The sorter takes the barrels, which are sorted by docID, and resorts them by wordID to generate the inverted index. This is done in place so that little temporary space is needed for this operation. The sorter also produces a list of wordIDs and offsets into the inverted index. A program called DumpLexicon takes this list together with the lexicon produced by the indexer and generates a new lexicon to be used by the searcher. The searcher is run by a web server and uses the lexicon built by DumpLexicon together with the inverted index and the PageRanks to answer queries.
Difference between Google, Yahoo and MSN:
Yahoo!
MSN Search
Google
- has been in the search game a long time, and saw the web graph when it is much cleaner than the current web graph
- is much better than the other engines at determining if a link is a true editorial citation or an artificial link
- looks for natural link growth over time
- heavily biases search results toward informational resources
- trusts old sites way too much
- a page on a site or sub domain of a site with significant age or link related trust can rank much better than it should, even with no external citations
- they have aggressive duplicate content filters that filter out many pages with similar content
- If a page is obviously focused on a term they may filter the document out for that term. on page variation and link anchor text variation are important. a page with a single reference or a few references of a modifier will frequently outrank pages that are heavily focused on a search phrase containing that modifier
- Crawl depth determined not only by link quantity, but also link quality. Excessive low quality links may make your site less likely to be crawled deep or even included in the index.
- things like cheesy off topic reciprocal links are generally ineffective in Google when you consider the associated opportunity cost.
Some Great Terms or Definition which is involved in SEO:
Algorithm - Rules which apply to search engines when they are ranking a site’s listing within its index.
Blog - An online diary where people can post messages and others may view and respond to the posts.
Browser - A program, such as AOL, Internet Explorer, or Firefox which allows a user to view the internet.
Caching - When a search engine saves information from a web page for future reference.
Cloaking - When a website uses one version of content for the site which is seen by the user, and sends a different version of content to the search engine. In some cases, cloaking will result in a website being banned from the search engines because of its unethical practices.
Call to action - A link, which when clicked on sends the user to a different page, typically an online form page, or other page where the user inputs information.
Delisting - This is a process in which a webpage is removed from a search engine index. There are a variety of reasons that a site may be removed, sometimes because they have been banned for unethical practices.
Directory - A compilation of websites that is categorized and sorted by a topic. Within every directory listing you will find an informative description of each site. When a site is listed on a popular directory, the site’s link popularity will increase.
There are two different types of directories, (1) organic and (2) spider built directories. In an organic listing the directories are put together by people who accept or deny the site that has requested placement in the directory. In a spider built directory, a spider (also known as a crawler) follows a URL’s hyperlinks to certain web pages and puts the relevant hyperlinks into its directory.
Description tag - A meta tag which describes the purpose of the website or web page. Some search engines use all or part of the description tag in their own description of the site. Typically, all tags can be viewed when a user right clicks on a web page and clicks “view source.”
A description tag usually looks like:
Domain name - A name for an IP address, which may have various suffixes, such as .com, .net, .edu, or.org.
Google Page Rank- A system which ranks pages within the Google search engine and determines the importance of the web page, based on a scale of 1 to 10.
Headline - A bolded short title located at the top of a web page, informing the user what the page’s topic is, such as what type of service or product the website offers. Headlines are very important because it immediately informs the user of the topic, allowing them to decide whether or not they want to read the content on the page.
Hyperlink - An underlined word or phrase, which is blue in color, and when it is clicked on it will take a person to another web page.
IP Address - A set of numbers used for a computer or device to acknowledge a website address.
Keyword - A word that people may type into a search window to find related information, services, or consumer products. For example a person may search for “fruit” and find results which point to websites which have something to do with fruit, such as growing, buying, health properties, etc.
Within a website important keywords should be placed in the keyword tag in the meta tags and throughout the content.
Keyword stuffing - When one or more keyword or keyword phrases are overly used or repeated within meta tags or web page content. This is considered spam and the website may be penalized.
Keyword tag - A meta tag which is used to emphasize relevant keywords or keyword phrases for the web page or website. Typically, all tags can be viewed when a user right clicks on a web page and clicks “view source.”
A keyword tag usually looks like:
Keyword phrase - A phrase of two or more words used together that an individual may search for, such as “personal injury attorney.”
Link exchange - A linking program where a site exchanges links with a high ranking site (typically with something in common, such as both being retail sites) as a way to improve visibility in the search engines and increase page rank.
Link farm - A web page which was designed to only accept incoming links, which is seen by the search engines as a form of spam. In many cases link farms will be banned from the search engines for spamming.
Link popularity - A factor which affects a website’s ranking, due to the amount and ranking of inbound links there are to the site. Link popularity is based on the amount of backlinks a site has.
Meta tag - Written information that is on a web page and is used by search engine crawlers to view the site. The search engines use the meta tags to collect, sort, and classify information which helps the search engines determine the relevance of the site and assists users in finding the site when they perform a search for a keyword or keyword phrase which is in the meta tags. Typically, all tags can be viewed when a user right clicks on a web page and clicks “view source.” Meta tags usually consist of a title, description, keyword and subject tag, and may also include rating, robot, and search engine tags.
Paid inclusion - A type of paid advertising in which a website or web page is assured inclusion within a search engine’s index. Many times paid inclusions do not affect or improve the web page’s ranking
Paid placement - An advertising program in which a website is listed with a guarantee that when a user searches for a certain term the website will appear. In this type of advertising it is common for a website to rank higher if they pay more for the placement.
Rank - Also known as “position,” this informs a person how their website or web page’s is listed on the internet within various search engines, such as on the first page or which number the site is listed on a page.
Reciprocal link - The exchange of a link between two website.
Search engine - A service which lets users view and search websites or databases by searching (typically with a spider) for documents with meta tags, then reading and indexing the web pages.
Search engine marketing (SEM) - Online marketing of a website through search engines using proven strategies and advertising to make the website rank high in the search engines.
Search engine optimization (SEO) - Creating and improving a website so that it will rank high in the search engines and help potential customers or clients find the website.
Sitemap - A page which contains an organized listing of links to all pages within the website. Having a well structured sitemap will help a search engine spider and index the pages.
Spider - An automated program which is sent out by search engines to index websites on the internet.
Title tag - This important meta tag is located at the top of page and contains highly searched relevant keywords. The title should not be too long, because if there are too many characters or spaces the viewer may not be able to read the entire title because it will get cut off. Typically, all tags can be viewed when a user right clicks on a web page and clicks “view source.”
A title tag usually looks like:
California Injury Attorneys - California Personal Injury Lawyers - Firm Name
Traffic - The number of people who have visited a website. Search engine optimization companies keep track of the traffic for the sites they optimize, as a way evaluate the effectiveness of their procedures and show the client how the optimization is improving the amount of people the website is being viewed by.
Optimized content - A form of content writing which is optimal for websites due to the amount and placement of relevant keywords and keyword phrases. Properly written content will help the web page or website receive greater positioning in the search engines.
Spam - The term used to describe commercial emails (junk mail) which are unsolicited by the receiver. This unethical practice is used by many companies as a means to improve their website’s position within the search engines.
Splash page - A home page which lacks content, except for a couple of words, such as “enter site here” or “click here to enter.” Splash pages are not beneficial to search engine rankings or internet users due to the lack of content.
Pay per click - A type of search engine marketing and advertising in which a person sets up an account and pays a predetermined price every time someone clicks on their ad.
Landing page – Landing pages are pages that users would click through to from a PPC campaign or XML feed (that is, people "land" on a particular page as a result of search marketing efforts). For best results, these pages are highly targeted for the reader and specific to the PPC ad or feed description (for instance, if a PPC ad advertises a coat sale, sending prospects to the company home page would invoke frustrations and decrease conversions). Rewriting landing pages is one of the easiest ways companies can increase their conversion rates.
SERP - The SERP is otherwise known as the Search Engines Results Page. This is the page that users see after typing their search query into an engine. Since conversion starts at the SERP, it is an important job of the search marketer to obtain strong call-to-action listings that entice the click.
SEO (or SEM)- A form of online marketing, search engine optimization (or search engine marketing) is the process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases.
Search Engine Result Page- The search engine results page (SERP) is the first page searchers see when they've entered their query into the search box. This page lists results of the searcher's query, sorted in terms of relevancy. Gaining a page one or two SERP listing is highly desirable for businesses targeting B2B and/or B2C sales.
Search engine optimization writing –Search engine optimization writing is specialized copywriting that entails weaving keywords and key phrases into marketing or informational copy. The purpose of search engine optimization copywriting is to gain prime positioning for the desired key phrases, as well as increase page conversion rates.
Spam – Spam is either a shelved potted meat product or an Internet term for unsolicited commercial email. In the case of search marketing, search engines had to put up their guard against overzealous search marketers who bombarded them with massive daily submissions and loaded their pages with keyword junk. These pages are often derided as pollution and described as spammy by search engine "spam police" who remove and blacklist all the spam they find from their indexes. Spam is the excessive use of any single "trick" meant to improve positioning in Internet search engines.
Spidering search engines- A spidering search engine (Google for example) is one that uses machines to fetch Websites and record its pages. The database of over 2 billion Web pages in Google's search index was gathered together using Google machines and GoogleBot (Google's so-called "spider" or Web crawler technology).
Pay for inclusion (PFI)- Pay-for-Inclusion services are designed for Webmasters that are having trouble getting pages listed in spider-based search engines. A main benefit of PFI is fast respidering (every 48 hours or so), giving site owners and Webmasters instant positioning feedback and the ability to change content frequently. Also, site owners can submit deep-linked pages and be guaranteed that the URL will be included.
The typical PFI program is an annual URL-based subscription with regular refresh cycles and click-based reporting. These programs are highly effective and potent for use in conjunction with seasonal campaign pages.
Pay per Click (PPC)- Pay per Click is a type of search marketing where advertisers pay a set amount every time their ad is clicked by a prospect (otherwise known as a click thru).
Some search engines, such as Overture, specialize in this type of advertising medium, although pay per click is not limited solely to pay-per-click engines. For instance, Looksmart, a directory, recently changed its business model to pay per click. Also, XML trusted feeds through Inktomi and Fast are sold at a per-click basis.
Usability- Quite simply, usability is making your site easy for your customers to find the exact information they need when they need it. Anything that makes the process slower (like Flash animation served to a dial-up customer) inhibits usability. Conversely, easy, intuitive navigation and strong, informative text enhance usability.
Keyphrase (or key phrase; also known as a keyword phrase)- A two- or more-word phrase (like Florida travel) prospects would type into a search query box to find products and services like yours.
Indexability- Otherwise known as spiderability. Indexability refers to if a site can be indexed - or recorded - by a search engine spider. If a site is not indexable, or if a site has reduced indexability, positioning will suffer.
Hyperlink- A blue, underlined word or phrase that, when clicked upon, takes users to another Web page, or section within a Web page. Hyperlinks are also known as call-to-action links (see above).
Conversion rates-- Conversion rates are distinct measurements that determine how many of your prospects take your preferred action step. Typically, micro-conversions (for instance, reading different pages on your site, or signing up for a newsletter) lead to your main conversion step (making a purchase, or contacting you for more information).
Browser-A browser is a program used by a computer to view pages on the internet. Common browsers include various versions of AOL, Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera.
Cloaking- Cloaking is a system of delivering custom content to a spider but hiding the code and / or content from a user. Cloaking can be a dangerous method of getting listed in the search engines and may not be recommended.
Directory -A directory is a site that is similar to a search engine in that people conduct searches to find particular products or services of interest by typing in a keyword phrase. However, unlike a search engine, directories are normally managed by human editors. When a site is submitted to a directory, it will be viewed and indexed by an actual person.
Domain Name- A domain name is a particular address on the internet that ends with a top level domain that describes the type of organization. The most common top level domains are:
.com - Companies
.net - Internet Service Providers
.edu - Educational Institutions
.mil - Military
.org - Non-profit organizations
.gov - Government
Domain Name Registration- Registering a domain name with an approved registrar.
Doorway/Entryway/Gateway/Splash Pages- A doorway page is normally set up to target specific requirements for an individual search engine to achieve desired ranking. Doorway pages can be an effective method to gain desired results, but must be used with caution. This page should look like any other page on your site and must contain quality, informative information for your visitors.
Frames- Building a site with frames will make the site seem to have multiple windows within one browser by using a certain HTML format. It is recommended that frames are not used in the design of a site because they can cause browser compatibility problems and because many search engines can not index a site designed in frames.
Hidden Text- Using hidden text is the act of using the same color text on the same color background. This is never recommended and can be considered spamming by many search engines.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) -HTML is used to define what a webpage contains, what the page does, how it looks and where links go.
Hyperlink (also link) -A hyperlink is text that when clicked on with your mouse, will take you to another web page.
Index Page- An index page is the main entrance page of a web site that normally describes the sites contents.
Internet- The world's largest computer network, made up of thousands of smaller networks and computers all connected together.
Keyword Density -Keyword density is a measurement of how often a certain keyword appears within a page compared to the total number of words on the page.
Keyword Stuffing -Keyword stuffing is filling a page up with keywords within the tags and body of a page. This can be considered as spamming and may get your site banned from many search engines.
Link Popularity- Link popularity is the amount of other sites that are linking to your web site. Most search engines will place importance on the relevancy of the links pointing to your site. Stay consistent with the overall theme of your site when attempting to gain link popularity.
Meta Tags- Meta Tags can be included in the area of your site and contain information such as your title, description, keywords, author, etc. Some engines place importance on meta tags and will use the content within them to rank a page. Others will completely ignore them.
Rank/Position/Placement- These are all words used for a particular position a site holds in a search engine.
Refresh Tag- Meta Refresh tag reloads a page at a set time. It is not recommended that you use this tag on pages you are submitting to search engines.
Relevance- A search engines estimate of how closely your search results matched your keywords. Most search engines rank the results by relevance, showing you the best matches first.
Results- The list of Web pages and documents that match the keywords typed by a user.
robots.txt- robots.txt is a text file that can be placed on a web site, that lists pages and sub-folders that should or should not be indexed by all or some search engine robots.
Search Engine- A search engine is an internet tool that allows one to find particular information of interest on the internet. Keywords are typed in a field and the search engine will produce results in order of relevancy to match your keywords.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)- Optimizing a site to a search engines criteria.
Server- A computer that processes information or does tasks by handling requests from client computers. For example, a file server is a computer on which files are stored, so that users can transfer files to and from the server.
Spam -The act of sending any article, often advertisements, to a large amount of people who have not indicated they have an interest in receiving the article. At the least, it is annoying to receivers and is a bad violation of good internet practices.
Spamdexing- Spamdexing is used to decrease the quality of a search engines results to attempt to gain more traffic. One method of spamdexing is to design a page to rank well for a particular keyword when that keyword has nothing to do with the sites content.
Spider (also bot, robot, crawler)- An automated computer program that searches the Internet. Many search engines use spiders to catalog information on the Internet.
Submission -Submitting a web page to a search engine or to a directory.
Theme Engine- A theme engine will crawl and index an entire site as one page using the most relevant keywords throughout the site to determine a theme. By doing this, more accurate results can be returned.
Agent Name Delivery- Delivering a custom page based upon the user agent string a browser or spider uses to identify itself. This technique is used in Cloaking.
ASP- Active Server Pages a server based scripting language that is used to provide dynamic content and build database driven web sites .
CGI- Common Gateway Interface. CGI refers to programs that are used to produce content for browser delivery. Common CGI programming languages include Perl, C, and PHP.
CGI-Bin- One of the most common names for a directory on a web server that contains CGI files.
Click Through- When a user clicks on a hyper text link.
Cloaking- A system to hide code or content from a user and deliver different content to a search engine spider.
· IP based cloaking delivers custom pages based on the users IP address.
· User Agent cloaking delivers custom pages based upon the users Agent.
Neither of these are recommended good methods of SEO and will ultimately get you banned
Combined Logfile- A log file format that collects all the data in the Common Log File format in addition there is information found in the referrer and user agent fields added to the file. A separate scripting error log file is often included also.
Common Logfile- The standard log file format developed by the NCSA.
CPC- Cost Per Click. Some search engines charge a cost per click to advertisers. There are over 290 search engines including Google Adsense, Overture, FindWhat and LookSmart.
Crawler-A type of a Spider that will download multiple pages from the same web site. This is for search engine indexes.
Cross Linking- Cross linking is linking across content within the same site. This is often used for navigation. This is not an acceptable form of linking if you are looking for link popularity.
CSS Cascading Style Sheets- CSS is an external file used to as styles to your web pages. This helps keep your coding clean.
Dead Link- An html link that the destination page no longer exists. Search engines check for "dead links" by spidering the page again.
Directory- A directory lists websites by individual topics. Open Directory Project is a directory.
Domain Name Registration- The act of registering a domain name with an approved registrar such as Domain Direct. The process is overseen by ICANN.
Doorway Page -An entrance to a website. Doorway pages are usually created to rank high on a particular search engine. Again not a particularly good way to optimize your web site.
Download- The act of retrieving information from any computer is called Downloading.
Dynamic Content- A page that is generated at the time the user requests it. The content delivered to the user is stored in an online database. Most search engines will index dynamic content now, however only a few will spider dynamic sites.
Dynamic IP Address- An IP address that changes each time you connect to the internet. Most ISPs use dynamic IP addresses.
FFA- Free For All links pages. These are sites that allow anyone to add a link. These sites are looked down upon by search engines and should be avoided. These FFA pages are also a cause of much spam around the world and today that is about the only use they have.
Frames-An HTML coding for making a website appear to have more than one windows within one browser. Most search engines do not like these types of sites because there is no content on the index page of the site. Many search engines read this as a site without value. If you are going to use a frames site, you need to remember to use a no frames tag.
Gateway Domain Names - A domain name that direct traffic to a main site. The these usually will be keyword rich. If these are found by the search engines, they will be removed from the index.
Heading Tag- Also known as h-tags. There are 6 different sizes. They are used as headings of different sections of a site. Search engines tend to put added weight to keywords within these tags.
Hidden Text / Tiny Text- This is text in the body of a webpage that is not seen or hard to read. This is considered a form of spam to search engines and is not recommended.
Hit- A request for a file on a webserver. If you have a webpage with 5 images, you will get 6 hits each time this page is viewed. One for the html document and 5 for the images.
HTML -Hyper Text Markup Language. This is the primary language of websites.
HTML Link- This is a website link. It is also known as a Hyper Link.
HTTP- HyperText Transfer Protocol. This is the agreed upon system to transfer data between a web server on the browser.
Image Map- A system of associating parts of an image with hyper links. An example would be a map of the world. Each country would have a link associated with it that would lead to a different page
Inbound Link- A hyper link pointing to your site from another. Inbound links effect your link popularity and your rankings in many search engines. The text associated with this link can also effect your ranking.
IP Address- Like a mailing address tells the mailman where to deliver your mail, your Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) is how data finds its way back and forth from your computer to another.
Your IP address may change each time you attach to your ISP. If your IP address stays the same from connection to connection, you are said to have a static IP address. If it changes each time you connect, you are said to have a Dynamic IP Address. Web Sites have a static IP address so they can always be found.
IP Delivery- The act of delivering customized content based upon the users IP address. This is used in cloaking so you can deliver specific pages to spiders.
IP Spoofing -Connecting to a web site and reporting an IP address different than the one you are actually connected to. This is a highly unethical tactic and may break some laws in your area.
ISP -Internet Service Provider. This is how you connect to the internet.
Java-A computer language designed to deliver a small program from websites to a users browser. This program is executed on the users system.
JavaScript-A computer language used with HTML that is executed after an HTML page is transferred to the users browser.
Keyword -Also Keyword Phrase. A word or combination of words used to find information on a subject.
An example: The keyword Brampton Real Estate would be used to find information about real estate in the city of Brampton.
Keyword Buys-Most search engines sell some type of advertising. The search engines use keywords to help these sales. When a user types in a keyword, a specific set of ads or sponsored entries are displayed to the user.
Keyword Density -The amount of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used in the body of a page. This is a percentage value determined by the number of word on the page.
Keyword Stuffing -The act of adding way too many keywords to a page in either the text or meta information. This is frowned upon by the search engines and regarded as SPAM.
Link Popularity-The number of inbound links to a site. Link popularity is a major factor in search engine rankings now along with the associated text on the link.
MetaSearch -Searching more than one source at a time.
MetaSearch Engine -A search engine that searches several different search engines in order to return a SERP.
MetaTag-These are informational and command tags that are placed in the head section of a webpage.
Mirror Site-This would be an identical site with a different URL. Many people feel this will help them obtain better rankings, however search engines feel this is a form of spam.
Non-Reciprocal Link-When one sites link to another. This is counted in a sites inbound links. A non-reciprocal link can be a text link (example: Webmaster Key - Discussion Forums) or it can be in the form of an image.
Off Page Optimization-The factors not contained within a Web Page that effect it's position in the SERP
On Page Optimization-The factors contained within a Web Page that effect it's position in the SERP
Optimization -Creating or editing a webpage so that it will rank well in the search engines.
Page Views -The amount of times a webpage has been delivered to a browser.
Perl -Practical Extraction and Report Language. This is one of the most common languages used for CGI.
Portal- Refers to search engines and directories such as Yahoo! and AltaVista.
Positioning- The position that a sites entry is display in any search engine query.
PPC -Pay Per Click. The act of paying for each time a user clicks on your listing in certain search engines. This would include Google Adwords, Overture, FindWhat and LookSmart.
PSA -Public Service Announcement. This would be free advertising usually given to Non-Profit organizations.
Ranking- The position that a sites entry is display in any search engine query.
Reciprocal Link-When two sites link to each other. This is counted in a sites inbound links. A reciprocal link can be a text link (example: Real Estate Brampton) or it can be in the form of an image.
Referrer -The URL of the web page a user came from before entering another site. If the referring URL is a search engine, the keyword search terms are usually shown.
Refresh Tag -This is a tag that refreshes or reloads a webpage at a set time period.
Registration-The act of submitting a site to a search engine.
Robot -A programs that goes to websites for search engines. This program reads a website and determines if it belongs in the search index. Also know as a spider as it crawls all over the web.
Robots.txt-A text file kept in the root of a website. It tells robots, spiders and crawlers where they are allowed to go and not allowed to go on a website.
Search Engine-A web site that has crawled the web and lists 1000's of entries ranked by their own code. Google, Yahoo, MSN are the biggest 3 search engines.
Search Term -Also know as a Keyword. A word or combination of words used to find information on a subject.
SEO-Search Engine Optimization is optimizing a web site to gain the best position in the SERP
SEM- Search Engine Marketing not only optimizes the web site, but makes use of other marketing tools like PPC.
SERP- Search Engine Results Page. The page(s) generated by a search engine in response to a search query.
Spamdexing-The act of submitting webpages to a search engine using techniques that are considered unethical by search engines.
Spamming -For email, it is sending out mass unsolicited emails.
For webpages, it is using unethical practices.
Spider -Also known as Crawlers and Robots. These programs are used by search engines to retrieve web pages to include in their database. Most spiders have cute or unusual names.
Spidering-The act of a spider crawling through your website in order to add it to an index.
SSI -Server Side Includes. HTML Comment commands placed in an HTML file which causes a webserver to execute an action when the page is viewed by a user.
Static IP Address-An IP Address that does not change. Web sites use static IP addresses.
Submission Service-A service that submits a website to the search engines. There are ethical and unethical submission services.
Title -This is the name of the webpage usually displayed at the top of the browser window.
Traffic-The visitors to a website.
Unique Users-The count of unique visitors to a website.
URL -Universal Resource Locator. This is a website address.
URL Submission-The act of submitting a website to the search engines.
Rating- The rating tag defines your preferred access level. It can be a useful mechanism for search engine spiders to determine the level of access appropriate for the associated Web page.
Revisit- The revisit tag is a request for the search engine spider to return to a particular Web page for reindexing. This is appropriate for sites that frequently refresh their content.
Re-submission: Repeating the search engine registration process one or more times for the same page or site. Under certain circumstances, this is regarded with suspicion by the search engines, as it could indicate that someone is experimenting with spamming techniques.
Mirror sites- Sites designed as duplicates of an original site, but are hosted on a different server. Link cloaking and doorway pages, the creation of mirror sites is a recognized spam tactic and violators will be penalized by many of the major search engines.
Algorithm- The search engine program that ranks sites based on certain criteria. Google has over 100 different ranking criteria that sites need to meet.
Bid for click- A search engine under which you bid for your site to be ranked under a keyword. See Pay Per Click (PPC) and Paid Placement (PP).
Code- The background code that runs a web site. As well as HTML, this can include, JavaScript, ASP, PHP, JSP, Coldfusion and more.
Click-through rate (CTR)- The number of possible clicks on a Web page divided by the actual number of times a link on that same page is clicked.
Cloaking- Sending one version of a Web page to a search engine that is different than what a Web user actually sees on the site. Cloaking, although considered unethical, is used to increase the potential ranking of a Web page. Most search engines will penalize a site if they discover it is cloaking.
Dead link- An Internet link which does not lead to a page or site. This usually occurs when a server is down, the page has moved, or it no longer exists.
Directory- A list of web sites that is compiled under categories and sub-categories. Yahoo is an example of a directory.
Domain- A sub-set of internet addresses. Domains are hierarchical, and lower-level domains often refer to particular web sites within a top-level domain. The most significant part of the address comes at the end - typical top-level domains are .com, .net, .edu, .gov, .org.
Doorway page- A page that has been created for the sole use of attempting to get a high ranking in the search engines. Again, this is an unethical practice that can lead to penalization by the search engines.
Frames- Some sites have pages that are made up of multiple HTML pages. Typically the navigation will be on one page and the content on another. You can tell if you scroll down the page and the navigation remains static. Frames are bad for a sites search engine promotion
Hidden text- Text that is visible to the search engine spiders but not to site visitors. Used to add extra keywords in the page without actually adding content to a site. Most search engines will penalize Web sites which use hidden text.
Hit- In the context of visitors to web pages, a hit (or site hit) is a single access request made to the server for either a text file or a graphic. If, for example, a web page contains ten buttons constructed from separate images, a single visit from someone using a web browser with graphics switched on (a "page view") will involve eleven hits on the server.
In the context of a search engine query, a hit is a measure of the number of web pages matching a query returned by a search engine or directory.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language)- The coding language that all Web sites use to exist on the Internet.
Hyperlinks- Hyperlinks are used to link one or more documents together.
Inbound link- Links that direct users to another Web site. When a user arrives at a site from another site, that link is known as an inbound link.
Keyword A word used to find pages when conducting a search.
Keywords- Due to abuse by many Web sites in the past, search engines have reduced the importance of the keywords meta tag when ranking a Web page for keyword relevance. Many have actually decided to not consider the keywords tag altogether. While it has reduced in significance, it is still an important meta tag to include in your Web pages.
Query- A word, phrase or group of words used to pass instructions to a search engine to locate relevant Web pages.
Re-index- How often a search engine updates its index. Google updates its index once a month.
Search engine- A search engine is a database system designed to index and categorize internet addresses, otherwise known as URLs (for example, http://www.yourdomain.com).
Search engine optimization (SEO)- These are the techniques used to improve a Web page's results in a search.
Server- A computer, program or process which responds to requests for information from a client. On the internet, all web pages are held on servers.
Spam- Unethical techniques such as cloaking, mirror sites and doorway pages to trick the search engine spiders into giving the Web page a higher ranking. Search engines will often penalize or remove an offending site from its index.
Spider- A software program used by search engines to crawl the Web, storing URLs and indexing the keywords and text of pages. Spiders are also referred to as crawlers or robots.
Stop word- A word that frequently appears in pages but has no significance. Most search engine spiders ignore stop words while searching. Example of stop words are: and, the, of, etc.
Traffic- The actual visitors to a Web page or Web site.
Unique Visitor- A real visitor to a web site. Web servers record the IP addresses of each visitor, and this is used to determine the number of real people who have visited a web site. If for example, someone visits twenty pages within a web site, the server will count only one unique visitor.
URL- The Uniform Resource Locator is used to specify the address of Web sites and Web pages.
Hidden or invisible unrelated text
Disguising keywords and phrases by making them the same color as the background, using a tiny font size, or hiding them within HTML code such as "no frame" sections, ALT attributes, zero-width/height DIVs, and "no script" sections. However, hidden text is not always spamdexing: it can also be used to enhance accessibility. People screening websites for a search-engine company might temporarily or permanently block an entire website for having invisible text on some webpages.
Meta tag stuffing
Repeating keywords in the Meta tags, and using meta keywords that are unrelated to the site's content. This tactic has been ineffective since 2005.
"Gateway" or doorway pages
Creating low-quality web pages that contain very little content but are instead stuffed with very similar keywords and phrases. They are designed to rank highly within the search results, but serve no purpose to visitors looking for information. A doorway page will generally have "click here to enter" on the page.
Scraper sites
Scraper sites, also known as Made for AdSense sites, are created using various programs designed to 'scrape' search-engine results pages or other sources of content and create 'content' for a website.[5] The specific presentation of content on these sites is unique, but is merely an amalgamation of content taken from other sources, often without permission. These types of websites are generally full of advertising (such as pay-per-click ads[5]), or redirect the user to other sites. Some scraper sites have even outranked an original website for its own information and organization name.
Link farms
Involves creating tightly-knit communities of pages referencing each other, also known humorously as mutual admiration societies [2]PDF (1.55 MiB)
Hidden links
Putting links where visitors will not see them in order to increase link popularity. Highlighted link text can help rank a webpage higher for matching that phrase.
"Sybil attack"
This is the forging of multiple identities for malicious intent, named after the famous multiple personality disorder patient "Sybil" (Shirley Ardell Mason). A spammer may create multiple web sites at different domain names that all link to each other, such as fake blogs known as spam blogs.
Spam blogs
Spam blogs, also known as splogs, are fake blogs created solely for spamming. They are similar in nature to link farms.
Page hijacking
This is achieved by creating a rogue copy of a popular website which shows contents similar to the original to a web crawler but redirects web surfers to unrelated or malicious websites.
Buying expired domains
Some link spammers monitor DNS records for domains that will expire soon, then buy them when they expire and replace the pages with links to their pages. See Domaining. However Google resets the link data on expired domains.
Black Hat SEO - This term refers to using deceptive techniques to gain high search engine rankings. Some examples are hiding text (i.e. - white letters on a white background) and cloaking. using findability techniques that are not endoresed by major search engines; misrepresenting content to search engines for the only reason of gaining higher search engine rankings. Example is keywords of white text on a white background. Now considered unethical.
Online Marketing - using the Internet to sell merchandise. Includes pay per click and banner ads methods as well as general e-commerce sites.
Organic Results - Search results from a search engine that are not from advertisers that paid money to get in the top ranks.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization; using techniques (white hat, black hat) that specifically aim towards gaining higher rank in search engine results. The higher the ranking, the more findable it is.
Spider bot - (also known as Internet bot, robot, web crawler, spidering, crawling, crawler) an automated process of scanning the Internet to index content in order to later provide search results, usually by a search engine.
Social tagging - users of data (not just the Information architect) create metadata, making it more useable and findable.
Traffic Analysis - using statistics packages that analyze visitors of your site and gather statistics about them and their usage of your website.
White Hat SEO - using proper techniques to gain the favor of search engine rankings. Example is using web standards, microformats, and keywords that happen naturally in the content.
Findability - the ability or likelihood of being found
Folksonomy - when social tagging is used and categories start to emerge, without the influence of the Information Architect. Term introduced by Thomas Vander Wal.
AdSense- Google AdSense is a program that allows Website owners to maximize their page content in terms of SEO relevancy. By utilizing the Google search engine technology, AdSense enables Websites of all sizes and fields to display ads on the search results page that are based on the Website content, the user's interests, location, and other factors. These non-intrusive, highly relevant ads generate revenue on either a Pay Per Click (PPC) or Per Thousand Impressions (PTI) basis.
AdWords- Google AdWords helps Website owners advertise their online businesses on a Pay Per Click (PPC) basis. It offers site targeted advertising on several distribution scopes - on local, national and international levels. It is Google's leading advertising product and its main source of revenue. Read more
Alt Tag- Alt tags are Web page graphics containing text that appear on the screen when a user holds the mouse over an image. Alt tags are SEO tools with added value other than serving as a replacement for when images and non-textual elements cannot be displayed. Click here to find out how Dot Traffic can help you design alt tags in the best possible way.
Backlinks- Also called incoming links, inward links and inlinks, backlinks are incoming links to a Website or page. They measure the Website or page rank and also affect SEO considerations and calculations. By looking up backlinks on the search engine, Website owners can keep track of the number of pages that link back to them. Backward links See Backlinks.
Blacklist- SEO and SEM might be volatile fields, but they have rules that must be respected. Abuse of the Internet and search engines will land a Website on a blacklist. The most common violation is the use of spam for marketing purposes. Blacklists may bring to a ban or boycott of the abusive Website by the search engine. Dot Traffic will optimize your Website’s marketing campaign only by legit means.
Bid-In Search Engine Marketing, a bid is the amount a Website owner is willing to pay for the placement among the sponsored links on the search results page. The ranking is based on the bid as well as on keyword ranking as determined by the search engine.
Broken Link- Links are clickable text that refers a user to a Webpage, a document or any image by clicking on them. Broken links fa
Cache- A search engine may save time in accessing Web pages by accessing a cached copy of the page, temporarily saved on the computer, instead of the original data.
Click Through Rate- Search Engine Marketing campaigns are measured by Click Through Rate (CTR), which is a calculation of how many users who were delivered impressions of the search result listing or banner ad actually clicked on it.
Cloaking- Deception is, unfortunately, part of the SEM world. Cloaking is one such SEM tool, which identifies a visit to the Web page by a search engine spider, rather than a user and presents content other than what the user would have seen on the screen. This tactic may help fool search engines but often leads to penalties.
Conversion rate- A SEM campaign is designed to have the user take a certain action. This action may be an acquisition, viewing certain content, request information, etc. the conversion rate is the percentage of such visitors to the site who take the desired action.
Cost Per Action- SEM campaigns need not be only priced globally. Instead, campaigns can be more goal-oriented, as the Cost Per Action meter helps measure. This performance-based model of online advertising has the advertiser pay for the ad based only on direct actions which it brings about. Read more
Cost Per Click- Also known as Pay Per Click and by the acronyms CPC and PPC, this online advertising performance-based system is set on a cost per clickthrough basis, meaning that the advertiser pays relative to the clickthroughs to the landing page that the ad directs users to. Read more
Cost Per Impression- Cost Per Impression is a SEM measuring-model based on performance. Just as in other media, the advertiser tries to speculate what the cost of the advertising campaign is based on the number of people who are exposed to it, with the Internet even more precise figures can be reached, often using the Cost Per Thousand (CPM) meter. The SEM campaign can then be valued per 1,000 impressions.
Cost Per Thousand- Also known as Cost Per Mille, CPT and CPM, Cost Per Thousand is a measurement of SEM campaigns. It values the cost incurred in reaching a thousand impressions.
Cost per lead- The eventual cost of the SEM campaign divided by the number of sales leads it produces. (CPL)
DNS- DNS stands for Domain Name Service, Domain Name System or Domain Name Server, all of which are the same name-based service that replaces IP Address numbers with letters. This makes it much easier to remember a Web site address than had it been in numbers. SEO specialist Dot Traffic can help you pick the ideal domain name for your business’s Website.
Ethical SEO- SEO techniques are either effective or not, with ethics generally playing a minor role. However, accusations of unethical manipulations of search engine algorithms abound, whereas they rather should be acknowledged for their creativity. Unethical practices can relate to business aspects, such as not disclosing risks involved with certain practices to clients and not delivering the service promised, something that may happen in any discipline. Aggressive SEO is not necessarily unethical.
External Link- Like inbound links, external links play a role in Search Engine Optimization. Search engines, like users, follow the external links that direct them to other domains. If these destinations are found to be of low quality or altogether irrelevant, they will only harm the website’s ranking and popularity. High quality and relevancy external links count more than sheer mass.
Fresh Content- Internet users and search engines acknowledge quality web content that is dynamic. Such fresh content will draw them to the website the first time and then again for repeat visits. More than simply re-editing existing text, it requires creating new content. Visitors and search engine crawlers will more likely frequent an updated website.
Feed- The term web feed refers to automated subscription based content notifications via RSS or XML feeds. Users are notified of new content they are interested in without having to regularly search for it. Feeds serve web content management purposes and are popular with websites, blogs and podcasts.
Google- A California-based public corporation specializing in online searches and advertising. Google was created by Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin and has by now become the world’s leading search engine in terms of reach. Internet searches have been modeled after Google’s pioneering and linkage data analyzing via PageRank.
GoogleBot- Google’s robot scanning the Internet is called GoogleBot. The technology employed in GoogleBots is varied. They all share cache between them. The different spiders include vertical search spiders and spiders associated with ad targeting.
Google Dance-Today, Google updates its index on a regular, ongoing, constant basis to which it refers for its searches. This was not the case in the past, when such updates took place only once a month. Back then, the updates were named Google Dances. The Google Dance also refers to an annual party thrown at Google's corporate headquarters for industry marketers.
Heading tag- A Web page may have as many as five or six levels of HTML coded heading tags, which are displayed in various font sizes from large to small. The h1 tag, also referred to as the header tag, for example, displays a text as a level 1 heading, much like a title on the page. Heading tags may be designed in a style that suits the Web page best and serve SEO and SEM functions as well. Dot Traffic can improve heading tags on your Website.
Hits- Also called page hits, it comes to mean in Internet and SEM terms any download or retrieval of a file, an item, graphic or other from a Web server. The hits meter is affected by the number of graphics on the Web page, among other aspects. Therefore the higher the number of items on the page, the higher the hits count is. A Web server with 10 items would therefore count as 11 hits, one for the page itself and 10 others for the items. Hits, however, are not a good indication for a Web page’s traffic. Dot Traffic can maximize your Web traffic in the most effective way.
HTML-The term stands for HyperText Markup Language and is essentially programmed text dressed up with such additional features as formatting, images, links to other Web pages, etc. Text can be presented to appear visually in different styles on the page, set to fill different structural functions or link to other pages altogether. A Search Engine Marketing specialist may design the Web page ideally with HTML for varying purposes – design, structure and Search Engine Optimization purposes included, for the Web browsers and end users to enjoy a richer Web page.
Impression- In Search Engine Marketing language, impression keeps its Middle English meaning of an enquiry, only to relate it to the number of times users are served the ad posted on the search engine. Such ad investigations by users are the ultimate goal of the Search Engine Marketing and Internet advertising campaign. Impressions are also the basis of measuring the success of the cost of a marketing campaign, often by the Cost per Mille meter, which is a measure of the cost per a thousand impressions.
Inbound Link- Hyperlinks from Websites that send users to another domain are called inbound links, from the perspective of the Website referred to. From a Search Engine Optimization point of view, such inbound links are free advertising and generate Web traffic to the site. Read more
Index- An index helps people find information they are looking for with greater ease, at the end of scholarly books, in computerized databases and in the service of search engines. The index contains text and optimizes the search engine spider’s visit to the Website. Dot Traffic, specializing in Search Engine Optimization services, can devise an index that will make the spider’s visit faster, more accurate, and specific to the Website’s needs and goals.
Index file-The index file must be in a format that is identifiable by the search engine, for better and more effective visits by the search engine spider. The text information stored in the index file must be clear and accurate, but above all it must be legible to the search engine, which may be limited in the formats it can identify. Dot Traffic can help you identify what format the index file must be formatted, which will make fast retrieval possible.
JavaScript-A standard scripting language used on websites. HTML documents can become more dynamic with JavaScript features embedded into them. Content with JavaScript, however, is not indexed by search engines.
Keyword popularity- What keywords to pick for your Website’s most successful Search Engine Marketing campaign and where to place them on the page are highly important issues. There are various means to identify such factors, one of which is researching the popularity of a given keyword in users’ searches over a period of time. Have Dot Traffic research and advise you on the ideal keywords for your site in terms of popularity.
Log file- Visitors at Websites leave behind a logging-signature, containing of the date and time of their visit, their IP address, the filename accessed, the Web page that linked them to the site and more. Such information has value from a SEM perspective, namely knowing where the users came from, signifying successful marketing strategies.
MSN- MSN, famous acronym that stands for The Microsoft Network, is in essence Microsoft’s entire family of Web services and programs. Its search engine, called Microsoft Live Search in the 2006 release, is currently ranked 2nd in the competition with Google and Yahoo!, among other search engines. Its picture and image search functions have been developed, as well as other user-friendly and Search Engine Marketing relevant features.
Nofollow-A website can direct a search engine spider not to follow a link that appears on it. The idea being that the target website’s ranking will not influence the website indexed. Nofollow attribute values are most often used on sites with user generated content, like user comments and blogs.
Navigation- The overall structure and layout of a website, which helps users find their way around. Knowing your position, where you want to go and how it relates to the rest of the website. For search engines to be able to follow the navigation scheme it is best not to encode it in any script other than regular HTML.
Organic Listings- Search engines list results based on varying factors they deem relevant based on the user’s search keywords. Organic search engine listings, also known as “natural” listings, are those listings that appear on the results page solely based on relevancy factors. Organic listings are juxtaposed with paid listings, which are ranked on the results page based on how much the advertiser paid the search engine to post them. Read more
Organic SEO- Organic Search Engine Optimization is the SEM term for unpaid high ranking results on search engines. Organic SEO, also known as “natural” SEO, is juxtaposed with Pay Per Click advertising campaigns. The Organic SEO method involves complete optimization of the company’s Website and long term investment in building up towards top search engine results that will last a long time. Read more
Outbound Link- Outbound links appear on a Web page and direct users and search engine crawlers to another Web page. They can link between different Websites or between pages on the same site. Outbound links are key elements in Search Engine Marketing campaigns, as the smart use of them helps promote a Web page’s ranking. Read more
Overture- Overture, a Yahoo! Search Marketing product, was formerly known as GoTo.com. It is the largest of all Pay Per Click search engines. Overture enables Website owners to purchase online marketing and advertising space on a PPC basis, keyword oriented and sponsored. Yahoo! search engine results also include paid listings of search results that are based on the bidding of the advertiser for certain keywords. Such pay for placement services are successful Search Engine Marketing tools that can serve a Website, though at a cost. Thorough, Internet-wide research by Overture assures ever more relevant keyword relevancy, help promote Websites and generate profit for itself.
Page title- A page title, also called title tag, is an HTML meta tag that places the control of how the Web page is described by the search engine in the hands of the publisher and its Search Engine Optimizer.
PageRank- PageRank is an index used by Google to value Websites on a scale of 0 to 10, based largely on link popularity and appearing on the Google Toolbar.
Paid placement- Paid placement is a SEM strategy by which placement on the search results page is allotted in return for a fee. Paid placement is temporary and usually marked as sponsored listings.
Paid Inclusion- Paid inclusion is a SEM tool that includes search engine listing in return for a fee, with immediate results, although not necessarily with guaranteed ranking. Search engines or directories that list Websites and pages charge often on a Cost Per Click basis or alternatively per URL, ensuring highly relevant lists. Most search engines provide paid inclusion as a marketing option, although Google does not.
Paid Listing- Paid listing is one of two core SEM strategies, along with organic search engine results. Search engines offer products such as paid listings, which advertisers may buy and appear on search engine result pages based on relevancy and in return for a fee. Read more
Pay For Performance- Performance-based SEM is a term that expresses the added value, more than simply traffic. A SEM campaign is measured by actions such as conversions, sales and inquiries by the users. This pricing model, unlike mere impressions, is based on delivering the bottom line.
Pay Per Click- Pay per Click is a pricing model that is based on the number of clickthroughs the advertising generates. Read more
Position-The position is the rank of the advertiser on the search engine results page. Some search engines place the highest bidder at the top position, while others use algorithms that are more complex. The assumption is that the higher the rank the more clicks the advertisement generates.
Quality Content-Web content that is user friendly as well as search engine friendly is considered quality content. For a website to rank high on SERPs and be popular among users it must provide interesting, well written, relevant and unique content. It can be looked at as content that is link-worthy, not merely generic text that appears on hundreds of sites.
Quality Link-Links on websites are important factors when search engines consider the site’s value and theme. Links are much like votes of trust, with better quality links counting more than low quality links for optimization purposes. A high quality link will be to or from a trusted and familiar source, not easily attainable, an older site that has been around for long and which includes quality content.
Reciprocal link-Reciprocal links are considered the glue that binds the World Wide Web together as they allow users to cross over between Websites, pages and documents. Search engines factor links in evaluating a Web page’s ranking to some degree. A Search Engine Optimization expert company will therefore improve the links feature of the Web page, by exchanging reciprocal links among other means. Read more
Redirect-Generally speaking, search engine ranking does not benefit from URL redirection, or URL forwarding as it is also called, in which users are taken to another domain without specifically entering its URL or following any link. Spiders, too, are not always able to follow the link thus hurting the Web page indexing and ranking.
Relevance-Search engines score and rank search results according to their relevance with regard to the user’s query, an evaluation based on keywords and other SEM concepts that often determine the order in which the search results appear.
Robots.txt-Websites that have undergone Search Engine Optimization may include robots exclusion standards, or robots.txt, which are text file protocols that control the search engine spiders. They advise the spiders to refrain from visiting parts of the Website that are either irrelevant to the site’s categorization or that may be private.
ROI- ROI, from Return On Investment, is a central performance meter for Search Engine Marketing campaigns. It refers to the direct benefit that comes from the campaign investment, expressed as a percentage or ratio.
Search engine-Search engines generate lists of Websites and pages based on the user’s specifications – often certain keywords or phrases – in order of relevancy based not only on the Website’s name but also on its entire pages’ HTML content. Search Engine Marketing is designed to advance a Website’s ranking on a search engine’s results page.
Search Engine Marketing-Search Engine Marketing, also known by the acronym SEM, is a set of Internet marketing strategies that are designed to promote a Website’s visibility and Web traffic. SEM includes a score of methods. Read more
Search Engine Optimization-Search Engine Optimization, also known by the acronym SEO, is a division of the larger Search Engine Marketing. SEO is a strategy that aims at increasing the Website’s performance on the search engines in organic, natural means. Read more
Search Engine Results Page-A page with links and site descriptions produced by the search engine in response to the user’s interest, as expressed in the keywords or phrases entered.
Search term-The keyword or phrase entered by the user in a search request at a search engine Website.
Search term popularity
See Keyword popularity.
Spamming-Spamming search engines is the term used to describe any attempts by Website publishers to disrupt the work of the search engine spiders in order to confuse the relevancy algorithm and optimize the site’s ranking.
Submitting website-Submitting a Website to a search engine, also known as announcing a Website, is a means to draw the attention of the search engine to have it index the site. There are automated tools and various levels of submitting a Website. Dot Traffic can help you learn what best means of submitting your Website with each search engine is.
Text Link Ads-Graphic advertisements are not necessarily the ideal advertising method online. Advertisements that are formatted as text links can work as well, possibly even better. Considering that the web has always been text based and that graphic ads are often simply annoying, the advantage of a well phrased and catchy text link ad is clear.
Title-An important Search Engine Optimization element, the title is used to describe the contents of a document. It is unique to the particular page, descriptive in nature or simply catchy and appealing, and rather short. Titles appear as links for users to click on or as link anchor text on documents. When used well it can help drive traffic to your website.
Usability-Usability is a measure for how simple or difficult users find the website to be when they wish to perform their desired action. It is affected by the website’s structure, layout, text formatting and hyperlinks, among others. A website that scores high on usability means higher conversion rates.
Update-Search engines are a constantly changing world. To reach relevant and fresh results, search engine algorithms and data sets frequently update. The search index like the search engine algorithm continuously updates, bringing users the most specific, relevant and quality results.
Visibility- Not merely exposure, but visibility is key to a successful Search Engine Marketing campaign. A website must be positioned well on search engine result pages for the relevant keyword searches. Visibility, meaning ranking high on relevant searches, helps generate targeted traffic and is much more effective than mere exposure (appearing on some low ranking page in the results).
White Hat SEO-The search engine world changes regularly. So do its regulations that dictate what are legitimate and ethical Search Engine Optimization techniques and methods. SEO companies that operate within these guidelines are considered White Hat SEO Companies, distinguished from Black Hat SEO. They avoid deceptive methods, and operate ethically within this great business model.
Whois-Whois records store the identity of the owner of each domain online, except for those that hide such information. Indeed, some domain registrars allow the ownership information to remain hidden, a feature often taken advantage of by large scale spammers.
XML-XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It is a simple text format, derived from SGML and rather flexible. RSS feeds and other syndicate information technologies usually are make use of it.
Xenu-Link verification is important to ensure that internal and external links on a website are not broken. Xenu is free software, popularly used for checking broken links of any kind, text, graphic or other, and reporting to the website owner the status of his links.
Yahoo-Sunnyvale, California based Internet services company founded by Stanford students Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994. Its products include a search engine and the Yahoo! Directory, email service and a popular web portal.
Yahoo! Search Marketing-Yahoo! Runs a PPC or Sponsored results advertising service, based on keyword that are based on a bidding system over keywords and placement. The platform was formerly known as Overture.
Zeitgeist (Google Zeitgesit)-Weekly, monthly, and annual reports released by Google and based on millions of searches. The service reveals emerging and declining trends in real time of searches conducted on the Google search engine.
Anchor text- is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined). Used by search engines as an important ranking factor. Google pays particular attention to the text used in a hyperlink and associates the keywords contained in the anchor text to the page being linked to. Also see "Google bombing."
Absolute Link
www.netconcepts.com
The above is an example of an Absolute Link.
It specifies a
- transfer protocol
- domain name
- and often a file name
“Absolute Link verses Relative Link
AJAX(Asynchronous JavaScript And XML)- Allows you to create a more user-friendly web application by working behind the scenes (inside a web browser) by making web pages feel more responsive.
In short, it allows JavaScript scripts to send data requests and receive responses without having to reload the entire page.
Bait and Switch Bait and switch is considered as a spam technique when used in SEO. It provides one page for a search engine or directory and a different page for other user agents at the same URL. Sometimes it creates an optimized page and submits to search engines or directory, but replaces with the regular page as soon as the optimized page has been indexed.
Bidding- Bidding means placing a bid price that you are willing to pay as an advertiser on a pay-per-click search engine. The highest bid for a given keyword achieves the top spot in the PPC search results. In Overture, the top three bids are "featured" on Overture's partners' sites, including AOL, Altavista, Infospace, and others. The minimum bid amount on Overture is 5 cents per clickthrough.
Black Hat SEO-Black Hat SEO is sometimes called spamdexing (the opposite of White Hat SEO). Black Hat SEO can be any optimization tactics that cause a site to rank more highly than its content would otherwise justify or any changes made specifically for search engines that don’t improve the user’s experience of the site. In other words, Black Hat SEO is optimizations that are against search engine guidelines. If you step too far over the mark, your site may be penalized or even removed from the index.
For example, adding product reviews to e-commerce site is encouraged, because it adds useful content to the site. However, using bait-and-switch techniques to create a doorway page that hooks people querying for information on soccer, it then leads to information about health products will be unacceptable.
The following Black Hat SEO tactics should be avoided to keep your site away from penalties:
• Keyword, anchor text and domain name stuffing
• Using hidden text or links
• Using techniques to artificially increase the number of links to your pages, such as link farms
• Excessively cross-linking sites to increase link popularity
• Cloaking, delivering different pages depending on the IP address and/or agent who is requesting it
• Doorway / Gateway / Jump Pages
• Duplicate content taken from other sites
• Auto-generated content of no value to the end user
• Spamming forums or blogs
• Excessive outbound links to websites that use high risk techniques or spam
Last but not least, stay close to search engine guidelines is always a good idea while optimizing your site.
Blacklist- lists that either search engines or vigilante users compile of search engine spammers, which may be used to ban those spammers from search engines or to boycott them.
Bot
Short for robot. See "spider"
Bulk submission services
an ASP that submits many URLs to the search engines on your behalf. For example: SubmitWolf. Search engines don't like these. (see "automated submitting")
Call To Action-A call to action is copy used in advertising to encourage a person to complete an action as defined by the advertiser.
Call to action words are "doing words" such as "Click here", "Buy Now", "Enter Now" or "Click to download".
Cgi-bin- a "virtual" directory contained in URLs indicates a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) script is in use. A sure tip-off to the spider that your page is dynamic.
Click-down Ad or Click-within Ad- An ad that allows the user to stay on the same web page, while viewing requested advertising content. Click-downs display another file on the user's screen, normally below or above the initial ad.
Click-withins allow the user to drill down for more information within the ad.
Clickthrough-The action of clicking an ad element and causing a redirect to another web page.
Clickthrough rate- the rate at which people click on a link such as a search engine listing or a banner ad. Studies show that clickthrough rates are six times higher for search engine listings than banner ads.
Cookie- information placed on a visitor's computer by a web server. While the web site is being accessed, data in the visitor's cookie file can be stored or retrieved. Mostly cookies are used as unique identifiers (i.e. user IDs or session IDs) to isolate a visitor's movements from others' during that visit and subsequent visits. Other data that may get stored in a cookie include an order number, email address, referring advertiser, etc.
Database-driven- As in "database-driven web site." Means that the website is connected to a database and web page content is based in part on information extracted from those databases.
Database-generated- As in "database-generated web page." Means that a web page is created dynamically 'on-the-fly' from a database, in contrast with a static HTML page.
Deep submitting- submitting URLs of pages deep in your site to the search engines. For example, if a webmaster of 200-page website submits each of those 200 pages. This tactic is frowned upon by some search engines because it unnecessarily clogs up their submission database when the search engine spider could find those pages on its own by exploring links starting at the home page.
Doorway page- Also known as a "bridge page" or a "gateway page". A doorway page is a web page full of keyword-rich copy that doesn't deliver any useful information on it other than a link into the site, and whose sole purpose is to be fed to the search engines
Dynamic- generated 'on-the-fly' from a database. Also see "database-driven."
Dynamic Rotation- Delivery of ads on a rotating, random basis. Dynamic rotation allows ads to be served on different pages of the site and exposes users to a variety of ads.
Forums-A virtual community. Also known as discussion forums. Used by search engine optimizers and webmasters for information exchange. Users can post messages in different forums, either to the group at large or to certain users. However, all postings can be seen by anyone else who has access to that forum, so save sensitive materials for private email. Forums are also threaded, which means a reply to a particular posting becomes part of the "thread" of that posting that can be followed to provide a cohesive progression through a particular topic.
GAP - Google Advertising Professional- Google Advertising Professional is a free program, offered by Google, for professionals wishing to manage multiple Google Adwords clients.
Gateway page- Also called a "doorway page" or a "bridge page". A gateway page is a low quality web page that contains very little content and exists solely for the purpose of driving traffic to another page. This is done through spamdexing, spamming the index of a search engine. Gateway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings.
Geo-Targeting-Advertising that is distributed based on geographic location. Online advertising allows for targeting of countries, states, cities and suburbs (in some markets).
Google- Google is the world's number one search engine with a 50.8% market share, ahead of Yahoo! 23.6% and Live Search 8.4% (Dec 2006)
Google was founded by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. At the time of the company’s initial public offering in August 2004 $1.67 billion was raised, making Google worth $23 billion.
Google’s success should be attributed to its unique algorithmic ranking system PageRank – a system that assigns a score to a web page based on the number of links to that page.
Based in Mountain View, California the company now employs 13,748 people. The company has a relaxed corporate atmosphere that is illustrated in the companies philosophy "Don't be evil".
Central to Google's profitability is Google Adwords launched in 2000. Google Adwords are text-based contextual ads relevant to keyword searches. In 2006 the company earned $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues about 90 times the revenue from other Google ventures.
Google has acquired several start-up companies over the past few years including:
· Pyra Labs creators of Blogger in 1999
· Upstartle, creators of Writely in 2006.
· Measure Map, a weblog statistics application in 2006.
· YouTube for a huge $1.65 billion in stock in 2006.
· JotSpot a developer of wiki technology in 2006.
· DoubleClick purchased for $3.1 billion in 2007.
· Postini an enterprise messaging security company in 2007.
Current Google applications include: Web search, Image Search, Google News,Google Product Search, Google Groups, Google Maps, Gmail, AdWords, Google Video, Google Checkout and Google Earth
Google Analytics-Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offering detailed visitor statistics. The tool can be used to track all the usual site activities: visits, page views, pages per visit, bounce rates and average time on site etc.
But it can also be used to specifically track Adsense traffic – therefore helping webmasters to optimize Adwords adverts based on where visitors come from, time on site, click path and geographic location.
Modeled on Urchin’s analytics tool, after Google purchased Urchin Software Group in 2005, Google Analytics was first rolled out in late 2005. The response was overwhelming and Google had to suspend sign ups only a few days later. After a short period using a lottery type of invitation system – the tool made generally available in August 2006.
Features Include:
*Updates in less than one hour
*Users can add up to 50 websites
*Integration with Google Adwords
*User friendly interface - Dashboard format
Google bombing- Google Bombing is when a group of sites such as blogs join forces to link to an unflattering page about a company such that this page rises to the top of the search results in Google. Google bombing takes advantage of the power of hyperlink text and of PageRank. For example, if a group of sites with high PageRank all link to a page about XYZ Company's inappropriate behavior with hyperlink text of "XYZ Company sucks" then the linked page can shoot to the top of Google's search results for the term "XYZ Company.”
Google Bowling- Google Bowling is a black hat SEO technique used to knock competitors down or out of search engine results.
It is a form of SEO sabotage that is conducted by pointing hundreds of questionable links from low quality sites at a competitor's site so they end up banned or penalized by Google.
Generally newer sites are more susceptible to Google Bowling as older sites are better established with a range of existing high quality links.
Google Checkout- Google's online payment processing service, Google Checkout, was designed to simplify the online purchase/payment process.
It works by allowing users to store their credit card and shipping details on their Google Account. Therefore minimizing the amount of information they need to input at the point of purchase. Purchases can be made at the click of a button.
Features include:
* Fraud protection
* The ability to track purchases
* Easy transactions
Google Dance- The Google Dance refers to when Google indexes are updated. This period of time often results in fluctuations in the index size and some noticeable changes in search engine result positions.
The term Google Dance was adopted as while an update is being processed the position of a website in Google seems to "dance" as it fluctuates. The fluctuation is due to each of Google's nine datacenters being updated out of sync - meaning for a time the results are different.
Google Juice- Internet slang to refer to the substance which flows between web pages via their hyperlinks. Pages with lots of links pointing to them acquire much 'Google Juice' and pages which link to highly 'juicy' pages acquire some reflected 'Google Juice'. [edit]
Google Labs- Google Labs is the home to Google's latest innovations and beta products. It is a testing ground for new services in development.
A number of popular products are graduates of Google Labs including: Google Reader, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Video, Personalized Search, Google Desktop and iGoogle.
Current Google Labs products include:
* Google Code Search
* Google Transit
* Google Music Trends
* Accessible Search
* Google Extensions for Firefox
* Google Trends
* Google Mars
* Google Page Creator
* Google Dashboard Widgets for Mac
* Google Web Accelerator
* Google Ride Finder
* Google Suggest
* Product Search for Mobile
* Google Sets
Google Pack- Free software specifically selected by Google. There are no trial versions or spyware and it's ready to use in just a few clicks.
Currently includes:
- Google Earth
- Spyware Doctor
- Google Photos Screensaver
- Star Office
- Norton Security Scan
- Google Desktop
- Google Talk
- Picasa
- Adobe Reader
- Firefox with Google Toolbar
- Skype
- Real Player
Google Supplemental Index-Google's Supplemental Index, is a secondary database containing Supplemental Results – pages deemed to be of less importance by Google’s algorithm or are less trusted.
The primary measure of a pages importance is the number and quality of links pointing to that page. Pages in the Supplemental Index can still rank in search results, but this will depend on the number of pages in the main index relevant to the search.
Some reasons pages may be in the Google Supplemental Index:
* Duplicate content
* Low PageRank
* Lack of trust
* A site with a large number of pages
* Page freshness
* Excessively long URLs
As of July 2007 Google discontinued the practice of placing a “Supplemental Result” tag on search results making it near impossible to tell whether a result is in the supplemental index or the main one.
Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer- Google Toolbar is Internet browser add on available for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Features for Internet Explorer Google Toolbar include:
- Search Settings Notifier
- Pop-up blocker
- Address bar browse by name
- Google search box
- Google Suggest
- A SpellCheck
- AutoLink & AutoFill
- PageRank display
- Google Account sign-in
- Google Bookmarks
Google Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox- Google Toolbar is Internet browser add on available for both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Features for Mozilla Firefox Google Toolbar include:
- Access to Google Docs & Spreadsheets
- Customize the layout options
- Handle mailto: links with Gmail.
- Google search box
- Google Suggest
- A SpellCheck
- AutoLink & AutoFill
- PageRank display
- Google Account sign-in
- Google Bookmarks
Google Traffic Estimator- Google Traffic Estimator is a tool that indicates the number of clicks to expect on Google Adwords ads for particular keywords.
The tool can be used to indicate search volume, average cost per click, estimated ad positions, estimated clicks per day and estimated cost per day.
Google Traffic Estimator- does not provide a numeric estimate of the number of search queries, instead it offers only a visual estimation of search volume in a small graphic.
Google Trends-Google Trends is a tool from Google Labs. It allows you to see how Google search volumes for a particular keyword have changed over a period of time. It shows the popularity of search terms from the beginning of 2004 onwards.
Google Trends data is presented in a line graph. The horizontal axis represents time and the vertical axis shows how often a term is searched for. Data can be broken down further by region, city and language. You can also compare multiple search terms.
Google XML Sitemap- Google Sitemaps are XML files that list the URLs available on a site. The aim is to help site owners notify search engines about the URLs on a website that are available for indexing.
Webmasters can include information about each URL, such as when it was last updated and its importance in the context of the site.
You should try to make all pages on your site easily accessible to search engines without the use of google sitemaps. But there are situations when your site might benefit from Sitemaps Protocol like for instance if your site is built in rich AJAX or Flash, or if you have a large database driven site that isn’t well linked.
Googlebot- Googlebot is a search bot used by Google. It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google search engine.
If a webmaster wishes to restrict the information on their site available to a Googlebot, or other well-behaved spider, they can do so by with the appropriate directives in a robots.txt file.
Googleware- The assortment of tools produced by google that can be used to search, report, play, research
Includes (but is not limited to):
Blogsearch
Google Analytics
Adwords
Adsense
Google Video
Google Scholar
Google News
Google search
Froogle
Google Maps
Google Images
Google Earth
Googlewhack- A Google search query consisting of two words, that returns a single result.
Grey Hat SEO-SEO using both Black Hat and White Hat techniques.
Seth Godin-Seth Godin is a author, blogger and internet entrepreneur.
Godin founded Yoyodyne, one of the first online marketing companies in 1995, the company was sold to Yahoo! in 1998.
He is the author of several bestselling books. Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year. Ideavirus is one of the most popular ebooks ever written with over 1,000,000 people downloading the book.
Recently Godin founded the website Squidoo. Godin holds an MBA from Stanford.
Hallway page- a page that serves as an index to a group of pages that you would like the search engine spiders to find. Once a search engine spider indexes the hallway page, it should also follow all the links on that hallway page and in turn index those pages as well.]
Heading tag-An HTML tag that is often used to denote a page or section heading on a web page. Search engines pay special attention to text that is marked with a heading tag, as such text is set off from the rest of the page content as being more important.
Hidden keywords
Keywords that are placed in the HTML source in such a way that these words are not viewable by human visitors looking at the rendered web page.
Hidden Text - SEO Spam Tactic
Hidden Text is a SEO spam tactic to hide contextual html text from human visitors to a webpage, however making it available to search engines to spider the text.
The theory is that if you place more relevant html text content on the page rich with targeted keywords, then it will assist the page gaining ranking within search engine results. Some website owners do like text content on their page because they believe it negatively affects their brand and user web experience. So, they hide the text in the hope that the page will still rank for targeted keywords.
Hidden Text is an illegal technique as search engines consider it search engine spam. By undertaking this practice, it will eventually harm natural search performance of a website.
Hijacking of Websites
Hijacking of websites is a practice that makes search engines believe that a specific website resides at another URL. It is a form of search engine spam and cloaking. The reason why this method is undertaken by spammers is to increase rankings in search engine result pages. Webpage Hijacking is an illegal spam tactic.
When spiders crawl websites and they discover two pages with the same content, the search engine will decide which is the main url while the other is not indexed. Spammers will use tactics to ensure that their page is the one that is chosen by the search engine.
An example of website hijacking is where there are two pages with exactly the same content but at different addresses – company.com (the real site) and company.net (the rogue site). Spammers use tactics to ensure their site ranks above the real site.
Hits- a download of a file from a web server. Hits do not correlate with web page visits. Every graphic on a web page counts as a hit. Thus, a single access of a web page with 20 unique graphics on it register as 21 hits - 20 for the graphics and 1 for the HTML page. Web metrics guru Jim Sterne says hits "stand for How Idiots Track Success." People who talk in terms of hits are usually either ignorant or are trying to snow their boss into thinking the website is doing better than it really is.
Homepage-A homepage is the main page of a website. Like a cover of a book or the front of a store, its function is to welcome people and to inform them of the overall purpose of the website. The homepage offers an index of navigation that organizes content and leads to other parts of the website.
The homepage usually accumulates the most PageRank score since its url is usually where other sites link to the most. The url of a homepage usually ends in a domain name extension such as .com, .org, .edu, etc.
Other terms used to describe a homepage are front page, main web page and webserver directory index.
It’s interesting to note that in some countries such as Japan, Korea and Germany, the term “homepage” usually refers to the whole website, not just the first page.
Even though the home page is designed to be the entry point of the website, people can go directly to other pages within the site without ever seeing the front page.
HTML-Stands for HyperText Markup Language. The programming language used to mark up web content and display it in a formatted manner. It's up to the web browser software, e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape, to render HTML source.
HTML Source-The raw, unrendered programming code. It can be accessed in Internet Explorer by going to the "View" menu then selecting "Source".
HTTP 301 – Status Code Definition-The 301 status code means the URI requested has “Moved Permanently” and has been assigned a new URI. Any future requests should use one of the returned URIs.
It is best practice to use 301 Redirects when multiple copies of the same document reside on different URIs. This will ensure that duplicate content is removed from the site and each and every unique page will only have one URL
.
HTTP 302 – Status Code Definition-The 302 status code means that the document requested is “Found” however temporarily resides under a different URL. Since a permanent redirect has not been used, the client should continue to use the original requested URL for future requests.
HTTP 400 – Status Code Definition-The 400 status code means a “Bad Request” stating that the server is not able to understand the document request due to a malformed syntax. The user is required to modify its request prior to repeating it.
HTTP 401 – Status Code Definition-The 401 status code means “Unauthorized”. This server requests user authentication prior to fulfilling the document request.
HTTP 403 – Status Code Definition-The 403 status code means “Forbidden”. The server understood the request, however is refusing to fulfill it. The webmaster may wish to alert the user why their request has been denied. If the organization does not wish to provide this reason then a 404 (Not Found) status code can be displayed instead.
HTTP 404 – Status Code Definition-The response error message “404” represents a document “Not Found”. This means that the client was able to communicate with the server, however could not find the requested document. Alternatively, the server could be configured to not fulfill the request and not provide a reason why.
HTTP 410 – Status Code Definition-Similar to a 404 Not Found error message, the 410 status code states that the requested document is “intentionally gone”, is no longer available and there is no forwarding address.
The 410 status code is usually used for limited display documents such as promotional information. It is up to the discretion of the web master to determine at what point to remove the 410 status message.
HTTP 500 – Status Code Definition-The 500 status code error message states that there was an internal server error which has prevented the document from being fulfilled.
HTTP 501 – Status Code Definition-The 501 status code message is displayed when the server does not recognize the document request method. The server is not capable of fulfilling this request and states the request was “Not Implemented”.
HTTP – Hypertext Markup Language-HTTP stands for hypertext markup language and is the main markup language for creation of web pages. It defines how data is structured and informs the web browser how the page is to be displayed with the use of formatting text and images.
Some of the page elements that can be coded with HTML include Page Titles, Text (paragraphs, lines and phrases), Lists (unordered, ordered and definition lists), Tables, Forms, Basic HTML Data Types (character data, colors, lengths, content types, etc) and much more.
The source html code of any webpage is available by simply clicking “Page Source” in a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer.
HTML is not a programming language and therefore is quite static in nature. It is considered to be a subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language).
Tim Berners Lee first described HTML and it was publicly available in 1991 via a document called “HTML Tags”.
HTML became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000) and its specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) of which commercial software vendors offer input.
Hubs-Hubs are a range of centralized websites linking to many related topical Authority websites. Characteristics of a hub are:
1. Many outbound links to sites (typically Authority sites) that contain relevant content
2. The content on the hub site is highly focused
A site can either be a hub, an authority, both, or neither. An authority or hub site will get preferential treatment by a search engine algorithm that incorporates “topic distillation”.
Inetrnet-Sometimes called "The Net", the Internet is a publicly accessible worldwide system of computer networks that enable people to send and receive information from other computers. The Internet uses the TCP/IP network protocols to facilitate data transmission.
There are three levels of hierarchy including backbone networks, mid-level networks and stub networks. These include commercial (.com or .co), university (.ac or .edu) and other research networks (.org, .net).
The origins of the Internet began in 1962 where a government agency called RAND was commissioned by the US Air Force to develop a military research network that could survive a nuclear attack. Packet Switching was invented as a way of sending data.
The first email program was created in 1972. The TCP/IP Protocol was developed in 1973 and by 1983 it became the core Internet protocol.
The same year of 1983 saw the development of the Domain Name System (DNS) by the University of Wisconsin. The domain name system made it easier for people to access other servers rather than having to remember the corresponding long IP numbers.
In 1992 the World Wide Web was released by CERN and the Internet Society was chartered who controls the Internet. The first graphical user interface to the WWW called “Mosaic for X” was released.
By 1996, most Internet traffic was carried by independent ISPs. The Internet Society is building a new TCP/IP that will allow billions of addresses rather than the limited supply that we have today.
Internet Explorer-Introduced in 1995, Internet Explorer is a web browser produced by Microsoft. It is also known as Explorer, IE, Microsoft Internet Explorer or MSIE. Internet Explorer is the most widely used browser in the world to view information on the World Wide Web (WWW).
This browser didn’t get popular until version 3 was released in 1996 which supported CSS, ActiveX controls, Java applets, inline multimedia and the PICS system for content metadata.
Version 8 is currently in development where further improvements will be made to the security of the browser. There will also be more support for CSS 2.1 specifications.
Over the years (particularly in the early releases) Internet Explorer has been subject to harsh criticisms including its security architecture and its lack of support of open standards.
Interstitial Ad-An ad page that appears for a short period of time before the user-requested page is displayed. Also known as a transition ad, splash page, or Flash page.
Inventory-Advertising space available for purchase on a website. Based on projections, inventory may be specified as number of impressions or as a share of voice. Also known as ad avail.
Invisible Web-a term that refers to the vast amount of information on the web that is not indexed by the search engines. Coined in 1994 by Dr. Jill Ellsworth.
IP Address-IP Address stands for “Internet Protocol Address” and is sometimes referred to as “IP” or “Internet Address”. It is expressed as a four-part series of numbers separated by periods that identifies every sender and receiver of network data. The numbers represent the domain, the network, the subnetwork and the host computer. For example: 127.0.0.10 with each number ranging from 0 through to 255.
Each server or device connected to the Internet is assigned a unique permanent (static) or temporary (dynamic) IP address. The IP Address sometimes translates into a specific domain name.
ISP - Internet Service Provider-ISP is an abbreviation for Internet Service Provider. An ISP provides a range of Internet related services to customers including Internet connectivity, email, website hosting, domain name registration and hosting.
Usually provided for a monthly fee, an ISP can be a commercial business, a university, a government organization, a school or any other entity that provides access to the Internet to members or subscribers.
Java applets-Small programs written in the Java programming language that can be embedded into web pages. Applet programs run on the Internet user's computer rather than the web server's computer. Search engines can not run Java applets. Consequently, if navigation or content is embedded in a Java applet, it will be invisible to the search engines and will not get indexed. Java source code gets compiled into executable code called "bytecode."
JavaScripts-- programs written in the JavaScript programming language. JavaScripts run on the Internet user's computer rather than the web server's computer. Search engines can not run JavaScripts. Consequently, if navigation or content is embedded in a JavaScript.
Jump Page Ad-A microsite reached by clicking a button or banner. The jump page itself can list several topics, which can link to your site.
junk pages- meaningless documents that serve no purpose other than to spam the search engines with keyword stuffed pages in hopes a visitor might click on an adsense ad
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)-KPIs help organizations achieve organizational goals through the definition and measurement of progress. The key indicators are agreed upon by an organization and are indicators which can be measured that will reflect success factors. The KPIs selected must reflect the organization's goals, they must be key to its success, and they must be measurable. Key performance indicators usually are long-term considerations for an organization."
Keyword Matching-Keyword matching is the process of selecting and providing advertising or information that match the user's search query.
There are four types of keyword matching including:
Broad Match
Exact Match
Phrase Match
Negative Keyword
Keyword popularity-the number of occurrences of searches done by Internet users of a given keyword during a period of time. Both WordTracker.com and Overture's Keyword Selector Tool (http://inventory.overture.com) provide keyword popularity numbers.
Keyword-rich-when a given page or bit of text is chock full of good keywords rather than a bunch of meaningless words (e.g. "welcome", "click here") or irrelevant words (e.g. "solution").
Landing Page-The landing page is a web page where people go to once they click on an online advertisement or natural search listing.
Landing pages are designed to be highly relevant to the advertisement or search listing and encourage users to complete a "call to action".
The landing page is also known as the "click through URL" or "destination URL".
Example uses of landing pages are newsletter sign up forms, download demonstration trial software and purchasing of a product or service.
Link bait-Useful or entertaining web content which compels users to link to it.
Link building-Requesting links from webmasters of other sites for the purpose of increasing your "link popularity" and/or "PageRank."
Considerations for link building can include directory submissions and press release syndication.
Link farm-A link farm is a group of highly interlinked websites with the purposes of inflating link popularity (or PR). A link farm is a form of spamdexing, spamming the index of a search engine.
Link popularity-When other web sites link to your site, your site will rank better in certain search engines. The more web pages that link to you, the better your link popularity.
Link spam- Links between pages that are specifically set up to take advantage of link-based ranking algorithms such as Google's PageRank (PR).
Links- text or graphics that, when clicked on, take the Internet user to another web page location. Links are expressed as URLs.
Log file- All accesses to a web site can be logged by the web server. Data that is usually logged includes date and time, filename accessed, user's IP address, referring web page, user's browser software and version, and cookie data.
Mod_rewrite-A module or plugin for Apache web servers that can be used to rewrite requested URLs on the fly.
It supports an unlimited number of rules and an unlimited number of attached rule conditions for each rule to provide a flexible and powerful URL manipulation mechanism. Which can be used to offer both search engine friendly URLs, thus increasing indexing chances for a dynamic database driven website.
Navigation bar (nav bar)- a web site's navigation icons, usually arranged in a row down the left hand side or along the top that plays crucial roles in directing spiders to the site's most important content and in getting site visitors to go deeper in the site
Negative Keyword-Negative Keyword is a term referenced by Google AdWords and is a form of keyword matching. This means that an advertiser can specify search terms that they do not want their ad to be associated with.
For example, if you add the negative keyword "-nike" to the keyword "running shoes", the ad will not be displayed if a person searches upon the term "nike running shoes".
Negative keyword matching ensures that only qualified traffic is clicking upon advertising.
Negative SEO- The act of demoting a page or site from the SERPS. Most often used against a competitor that is above your site in the SERPS but can be used purely for fun.
Noframes tag-alternative non-framed HTML on a frameset page for very old, non-frames capable web browsers and search engine spiders. Placing good keyword-rich text in noframes tags is a good idea if your site is framed, but a much better idea is to ditch frames altogether and rebuild the site properly. A framed web site is not search engine friendly as long as it uses noframes tags.
Pagejacking-Stealing high-ranking web page content from another site and placing it on your site in the hopes of increasing your own site's search engine rankings. Pagejacking is yet another shady way of gaming the search engines and, as such, its use should be strongly discouraged.
Pay-per-post (PPP)-A website designed to help content creators such as bloggers find advertisers willing to sponsor specific content.
PDF-Adobe's Portable Document Format, a file format that renders the page exactly as intended regardless of the computer used. Typically used for creating documents that will be printed. PDF is used instead of HTML when the content creator wants absolute control over the display of the document. In contrast, the display of an HTML document depends on the computer and web browser software used.
PHP-an "open source" programming language for building dynamic web sites. PHP can be used to write server-side programs that access databases. PHP is the most popular web programming language - more popular than Microsoft's ASP (Active Server Pages), JSP (Java Server Pages), and Macromedia's Cold Fusion. PHP is especially well-suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP is secure, easy to learn, efficient, fast to code and fast to deploy. PHP is being used by over nine million web sites (over 24% of the sites on the Internet), due largely to benefits such as quicker response time, improved security, and transparency to the end user.
Phrase Match- Phrase Match is a form of keyword matching where an ad will be displayed if the user's search query includes the exact phrase, even if their query contains additional words.
For example if the terms "running shoes" are associated with an ad and the user searches upon the term "blue running shoes", the ad will be displayed.
However, the ad will not be displayed if the search query is "shoes for running".
Pop-under- A pop-up that appears underneath the currently active web browser window. An annoying, if not shady, tactic used by some web advertisers.
Pop-up- A web page that displays within a new, typically smaller, web browser window, rather than the currently active browser window. Search engine spiders don't typically follow pop-up (or pop-under) links. Pop-ups are often times used for promotions, ads, email newsletter invitations, survey invitations, and the like.
Portal- A site that functions as a point of access to information on the web. Portals are either authoritative hubs for a given subject or popular content driven sites.
Pull-down list-On a web form, where the user chooses from a list of items. For example, if you are asked to identify which country you are from, this will typically be done using a pull-down list. A pull-down list is usually displayed with the first item within a box and a down arrow immediately to the right. Clicking on the down arrow will display the full list to choose from. Search engine spiders can't fill out forms or pull down on lists, so content that is only accessible through pull-down lists will not be indexed and will be part of the "Invisible Web."
Repeat Visitor- A repeat visitor is a single individual or browser who accesses a website or webpage more than once over a specified period of time.
ROI - Return On Investment-The benefit gained in return for the cost of investing budget into advertising or project. ROI can be measured by the following calculation:
"Total Revenues (generated from campaign or project) minus Total Costs"
Run of Site (ROS)-The scheduling of ads across an entire site, often at a lower cost than the purchase of specific pages or sub-sections of the site. A run-of-site ad campaign is rotated on all general, non-featured ad spaces on a site.
Stop word-Certain words, such as "the," "a", "an," "of," and "with," are so common and meaningless that a search engine won't bother including them in their index, or database, of web page content. So in effect, the stop words on your web pages are ignored as if those words weren't on your pages in the first place. Including a lot of stop words in your title tag waters down the title tag's keyword density.
Supplemental Pages-Pages which are indexed in Google but do not exist at this time. But during searching for a particular thing they are shown in the search result pages. These pages provides additional information about the particular search.
Stop character-Certain characters, such as ampersand (&), equals sign (=), and question mark (?), when in a web page's URL, tip off a search engine that the page in question is dynamic. Search engines are cautious of indexing dynamic pages for fear of spider traps, thus pages that contain stop characters in their URL run the risk of not getting indexed and becoming part of the "Invisible Web." Google won't crawl more than one dynamic level deep. So dynamic pages with stop characters in its URL should get indexed if a static page links to it. Eliminating stop characters from all URLs on your site will go a long way in ensuring that your entire site gets indexed by Google.
Stemming-Search engines such as Google use a process called stemming to deliver results based on a word's root spelling.
An example would be similar search results returned for clothes as for the word clothing.
Static- As in "static web page." Means that the web page was not created dynamically from a database, but instead previously created and saved as a HTML file.
Unethical SEO- Unethical search engine optimization techniques that are considered unscrupulous and can result in getting sites banned from the search engines. Examples of this include Keyword stuffing, where the site consists of a long list of keywords. Hidden text is when the text on the page is the same color as the background and often consists of lists of keywords that are put there in hope of tricking search engine spiders. Doorway pages that are designed for search engines and spiders in an attempt to trick them into indexing the web site into a higher position.
Unique visitors- Unique visitors are a count of individual users who have accessed your web site. It should be noted that the "user session" metric does not yield an accurate unique visitor count, as multiple user sessions can be generated by one unique visitor.
Universe- The term "universe" in the world of advertising means the total population of the target audience.
URL- used interchangeably with web address. Acronym stands for Uniform Resource Locator. URLs can specify the location of a web page, an email address, or a file on an FTP server, among other things.
URL Rewrite-A technique used to help make web site URLs more user and search engine friendly.
Usability- How user friendly a web site is. The ease of use that a user can perform an action or task through the user interface.
Usenet- Bulletin board network featuring thousands of newsgroups.
User agent- The name of the browser/spider that is currently visiting a page. For example, "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
User Generated Content- User-generated-content (USG) is content created and published by the end-users online. USG is comprised of videos, podcasts and posts on discussion groups, blogs, wiki's and social media sites. USG allows for a wider content provider base and the chance for all users to share their opinions online. Criticism of USG includes credibility and quality issues.
User session- an instance of an Internet user accessing your web site for a length of time, then leaving. During a user session any number of pages may be accessed. A user session is considered finished once an arbitrarily chosen period of inactivity - typically 30 minutes - is exceeded.
Web browser-Software installed on the Internet user's computer that allows him or her to view web pages. Popular web browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera.
Web Crawler-Also known as a 'web robot' or 'web spider', it is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner.
Web standards-Web standards are widely adopted guidelines for CSS, XHTML etc. Web standards help ensure that web sites are accessible on a wide variety of platforms and to a wide range of users including users with disabilities.
Web2.0-Web2.0 refers to the new generation of web based services and communities characterised by participation, collaboration and sharing of information among users online.
Web2.0 applications include wikis, folksonomies, blogs and social networking sites which encourage user-generated content (USG) and social interaction online.
WeblogA weblog, or blog is an online journal. Weblogs are something of a phenomenon and have become increasing mainstream. Blog search engine Technorati listed 71 million weblogs as of May 2007.
Weblog authors choose whether to blog openly or anonymously. Weblog entries are made regularly and chronologically but are displayed in reverse chronological order. The range of topics covered is endless. Some weblogs focus on a particular subject like travel, fashion, or astrology while others are personal online diaries.
Weblogs typically are made up of posts, images, videos, comments and links.
Popular blogging platforms include: Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, LiveJournal and Dreamhost
White hat SEO-Ethical SEO approved by the search engines.
Wikipedia- Launched in January 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is now the largest and fastest growing encyclopedia online. In fact it is one of the world’s ten most visited websites.
As of September 2007 the English Edition of Wikipedia had a massive 2 million articles and 609 million words, making it around 15 times the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The site has more than 100 servers set up to deal with the 10,000 – 35,000 page requests every second.
Wikipedia is multilingual and is currently available in 253 languages. Operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization, it is a collaboratively written by volunteers around the world.
Contributing to Wikipedia:
* Is a peer-reviewed publication.
* Does not require contributors legal names
* Requires contributions are supported by published and verifiable sources.
Due to its open nature, Wikipedia has been criticized as an easy target for trolls, vandals, internet marketers, advertisers, and even those with a political agenda to push. However studies have shown that vandalism is usually short-lived and that generally the site is as accurate as other encyclopedias.
Wikipedia uses MediaWiki as its software platform, MediaWiki is free open source software built on a MySQl database.
Wordpress-Wordpress is an excellent open-source web publishing system or content management system. Created primarily as blogging software, Wordpress is written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database, it is ideal for managing content that is frequently updated.
Distributed under the GNU General Public License the latest version, Wordpress 2.2.3, was released on Sept 8, 2007.
WordPress is described as a “state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability” by its creators.
Features include: Integrated link management
* Plugin support
* Search friendly permalink structure
* Static Pages
* Trackbacks
* Pingbacks
* Typographic filters
* WYSIWYG
* Nested categories
* Multiple authors
Wordtracker -Wordtracker is a popular keyword research tool established by Andy Mindel and Mike Mindel in 1997.
It is designed to assist search marketing professionals and webmasters in identifying important keywords and phrases relevant to their website. It provides detailed information on the number of searches, predicted number of daily searches, competing pages and KEI data. Information can be broken down by search engine.
Search terms are collected from - Dogpile and Metacrawler which represent around 1% of searches online. Due to its relatively small sample size Wordtracker is vulnerable to competitor spamming, and errors in the database can be magnified. Some terms can appear to be more popular than they really are – and others will be omitted all together.
