Portal (redirected from Web portal)

portal

A Web "supersite" that provides a variety of services including Web search, news, blogs, discussion groups, shopping and links to other sites. The major general-purpose portals are Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL, all of which offer free Web-based e-mail accounts. TV networks and newspapers provide general-purpose portals, but not e-mail. Many portals allow the home page to be personalized (see personal portal). Prior to the Web, CompuServe and AOL functioned as portals, aggregating information from various sources.

The Vortal
Portals also serve vertical markets. Trade magazines, associations and special interest groups host vertical portals (vortals) and provide news and articles for their industry such as IT, banking and insurance. The vortal may also include general information such as top news stories and weather; however, their search capabilities are often limited to their own archives, rather than the entire Web. See corporate portal, business intelligence portal and portal server.

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portal

1. an entrance, gateway, or doorway, esp one that is large and impressive

2. Anatomy

a. of or relating to a portal vein

b. of or relating to a porta

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portal [′pȯrd·əl]

(anatomy)

Of or pertaining to the porta hepatis.

Pertaining to the portal vein or system.

(engineering)

A redundant frame consisting of two uprights connected by a third member at the top.

(mining engineering)

An entrance to a mine.

The rock face at which a tunnel is started.

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portal

1. An impressive or monumental entrance, gate, or door to a building or courtyard, often decorated.

2. A structural framework consisting of a beam supported by two columns to which it is connected with sufficient rigidity to hold virtually unchanged the original angles between the intersecting members. (See illustration p. 752.)

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1.		PORTAL - Process-Oriented Real-Time Algorithmic Language. ["PORTAL - A Pascal-based Real-Time Programming Language", R. Schild in Algorithmic Languages, J.W. deBakker et al eds, N-H 1981].
2.	(World-Wide Web)	portal - A website that aims to be an entry point to the World-Wide Web, typically offering a search engine and/or links to useful pages, and possibly news or other services. These services are usually provided for free in the hope that users will make the site their default home page or at least visit it often. Popular examples are Yahoo and MSN. Most portals on the Internet exist to generate advertising income for their owners, others may be focused on a specific group of users and may be part of an intranet or extranet. Some may just concentrate on one particular subject, say technology or medicine, and are known as a vertical portals.

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Portal 

in architecture, an opening, usually an entrance into a building. Typical ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek portals were simply ornamented and had level crosspieces. In ancient Mesopotamia portals were arched, and in the Near and Middle East peshtak portals were typical; these were rectangular and had a cut-out lancet arch. Beginning in the 11th century arched, or perspective, portals became widespread in romanesque, gothic, and ancient Russian architecture. These portals were projections whose corners had columns joined by archivolts. Renaissance and baroque portals usually had pilasters and columns that supported the entablature or frontal.