Word.ws English Dictionary

web bug

web bug noun: a small, usually transparent image added by an advertiser to a webpage (to track its popularity) or email message (to track when it is read).

Noun

web bug (plural web bugs)

  1. (Internet) A small, usually transparent image added by an advertiser to a webpage (to track its popularity) or email message (to track when it is read).
    • When a Web bug is programmed into a Web page, its code looks similar to the code for just about any graphic image appearing on that page.2002, John R. Levine, Ray Everett-Church, Greg Stebben, Internet Privacy For Dummies, Wiley, →ISBN
    • Google had a web bug on 92 of the top 100 sites, and on 88 per cent of the total domains reported in the data set of almost 400,000 unique domains.2011, Andrew McStay, The Mood of Information: A Critique of Online Behavioural Advertising, Bloomsbury, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    tag, tracking bug, tracking pixel, page tag, pixel tag, web beacon, web tag

Synonyms of web bug

  • tag
  • tracking bug
  • tracking pixel
  • page tag
  • pixel tag
  • web beacon
  • web tag

Forms of web bug

pluralweb bugs

Questions about web bug

What does web bug mean?
Web bug means a small, usually transparent image added by an advertiser to a webpage (to track its popularity) or email message (to track when it is read).
What part of speech is web bug?
Web bug is a noun.
What is the plural of web bug?
The plural of web bug is web bugs.

Words near web bug in the dictionary

  1. web apps
  2. web beacon
  3. web beacons
  4. web browser
  5. web browsers
  6. web bug
  7. web bugs
  8. web celeb
  9. web celebs
  10. web chart
  11. web chat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: web bug (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “web bug.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/web_bug. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.