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Algorithm: Search Engines all have their own set
of programmed rules, their algorithm, for how they determine the
rank of the results of specific queries. They keep
these rules private to prevent spamming.
ALT Tags: These are HTML tags that determine the
text that pops up when you scroll your mouse over an image. It is
handy for people who view pages as Text-Only, so they see
descriptions of the images they are not seeing.
Anchor Text: See link text.
Backlinks: Links that are inbound from another
website to yours, as opposed to outbound links (links that
take visitors away from your website) and internal links
(links within your site or that move a visitor around within your
website).
Banned Pages: Web pages that Search Engines remove from
their results for spamming or violating content
guidelines.
Boolean Search: A search that limits your terms with AND,
OR, or NOT. For example, you may type into a search box:
“knitting AND sweaters NOT scarves”. So your results
will be about knitting sweaters specifically, with no results
about knitting scarves.
Browser: A program used to view web pages such as Internet Explorer or Netscape.
Category: See Channels.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface is the standard that allows
the server to communicate with CGI programs. There are
many examples of programs that use the CGI standard to
communicate with the server. For example, programs that keep
track of how many hits a site has had are often CGI
programs.
CGI PROGRAM: Programs that communicate with the server
via the CGI standard as explained above.
CGI Bin: The name of the folder (directory) in which CGI
programs are stored. Web hosts sometimes allow you access to the
programs in a personal CGI bin so you can include interactive
components on your website, such as order forms.
Channels, Channel Listings: Simply a category in a
directory, such as MOVIES or HOTELS.
Clickthrough Rate: It is the percentage of people who
click through a particular link (ad) out of the total number of
people who view the link (ad). For example, if 100 people view a
web page that has a link on it, and 50 of those people actually
click on that link, its clickthrough rate is 50%. Also called CTR
for short.
Client: A computer that requests information from another
computer. A web browser is a client of the servers it requests
information from.
Cloaking: To “cloak”, or hide, the content of
a web page by having two versions of the same page, one submitted
to search engines and one available to others. Cloaking is
considered completely taboo by legitimate SEO companies, and
search engines frown upon the practice completely.
Clustering: When you perform a search, sometimes you get
so many results that they are hard to sift through. Clustering is
a technique that categorizes the results for you in hierarchical
folders, so you can more easily find exactly what you were
looking for. For an example, see vivisimo.com
Comment Tags: HTML tags that make the text between
them invisible to browsers. Some search engines ignore the
content between these tags, others do not. Programmers use these
tags to insert comments for any other future programmers that
might look at the HTML code. However, you cannot and should not
stuff your comment tags with keyword terms in an attempt to rank
higher, for it is considered comment tag spamming.
Conversion Rate: The percentage of total visitors of a
website who actually purchase something, request more information
or another action you want the visitor to the website to
complete.
Cost Per Click: A kind of advertising such as that offered
in Yahoo and Google’s sponsored link sections where
you pay by the click, i.e., you pay a set rate for each person
who clicks on your ad.
CPC: See Cost Per Click.
CPM: Somewhat like CPC, only payment is based on
impressions or how many times an ad is viewed, regardless of
whether they follow the link.
Crawler: See Spider.
CTR: See Clickthrough Rate.
Dead Link: A link that leads to a web page that no longer
exists.
De-listing: When a web page is removed from a search engine’s index, either because it has
been banned or due to some technical glitch.
Directories: Sites that supply lists of websites compiled manually and organized into
categories. Yahoo! Directory is an example.
Domain Name: For most practical terms, the name of your website such amazon.com or yahoo.com. Also
known as URL.
Doorway Page: See Gateway Page.
Dynamic Content: The information on a web page that
changes based on certain user settings, actions or preferences.
Information that does not change is called static content.
Fake Copy Listings: When someone steals portions or the
entire content of another web page and republishes it under a
different URL. This can result in a loss of
traffic to the original site and is considered spam by search
engines (not to mention being a copyright infringement and
illegal.)
False Drop: When a website is included in results for a
particular search but is not actually relevant. This can happen
due to a technical glitch, spamming, or simply
that the web page included the word which was searched for, but
not in the same context.
Frames: An HTML coding practice that
allows more than one web page to be viewed in the same open
window or in sub-windows. However, search engines may have a hard
time with frames.
Gateway Page: A web page created specifically for
submission to a search engine, these pages
usually have the keywords or phrases repeated
several times in an attempt to influence search engine results.
The page is designed for submission and is not viewed by your
actual visitors. Gateway pages are in poor taste and are
considered spamming. Also known as an entry
page, doorway page or bridge pages.
Graphical Search Inventory: Banner ads, pop-ups, or
toolbar media designed to match search keywords.
Heading Tags: The HTML tags (<h1>,
<h2>, etc.) that contain text of the headings or
sub-categories for the written content on your web page.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language- the language (code) most
commonly used to create documents and pages for websites.
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol. The most common
protocol for the communication between web
servers and web browsers.
Image Map: An image that has links embedded in it, such as
a picture of a house in which there are links if you click on the
windows, front door, or chimney. It is a good idea to also
include text links, for people viewing the page as Text-Only, and
to help search engines recognize the links.
Inbound Links: Links leading to your website or a specific
web page from elsewhere (i.e. other websites).
Internal Links: Links within the same website, used to
move a visitor around within your website.
Index: The list of web pages maintained by a search
engine. It is the database from which search results are
culled.
Indexing: The process that a search engine uses to collect
data and build its database of information from which it will
pull its search results.
Javascript: A programming language often used for smaller
tasks within an HTML web page, such as running calculators,
clocks, and other tools.
Keywords: The words you use when performing a search on a
search engine. See also Search Terms and
Query.
Landing Page: The page that a visitor is brought to after
clicking on a link from the results in a search engine.
Link Popularity: Determined by the number of other
relevant websites that have links to your site.
Link Text: The text that constitutes a link. Also known as
anchor text.
Log File: A file that is created by the
server that logs information known as requests. It typically logs where a websites visitor
has come from and which search queries brought them there.
Manual Submission: Submitting your website by hand to a search engine
or directory following the various specific guidelines of each search engine or
directory.
Meta Search Engine: A search engine which searches several other search engines and then
combines all the results for you. IxQuick.com is an example.
Meta Tags: Tags within the HTML code of a web page that allow you to include
information about that specific web page. Sometimes used by search engines to help rank web pages,
the two most known Meta Tags are KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION.
Meta Description Tag: The DESCRIPTION tag allows the author to write a summary about the
web page that sometimes will be displayed under the TITLE in search engine results.
Meta Keywords Tag: You can include several keywords regarding your web page in your
keywords tag, and some, but very few, search engines factor this tag into their ranking systems.
Meta Robots Tag: You can use the Meta Robots Tag to instruct search engines to index, or
not index certain pages of your website, although using a Robots.Txt File is typically
considered better form.
Mirror Sites: Sites that all contain exactly the same content but hosted on different domains,
IP’s, or servers. This practice can be considered spamming, since having many sites with the same
content is an attempt to saturate search results.
Organic Listings: These are index results which are not paid to be indexed, but are rather included
by the search engine in the results because the search engine feels that the site’s contents are of particular
relevance to the query. For example, if you mention Brad Pitt in your blog all the time, your blog may
eventually wind up in search results for a query about Brad Pitt, even if you did not submit it to be
indexed.
Outbound Links: Links that take you away to a different site.
Paid Inclusion: You can pay a search engine to index your
page somewhere in their directory, guaranteeing it will be
returned on the results, but not securing any particular ranking
or guaranteeing under which search terms you will appear.
PPC: Pay-Per-Click, same as
Cost-Per-Click.
Paid Listings: The opposite of organic
listings, advertisers pay to be indexed and included in
search results under certain queries. The same as sponsored
listings, they can be either in the form of a flat fee or
CPC.
Pay-For-Performance: Term similar to
Pay-Per-Click and
Cost-Per-Click, used by search engines to
emphasize to their marketing customers that they are paying for
advertising that performs, i.e., brings in traffic.
Pay-Per-Click: Same as
Cost-Per-Click.
Paid Placement: An advertising program whereby search
engines sell actual placement in the results for particular
search queries, and in this case, as opposed to paid
inclusion, the more you pay, the higher you can
rank.
Portal Site: Any site that proves an entry point for
users to the rest of the Internet, for example, Yahoo!, AOL, or
MSN.
Position: Your site’s position in a search is your
rank as determined by your relevancy to the particular query. If
you rank 3rd in relevancy on a search for “bunny
slippers” your position is 3.
Query: Same as search terms, the words
you put in when searching, for example, you want to know about
Chinese hamsters, so you type “Chinese hamsters” in
the search field. That is your query.
Rank: Your position in a search based on
your relevancy to the search terms. See also: position.
Reciprocal Link: Two sites can exchange links, linking to
each other, helping each other get traffic and gain link
popularity.
Referrer: The web page that sent a visitor to another
page. For example, if you wind up at a site about cheese logs,
and you came from a link on a site about party snacks, the party
snack’s site is the referrer. The Log File
keeps track of where visitors come from, and if the referrer
happens to be from a search engine, it can also log which search
terms are bringing the most visitors.
Registration: Alerting a search engine that your website
exists and should be indexed.
Relevance: A search engine subjectively decides how well
your site satisfies a query and how much
information your site provides about a certain search term. That
is, if your site is about cats, it’s probably not very
relevant to a search about blue jeans.
Relevancy Algorithm: The “rules”, i.e.,
method, by which a search engine reads a site’s content to
determine how relevant it is to a query.
Re-Submission: Multiple submissions of a site to be
indexed by a search engine. Can spark suspicions of
spamming.
Results Page: The page that lists the results of a query,
the results being the ranked pages that are most
relevant to the search terms.
Robots.txt: A file used to instruct search engines which
pages of a site should or should not be indexed. See also:
Meta Robots Tag.
ROI: Return On Investment. Not just an SEO term, it refers
to how much money you make compared to how much you shelled out
on an advertising campaign. If you paid $2000 dollars for
indexing but generated $10,000 dollars in sales, your ROI was
500%.
Search Engine: A server that indexes web pages, then
stores and shares the results in the form of lists ranked
according to relevancy to various
queries.
Search Engine Optimization: In short, doing everything you
can to make your website as attractive to search
engines as possible.
Search String: See Search Terms or
Query.
Search Terms: The words you type in the search field,
i.e., the words you want to find more information about.
SEO: See Search Engine
Optimization.
SERPS: See Results Page.
Server: A special type of computer that is powerful
enough to store information to be shared over a network. A server
is sort of like a telephone operator, connecting computers to
other computers and storing, retrieving, and sharing information.
Every web page is hosted by a server.
Spam: No longer just the popular spiced ham product,
“spam” now also refers to any sneaky method of
illegitimate search engine optimization designed
to cheat the system. You have probably also used it in reference
to junk mail clogging your mailbox.
Spamdexing: The act of spamming (see above) in attempts to
rank higher on search engine indexes.
Spider: It’s the element of a search engine that
spends its time crawling around on the web (get it?). It follows
link to link to link and stores pages to be indexed.
Sponsored Link: Advertisers can pay to have a link located
on a page, you see them all the time, they are usually colored or
labeled as “sponsored links”.
Stop Word: A word that is so common it is ignored in
search terms, words such as “the” or
“a”.
Submission: Submitting your website to be considered by a
search engine.
Title: The text displayed at the top of your browser
window, which is included between the HTML title
tags.
Title Tag: The HTML tag between which you
write the title of your page, to be displayed at
the top of the browser window.
Traffic: The people visiting your site.
Unique Visitor: An actual person visiting your site. And
if the same IP address (computer) visits your page 30 times,
it’ll only be documented as one Unique Visitor, but with 30
page views (hits).
URL: Stands for Universal Resource Locator, it is the
address of your site, how people find you. See
Domain.
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