roles for participation in a site. Here are a few examples of roles where user-driven content is a big factor:

1. Social bookmarking (Delicious)
2. Social networking (Facebook)
3. Blog comments (Wordpress)
4. Social blogs (Blogger)
5. Video sharing (YouTube)

Does it make someone a Webmaster to participate in a social Website? Probably not. Are you the “master” of your Facebook profile? Maybe you control the content, but only under strict permissions handled by the site administrators - the real “Webmasters”.

I usually apply the same idea to other roles. If someone manages advertising for a site, but they don’t make any critical decisions about the Web server, site administration or management, they are not a Webmaster.

As Websites become more socially geared with user-contributed content (Blogger, YouTube) and management roles (Wikipedia authors, DMOZ editors), the role of a Webmaster will continue to be used more liberally.

Unfortunately for some people it still invokes images of a nerdy sysadmin sitting behind a mainframe somewhere - throwbacks from a generation where the only people who could participate in a Website were the hardcore geeks. The term also lacks a definition of any specific realm of expertise, and is used loosely by many amateur developers and so-called “entrepreneurs”. It’s not something you would usually put on a business card, but it’s a practical and useful term. If you consider yourself a Web professional, define your areas of expertise and express them individually.

For now, a Webmaster is someone who runs a Website, and has some authority over the site and server. But it’s changing.