SharePoint Terminology Guide: A Comprehensive Glossary for 2026

Why SharePoint Terminology Matters

SharePoint has evolved dramatically since its first release in 2001. Over two decades of development have produced a rich but sometimes confusing vocabulary. Terms have been renamed (datasets became semantic models, site collections became sites), new concepts have been introduced (hub sites, Viva Connections, Microsoft Graph), and legacy terminology persists in documentation and conversation.

Whether you are a new SharePoint administrator, a developer building SPFx solutions, or a business stakeholder evaluating SharePoint for document management, a clear understanding of terminology is essential. This glossary covers the terms you will encounter in 2026, organized by category.

Sites and Structure

Site Collection (Classic Term) / Site

A site collection is the top-level container in SharePoint that provides a boundary for permissions, features, and storage. In modern SharePoint Online, Microsoft now uses the simpler term site. Every site has a root site and can contain subsites (though modern best practice discourages subsites in favor of flat site architectures with hub associations).

Each site collection has:

• Its own URL (e.g., https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/marketing)
• Its own permission structure (owners, members, visitors)
• Its own storage quota (allocated from the tenant’s pool)
• Its own recycle bin (first-stage and second-stage)
• Its own content types, site columns, and features

Team Site

A team site is designed for team collaboration. It is connected to a Microsoft 365 Group, which provides shared membership, a mailbox, a Planner plan, and a OneNote notebook. Team sites use the modern experience and include a document library, site pages, and a news feed.

When you create a Team in Microsoft Teams, a team site is automatically created in SharePoint.

Communication Site

A communication site is designed for broadcasting information to a broad audience. Unlike team sites, communication sites are not connected to a Microsoft 365 Group. They feature polished page layouts with hero web parts, news sections, and event lists. Use communication sites for intranets, department landing pages, project portals, and executive dashboards.

Hub Site

A hub site is a site that acts as a central connection point for related sites. Any team site or communication site can be registered as a hub site by a SharePoint administrator. Other sites can then associate with the hub, inheriting its:

• Navigation bar
• Theme and branding
• Search scope (hub-level search searches all associated sites)
• Content rollup (news and content from associated sites appear on the hub)

Hub sites replaced the old concept of managed paths and site collection hierarchies as the way to organize related content.

Root Site

The root site is the site at the top of your SharePoint tenant’s URL hierarchy (e.g., https://contoso.sharepoint.com). It is the default landing page for SharePoint and is often configured as the organization’s intranet home page. The root site can be swapped with a communication site using PowerShell.

Subsite

A subsite is a site created within another site, inheriting its URL path (e.g., /sites/marketing/events). Subsites were common in classic SharePoint but are discouraged in modern SharePoint. The recommended architecture uses flat site collections associated with hub sites instead.

Why subsites are problematic:

• They make site moves and URL changes difficult
• Permission inheritance creates security management complexity
• They do not support modern features like hub associations
• They create deep URL hierarchies that are hard to navigate

Content and Data

Document Library

A document library is a specialized list for storing, organizing, and managing files. Libraries support:

• Version history (major and minor versions)
• Check-in / check-out
• Metadata columns
• Content types
• Views (filtered and sorted displays of files)
• Co-authoring (multiple users editing simultaneously)
• Document sets (groups of related documents treated as a unit)

Every team site includes a default document library called Documents. You can create additional libraries for different purposes (Policies, Contracts, Templates, etc.).

List

A list is a structured data collection similar to a database table or spreadsheet. Lists store rows of data (items) with columns defining the data schema. SharePoint lists support:

• Multiple column types (text, number, date, person, choice, lookup, calculated, managed metadata)
• Custom views with sorting, filtering, and grouping
• Conditional formatting and form customization
• Power Automate integration for workflow automation
• Microsoft Lists app (standalone interface for working with lists)

Common use cases: task tracking, issue logging, event calendars, inventory management, contact lists, and custom business applications.

Content Type

A content type is a reusable definition that specifies the metadata columns, behavior, and template for a category of content. Content types enable consistent metadata across libraries and sites.

Example content types:

• Contract — includes columns for Contract Number, Client, Start Date, End Date, Value, Status
• Policy Document — includes columns for Policy Number, Department, Effective Date, Review Date, Approver
• Invoice — includes columns for Invoice Number, Vendor, Amount, Due Date, Payment Status

Content types can be defined at the site level or published from a Content Type Hub (a centralized site that distributes content types across the tenant).

Site Column

A site column is a reusable column definition that can be added to multiple lists and libraries. Site columns ensure consistent column names, types, and settings across the site. When you create a content type, you compose it from site columns.

Managed Metadata

Managed metadata is a centralized taxonomy service that provides consistent, controlled terminology across SharePoint. It consists of:

• Term Store — the central repository for all managed terms
• Term Group — a security boundary within the term store (e.g., “Corporate Taxonomy”)
• Term Set — a collection of related terms (e.g., “Departments”, “Document Types”, “Regions”)
• Term — an individual value within a term set (e.g., “Human Resources”, “Finance”, “Engineering”)

Managed metadata columns enable:

• Consistent tagging across all sites and libraries
• Hierarchical navigation (term-driven navigation)
• Content rollup based on shared tags
• Enterprise-wide search refinement

View

A view is a saved configuration that determines how items in a list or library are displayed. Views define:

• Which columns are visible
• Sort order
• Filter criteria
• Grouping
• Formatting (conditional formatting, column formatting with JSON)

Users can create personal views or administrators can create shared views. Libraries support standard views, tile views, and gallery views.

Permissions and Security

Permission Level

A permission level is a named set of granular permissions. SharePoint includes default levels:

• Full Control — complete access (site collection administrators)
• Design — create lists, libraries, and pages
• Edit — add, edit, and delete items in lists and libraries
• Contribute — add and edit items but not delete
• Read — view items only
• View Only — view items in the browser but not download

Custom permission levels can be created for specific needs.

SharePoint Group

A SharePoint group is a collection of users and Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) groups that share a permission level. Default groups:

• [Site Name] Owners — Full Control
• [Site Name] Members — Edit
• [Site Name] Visitors — Read

Sharing Links

SharePoint supports multiple sharing link types:

• Anyone link — accessible by anyone with the link (no sign-in required)
• People in your organization — accessible by any authenticated user in your tenant
• People with existing access — creates a link but does not grant new permissions
• Specific people — accessible only by named individuals

Sensitivity Label

A sensitivity label (from Microsoft Purview) classifies and protects content based on its sensitivity:

• Public — no restrictions
• Internal — accessible within the organization only
• Confidential — encrypted, restricted sharing, watermarked
• Highly Confidential — encrypted, no external sharing, no downloading, no printing

Sensitivity labels can be applied to sites, files, emails, and Teams.

Modern Experience and Features

Modern Pages

Modern pages are the current page-authoring experience in SharePoint. They use responsive layouts with sections (full-width, one-column, two-column, three-column) and web parts (content blocks). Modern pages support:

• Rich text editing
• Image and video embedding
• Document embedding
• Dynamic web parts (news, events, people, highlights)
• Custom SPFx web parts
• Multi-language publishing
• Audience targeting

Web Part

A web part is a modular component that displays content or functionality on a SharePoint page. Built-in web parts include:

• Hero — featured content with tiled layout
• News — aggregates news posts from the current site or hub
• Quick Links — curated link collection
• Document Library — embeds a library view
• List — embeds a list view
• Power BI — embeds a Power BI report
• Embed — embeds external content via iframe

Developers can build custom web parts using the SharePoint Framework (SPFx).

SharePoint Framework (SPFx)

SPFx is SharePoint’s modern development framework for building custom web parts, extensions, and Adaptive Card Extensions (ACEs). SPFx uses TypeScript, React, and Node.js. Components run in the browser (client-side) and can call Microsoft Graph API, SharePoint REST API, and custom APIs.

Viva Connections

Viva Connections is a Microsoft 365 app that surfaces SharePoint intranet content inside Microsoft Teams. It provides:

• A branded company dashboard in Teams
• Adaptive Card Extensions (ACEs) for quick actions and information
• Feed integration with SharePoint news and Viva Engage
• Mobile experience for frontline workers

Microsoft Graph

Microsoft Graph is the unified API for accessing Microsoft 365 data, including SharePoint. Graph provides REST APIs for:

• Sites, lists, and list items
• Files and folders (via drives)
• Search (across all Microsoft 365 content)
• Permissions and sharing
• Subscriptions (webhooks for change notifications)

Graph is the recommended API for new SharePoint development. The older SharePoint REST API and CSOM (Client-Side Object Model) remain available but are considered legacy.

Search Terminology

Crawled Property

A crawled property is a property discovered by the search crawler when indexing content. Every metadata column, file property, and content attribute becomes a crawled property.

Managed Property

A managed property is a search property that has been explicitly mapped from one or more crawled properties and made available for querying, filtering, and refining. Only managed properties can be used in search queries, refiners, and result sorting.

Result Source

A result source defines the scope and settings for a search query. It specifies which content to search (all SharePoint, a specific site, an external connector) and can include default KQL filters.

KQL (Keyword Query Language)

KQL is the query language used in SharePoint search. Examples:

• author:"Jane Smith" — find content authored by Jane Smith
• filetype:pdf — find PDF files
• path:"https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/hr" — search within a specific site
• contenttype:"Policy" — find items with the Policy content type
• LastModifiedTime>2025-01-01 — find recently modified content

Search Vertical

A search vertical is a tab in the search results page that filters results by type. Default verticals include All, Files, Sites, News, and People. Custom verticals can be created (e.g., “Policies”, “Contracts”) with predefined filters.

Governance and Administration

Tenant

The tenant is your organization’s instance of Microsoft 365, including all SharePoint sites, users, and configuration. Each tenant has a unique identifier and a primary domain (e.g., contoso.onmicrosoft.com).

SharePoint Admin Center

The SharePoint Admin Center is the web-based management portal for SharePoint Online. Administrators manage:

• Active sites and site creation policies
• Sharing settings (tenant-level and site-level)
• Storage quotas and allocation
• Migration tools
• Access control and DLP policies
• Term store and content types
• Custom script settings

Retention Policy / Retention Label

Retention policies automatically retain or delete content based on age. Applied at the tenant, site, or mailbox level. Retention labels classify individual items for specific retention treatment and can declare items as records.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

DLP policies detect and protect sensitive information (credit card numbers, SSNs, health records) in SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Exchange. DLP can:

• Block sharing of sensitive content externally
• Notify users and compliance officers
• Override sharing restrictions with business justification
• Apply encryption automatically

Legacy Terms Still in Use

Some classic SharePoint terms persist in conversation and documentation:

• CSOM (Client-Side Object Model) — legacy API for SharePoint development, largely replaced by Microsoft Graph
• InfoPath — deprecated form designer, replaced by Power Apps and list forms
• Designer Workflows — SharePoint 2010/2013 workflows, replaced by Power Automate
• Classic experience — the pre-2017 SharePoint UI, still visible in some admin pages and legacy customizations
• Farm — on-premises SharePoint server infrastructure, not applicable to SharePoint Online
• Service applications — on-premises services (search, managed metadata, user profile), managed as cloud services in SharePoint Online
• App Catalog — centralized repository for deploying SPFx solutions and third-party apps to SharePoint

Next Steps

SharePoint is a deep platform with decades of evolution reflected in its terminology. Understanding these terms is the foundation for effective SharePoint administration, development, and information architecture.

Al Rafay Consulting provides SharePoint consulting, development, and migration services. Whether you need help designing your information architecture, building custom SPFx solutions, or migrating from on-premises SharePoint to SharePoint Online, our team has the expertise to guide your project.

Contact us for SharePoint consulting