Search Engine Optimization Glossary

Address

See "URL".

AdWords

Google's CPC (Cost Per Click) based text advertising. AdWords takes clickthrough rate into consideration in addition to advertiser's bid to determine the ad's relative position within the paid search results, which is a notable difference from Overture's CPC model that is based purely on bid amount. Google applies such a weighting factor in order to feature those paid search results that more popular and thus presumably more relevant and useful. You can apply for AdWords Select at https://adwords.google.com/select/main.

Agent Delivery

The process of sending search engine spiders to a tailored page, yet directing your visitors to what you want them to see. This is done using server side includes (or other dynamic content techniques). SSI, for example, can be used to deliver different content to the client depending on the value of HTTP_USER_AGENT. Most normal browser software packages have a user agent string which starts with "Mozilla" (coined from Mosaic and Godzilla). Most search engine spiders have specific agent names, such as "Gulliver", "Infoseek sidewinder", "Lycos spider" and "Scooter".

Agent Name

This is the name of the browser/spider that is currently visiting a page.

Algorithm

Mathematical formula used to rank web sites.

Alt Tag

The alternate text associated with a web page graphic that gets displayed when the Internet user hovers the mouse over the graphic. Alt tags should convey what the graphic is for or about and contain good relevant keywords. Alt tags also make web pages more accessible to the disabled. For example, a vision-impaired user may have a web browser that reads aloud the text and alt tags on a page. (For those familiar with html, "alt" isn't actually a tag by itself but an attribute to the "img" tag.)

Alt Text

Short form for Alternative Text, it is an <img> property that is used as a placeholder when the image is loading [and for usability purposes]. In the case of image links, it seems to have weight akin to anchor text.

Altavista

One of the most popular search engines in the earlier development of the internet. Now barely used, and owned by Yahoo!

Anchor Text

This is the actual text part of a link. It can be used heavily by search engines as a ranking factor.

Announcing

Submitting a web page address to a search engine in the hopes that it will index it. Submitting your pages using an automated tool (see "automated submitting"), submitting multiple pages of the same web site (see "deep submitting"), or submitting multiple times (see "resubmitting"), particularly if those pages are already indexed, are techniques typically frowned upon by search engines. It is suspected that some search engines apply a penalty factor to pages that were submitted versus those that the search engine spiders found on their own. Indeed, Inktomi was engaging in this practice before they discontinued accepting free submissions altogether.

AOL Netfind

The default search engine for users of the AOL internet service provider, and hence a busy site. Its URL is http://www.netfind.com/. It is essentially the same engine as Excite.

Applet

A small program, often written in Java, which usually runs in a web browser, as part of a web page. It is possible that the use of such a program may cause spiders and robots to stop indexing a page.

Architextspider

The name of the Excite search engine's spider.

Article PR

The submitting of free reprint articles to many article submission sites and article distribution lists in order to increase your website's search engine ranking and Google PageRank. (In this sense, the "PR" stands for PageRank.) Like traditional public relations, article PR also conveys a sense of authority because your articles are widely published. And because you're proving your expertise and freely dispensing knowledge, your readers will trust you and will be more likely to remain loyal to you. (In this sense, the "PR" stands for Public Relations.)

Ask Jeeves (AJ)

A meta search engine which can be asked questions in English. This service is also in use at Altavista. http://www.askjeeves.com.

ASP

Active Server Pages. A Microsoft-invented, proprietary programming language for building dynamic web sites.

Automated submitting

Using automated software such as WebPosition Gold or an Application Service Provider (ASP) such as Microsoft b-central's Submit-It service to submit your web pages to the search engines. This tactic is frowned upon by the search engines. Indeed, some search engines such as AltaVista have completely automated submissions by requiring the user to re-key in a one-time use submission code that is displayed on the submission page as a graphic.

ATW

Abbreviation for AllTheWeb, a search engine powered by FAST.

Back Link

A link from one website to another.

Bad Neighborhood

A web page that has been penalized by a search engine (most notably Google) for using shady SEO tactics, such as hidden text or link farms.

Banned

When pages are removed from a search engine's index specifically because the search engine has deemed them to be spamming or violating some type of guidelines.

Benefit Statement

Benefit statements express how your company's product or service solves an immediate need and clarifies a specific unique sales proposition. These statements are written in a "What's in it for me?" fashion where company features are immediately linked to client benefits.Benefit statements may be different for different target groups, depending on their motivations. Typical benefit statements are linked to such bottom-line motivators as: saving time, saving or making more money, helping someone be more attractive to the opposite sex, streamlining operations, gaining new clients, gaining an industry niche or power, et cetera.

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.

Blind Traffic

Low quality traffic that is usually generated by mis-leading advertising, spam, and traffic from any market segment.

Bid Management Tool

Software or an ASP service used to manage bids on pay-per-click search engines such as Overture.

Bidding

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.

Blog

Also known as a "weblog". An online diary with entries made on a regular if not daily basis. Some blogs are maintained by an anonymous author who uses a nickname or handle instead of his or her real name.

Body copy

The 'meaty' textual content of a web page. Body copy refers to text visible to users, doesn't include graphical content, navigation, or information hidden in the HTML source code.

Boolean

A search formed by joining simple terms with AND, OR and NOT for the purpose of limiting or qualifying the search. If you search information on monkey training in Peru, and your search also brings back information on lion training and animals in Peru, the Boolean search "monkey AND training AND peru NOT animals" can narrow your search focus.

Bridge page

An optimized page submitted to search engines in order to rank high for very specific keywords. With the rise of link popularity as an integral part in ranking algorithms, this technique has become redundant. Such practice is considered spam by some search engines.

Brochureware

Brochureware is a negative term that denotes a print brochure being uploaded, without revision, as Web page text. Brochureware is always counterproductive and should be avoided at all costs. It doesn't take into account the interactivity of Web copy, nor is it typically written in a user-centric manner. Brochureware sites tend to see poor search engine positioning until the pages are rewritten for Web conversions.

Broken Link

See "Dead Link".

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").

Bot

Short for robot. See "spider".

Cache

Copies of web pages stored locally on an Internet user's hard drive or within a search engine's database. A cache is the reason why web pages load so quickly when a user hits the Back button in their web browser, since the page is not being redownloaded off of the Internet. Google is unusual among search engines in that it allows Internet users to view the cached version of web pages in its index. Simply click on the word "Cache" next to the search result of interest and you will be taken to a copy of the page as Googlebot discovered and indexed it. This feature of Google makes it easy to spot cloaking.

Call-to-Action Link

Otherwise known as a hyperlink. Call-to-action links in Internet marketing campaigns guide the reader to a new action step. Call-to-action hyperlinks could lead a prospect to a new Web page, an email form, a text section within a page or a shopping cart. Correctly written, call-to-action links increase micro-conversion rates and can affect keyphrase relevancy.

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 Through Rate (CTR)

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.

Click Tracking

Using scripts to track clicks into and out from a website. Also can be used to shield a link from being picked up as a back link to another site.

Cloaking

Serving different content to search engine spiders than to human visitors. Cloaking is basically a "bait and switch" tactic, where the web server feeds visiting spiders content that is keyword-rich, thus fooling the search engine into placing that page higher in the search results. Yet when the visitor clicks on the link they are given different content, which may be totally unrelated. Search engines frown upon this practice and some will penalize or ban sites that they catch doing it.

Clustering

In search engine results page, clustering is limiting a website to appear once or twice in the results.

Cold Fusion

A web scripting language with limited capabilities, mostly centered around database access. Cold Fusion program files are saved on the web server with a .CFM file extension.

Comment Tag

An HTML tag that is invisible to end-users, but can be picked up by search engines.

Content

The information located on a web page. This includes text, images and other types of information that webmaster places on the page.

Conversion

The act of converting a web site visitor into a customer or at least taking that visitor a step closer to customer acquisition (such as convincing them to sign up for your e-mail newsletter).

Conversion Rate

The rate at which visitors get converted to customers or are moved a step closer to customer acquisition.

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.

Cost Per Action (CPA)

The cost incurred or price paid for a specific action, such as signing up for an email newsletter, entering a contest, registering on the site, completing a survey, downloading trial software, printing a coupon, etc

Cost Per Click (CPC)

The cost incurred or price paid for a clickthrough to your landing page.

Cost Per Thousand

The cost incurred or price paid for a thousand impressions.

Counter

Program that tracks the number of impressions to a webpage.

CPM

Cost per Mil (1000). Amount paid for every 1000 views of an advertisement.

Crawl

This is the process by which a search engine indexes web pages into its database. Please refer to spider for more information.

Crawler

See "spider".

Cross Linking

Multiple sites all linking to each other.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheet. Used to easily manipulate and effect the design of a webpage.

Custom error page

You can customize the content and the look-and-feel of the default page that is displayed on your web server when a 404 File Not Found error occurs. A good 404 error page has a friendly message explaining that the page they requested doesn't exist at the location, a site map to encourage the user to continue exploring the site, a search box so the user can conduct a search, and a look-and-feel that matches the rest of the site, including navigation of course. Creating a custom 404 error page not only helps keep visitors in your site, it is also an important part of the search engine optimization process. Inevitably pages on your site will get moved and removed over time. When a search engine spider returns to your site to reindex those now non-existent pages, they will have a set of links to explore in the form of the site map on the custom 404 page. You can test for whether a site has a custom 404 error page by trying to access a web page with a nonsense filename after the domain name in the web site address. For example: www.yourcompany.com/blah.

CTA

Abbreviation for Content Targeted Ad(vertising). It refers to the placement of relevant PPC ads on content pages for non-search engine websites.

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.

Dead Link

A link to a page that does not exist, probably because the page no longer exists, the page has moved, or the server is down. Automated programs can be used to check your website to ensure such dead links do not exist. A dead link leads to a '404 error 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.

De-listing

This means that your website is now removed from a search engine's index. There are several possible reasons for this, including extended downtime and techniques perceived by search engines to be 'spam'.

Description

Pretty self-explanatory, it is descriptive text which concisely explains the purpose of a page. A meta tag exists for this, and is used by some search engines when displaying the page as a result in SERPs.

Doorway page

Also known as a "bridge page".

Domain

The human-friendly "address, or URL" of a website. When a user types a URL into a web browser, a dedicated computer somewhere on the web known as a Domain Name Server, or DNS translates the URL into a discrete IP address which is then used to find the actual website being requested.

Domain Name Servers (DNS)

These are special computers that translate human-friendly URLs into computer-friendly IP addresses. This process takes place every time a user requests a page from a website.

DNS Propagation

Every time a new domain name is registered (or an existing one is transferred to a new DNS), the information about the domain and the DNS that hosts it must make its way around the entire internet. This process usually takes around 24 hours, during which time the domain will be inaccessible to users.

Duplicate Content

Two or more separate web pages that contain substantially the same content are said to contain duplicate content.

Dynamic

Generated 'on-the-fly' from a database. Also see "database-driven.

Dynamic Content

This is a webpage that changes its content depending on database information or user settings. A scripting language such as PHP or ASP is usually used to bring about such a result. Search engines are now advanced enough to index such pages, but dynamic variables such as '?id' may cause problems.

Dynamic IP Address

An IP address that changes every time a computer logs on to the internet. See also Static IP Address.

Entry page

See "doorway page".

Error Log File

A server log file which records errors encountered

Ethical SEO

It is SEO executed without resorting to underhand or illegal activities that may cause your web site to get blacklisted by the search engines. Stay on the ethical side of the fence!

Ezine

An electronic magazine. Most publishers of ezines are desperate for content and gladly publish well written, helpful articles and give you full credit as author, including a link to your website.

FFA

Free For All. Usually denotes a page where a link can be added by anyone. Commonly used to harvest your email for spam.

Filter

A software routine that examines web pages during a robot's crawl looking for search engine spam. If the filter detects the use of spam on the page, a ranking penalty is assessed.

Filter Word

See "stop word"

Findability

How easily found your site is using search engines.

Flash

A technology developed by MacroMedia Corp. that allows a web designer to embed interactive multimedia into web pages. Often used for Flash intros, games, and animating navigation. If you visit a web page and see letters and numbers flying around with a funky beat in the background, chances are it was done in Flash. Flash requires a plug-in installed in the Internet user's web browser. Search engines can't 'read' content embedded in Flash. As such, this content will be invisible to the search engines and will not get indexed.

Flash Intro

An animated 'short' created using Flash that Internet users are made to sit through upon entry to a home page. Flash intros annoy users. They also typically take the place of text content on a home page, and since search engines can't 'read' content embedded in Flash, the rankings of a home page that's just a Flash intro will suffer.

Flash Page

See "splash page".

Frames

When separate web pages are combined into one, each potentially with its own scrollbar. You know you're on a framed website when part of the page scrolls while the rest of the page stays in place. Frames frustrate people because much of the time when the person tries to bookmark a specific page, it doesn't actually work but instead bookmarks the "frameset" page which is typically the home page. Search engines don't like frames. A framed web site is at a severe disadvantage compared to non-framed sites in terms of search engine marketing. Most search engines support frames, but only, as Google says in its FAQ section, "to the extent that [we] can." Searchers clicking through to a framed page from search results sometimes end up on an orphaned page.

Frameset

A web page that is made up of frames. A useful analogy: if the individual frames that make up the frameset are the 'children,' then the frameset is the 'parent.'

Fresh

The term that Google uses to refer to frequently changing home pages. When Googlebot ascertains that a given home page is changing frequently, Googlebot will revisit and reindex this page daily.

Free Reprint Article

An article written by you and made freely available to other webmasters to publish on their websites. See also article PR.

Gateway Page

See "doorway page".

Google

The largest and most popular search engine right now. Visit: Google.

Google bombing

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 cache

See "Cache".

Google Dance

Up to June, 2003, Google has updated the index for their search engine on a roughly monthly basis. While the update is in progress, search results for each of Google's nine datacenters are different. The positions of a site appears to "dance" as it fluctuates minute to minute. "Google dance" is an unofficial term coined to refer to the period when Google is performing the update to its index. Google may be changing their index calculation method to allow for a continuous update (which will effectively end the roughly monthly dances).

Googlebot

Google's spider, which deep crawls web sites monthly. In those cases where Googlebot ascertains that a given page is being updated frequently pages, Googlebot will visit and index that page on a daily basis and mark that page in its search results as being "Fresh".

Google Everflux

An anomoly by which pages can quickly appear and then disappear in google page rankings. Usually occurs to newly added webpages.

Goole Toolbar

A downloadable toolbar for Internet Explorer that allows a user to do a Google search without visiting the Google website. The toolbar also displays the Google PageRank (PR) of the page currently displayed in the browser. The latest version also includes a very good popup-blocker. The Google Toolbar is a must have for every serious webmaster

Gulliver

The name of the web crawler for Northern Light.

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. Note that a web page that has no links pointing to it will be at a severe disadvantage in regards to search engine rankings. A site map acts as a hallway page.

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.

Headline tag

See "heading tag"

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

Text on a website that is hidden to humans but is visible to search engines. Simple tricks such as using the same background color for the text color, or more elaborate ones using CSS-P can be used to obtain this effect. All search engines see hidden text as spam, and if caught, your website will be banned from search engines.

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.

Home Directory

The main directory where your site's main index page is located. The index page in your home directory can be accessed like this: http://www.yoursite.com

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".

Hybrid

In SEO terms refers to a search engine that has both a directory component and a spidering or crawler based segment within it's database.

Hyperlink text

Underlined text that points to another web page. Google pays particular attention to the text used in a hyperlink and associates the keywords contained in the hyperlink text to the page being linked to. Also see "Google bombing."

Hyperlinks

See "links".

Image Map

Placing separate hyperlinks on different areas of the same image. Clicking on different parts of the image will take the user to different web pages. Not very search engine friendly.

IBL

Abbreviation for In Bound Link. Any link on another page that points to the subject page. Also called a back link.

Impression

A web visitor accessing a page or banner ad. Often used interchangeably with the term "pageview".

Inbound Links (IBL)

Links that point to your site from sites other than your own. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's PageRank.

Index

A search engine's database in which it stores textual content from every web page that its spider visits.

Indexing

After a search engine has crawled the web, it ranks the URLs found using various criteria (see algorithm) and places them in the database, or index.

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.

Inktomi (INK)

Owned by Yahoo!, this is a database of search results used to power various websites.

Invisible Web, The

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

A number that identifies each sender or receiver of information that is sent in packet across the Internet.

IP Spoofing

The process of hiding your real IP Address and making it appear to be of a different IP address.

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, it will be invisible to the search engines and will not get indexed. JavaScript programs are not compiled, i.e. the source code and the executable code are one in the same. Thus, an Internet user can view your site's JavaScript source code simply by choosing the "View Source" option in their web browser.

KEI

A term used by WordTracker to indicate which keyword or keyword phrase has the highest number of searches and the lowest number of competing pages.

Key Phrase (or keyword phrase)

A search phrase made up of keywords. See "keyword."

Keyword

A word that a search engine user might use to find relevant web page(s). If a keyword doesn't appear anywhere in the text of your web page, it's highly unlikely your page will appear in the search results (unless of course you have bid on that keyword in a pay-per-click search engine).

Keyword Density

The number of occurrences that a given keyword appears on a web page. The more times that a given word appears on your page (within reason), the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a search engine user.

Keyword Domain Name

A technique that is seen as spam to some, such a domain usually has all target keywords embedded in the domain name, and usually separated by hyphens. An example would be www.buy-blue-red-green-cheap-widgets.com.

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 Search Term Popularity Tool (http://inventory.overture.com) provide keyword popularity numbers.

Keyword Prominence

The location (i.e placement) of a given keyword in the HTML source code of a web page. The higher up in the page a particular word is, the more prominent it is and thus the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a search engine user. Consequently, it's best to have your first paragraph be chock full of important keywords rather than superfluous marketingspeak. This concept also applies to the location of important keywords within individual HTML tags, such as heading tags, title tags, or hyperlink text. So get in the habit of starting off your title tags with a good keyword rather than "Welcome to".

Keyword Research

Looking up keyword popularity numbers for relevant keywords for the purpose of identifying the best keywords to target for high search engine rankings.

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").

Keyword Stuffing/Spamming

Placing excessive amounts of keywords into the page copy and the HTML in such a way that it detracts from the readability and usability of a given page for the purpose of boosting the page's rankings in the search engines. This includes hiding keywords on the page by making the text the same color as the background, hiding keywords in comment tags, overfilling alt tags with long strings of keywords, etc. Keyword stuffing is just another shady way of gaming the search engines and, as such, its use should be strongly discouraged.

Keyword Weighting

The number of keywords on a page compared to the total number of words on the page shown as a percentage...see keyword density.

Landing page

The web page that a visitor clicks through to from a banner ad or search results listing.

Link building

Requesting links from webmasters of other sites for the purpose of increasing your "link popularity" and/or "PageRank".

Link Farm

Link farm is a group of separate, highly interlinked websites for the purposes of inflating link popularity (or PR). Engaging in a link farm is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.

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.

Links

Text or graphics that, when clicked on, take the Internet user to another web page location. Links are expressed as URLs.

Link Partner

A webmaster who is willing to put a link to your website on their website. Quite often link partners engage in reciprocal linking.

Link Path

Using text links to connect a series of page (i.e. page 1 connects to page 2, page 2 connects to page 3, page 3 connects to page 4, and so on). Search engine 'spiders' and 'robots' use text links to jump from page to page as they gather information about it, so it's a good idea to allow them traverse your entire site via text links.

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.

Looksmart

Directory/PPC Engine hybrid

Mirror

See "replica"

Machine-generated

Don't use software tools that purport to auto-generate doorway pages. These pages are usually devoid of meaningful content. Google, in particular, is working on ways to identify and exclude machine-generated doorway pages.

Manual Submitting

Submitting by hand to an individual search engine, rather than using an automated submission tool or service. Manual submitting is the more polite way to submit, and as such is less likely to land you in trouble with the search engines. But the best approach is not to submit at all and let the search engine spiders find your site through links from other sites to your site.

Meta Description

A meta tag hidden in the HTML that describes the page's content. Should be relatively short; around 12 to 20 words is suggested. The meta description provides an opportunity to influence how your Web page is described in the search results. Of the major search engines, Inktomi, AltaVista, Teoma, Lycos, and Alltheweb utilize the meta description tag to varying degrees. Make sure they reflect the page content or you may be accused of spamming.

Meta Keywords

A meta tag hidden in the HTML that lists keywords relevant to the page's content. Because search engine spammers have abused this tag so much, nearly all of the major search engines ignore this tag completely. Of the major search engines, only Inktomi still pays any attention to the meta keywords tag.

Meta Search

This is a way of searching in which results are taken from various sources and then consolidated into a single SERP.

Meta Search Engine

A website that takes your search query and passes it on to several different search engines and directories, then summarizes the results in a logical manner for you to review.

Meta Tags

Meta-information (information about information) that is associated with a web page and placed in the HTML but not displayed on the page for the user to see. There are a range of meta tags, only a few of which are relevant to search engine spiders. Two of the most well-known meta tags are the meta description and meta keywords; unfortunately these are ignored by most major search engines, including Google.

Misspellings

People will often misspell words when searching for them. Often, intelligent marketers will also optimize sites for misspellings in order to capture this sort of traffic.

Mouseover

Where hovering the mouse over a text or graphic link without clicking displays something new on the page. For example, a horizontal navigation bar may display further sub-section choices underneath the section hovered over.

Natural Search Results

The "real" search results. The results that most users are looking for and which take up most of the window. For most searches, the search engine displays a long list of links to sites with content which is related to the word you searched for. These results are ranked according to how relevant and important they are.

Navigation Bar (nav bar)

A web site's navigation icons, usually arranged in a row down the left hand side or along the top.

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.

Nested Keywords

Used to describe the process of inserting a shorter keyword phrase within a longer term. Intended to increase the number of searches a page is returned for.

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.

Northern Light

An older search engines, once very popular.

Off-page Elements

The opposite of on-page elements. Elements that are outside the direct control of the web site developer and are influential in determining search engine ranking. Examples of off-page elements are links pointing to a web site and anchor text in links pointing to web site. However web site developers still have some degree of control over these elements for example directory submissions. Search engines are relying more and more on these elements when determining ranking because they are more resistant to spamming/abuse.

On-page Elements

Elements that are within direct control of the web site developer and are influential in determining search engine ranking. Examples of on-page elements are META tags, page text, title tag text, site link structure etc... These elements are prone to keyword spamming and other similar forms of abuse so the search engines do not look to them as much as off-page elements when determining ranking.

One-way Links

Links to a web site that are not reciprocated i.e. no link exists to the web site that is doing the linking. These type of links are powerful in building link popularity.

Open Directory Project

Also known as DMOZ. This is a very large directory run by volunteers. This database is used by many websites on the internet.

Optimization

See "search engine optimization"

Orphan

A page is known as orphan if no other establishes a link towards it. If his URL were not connait, one can never fall above, so that in general it is not indexed by the search engines.

Overture

The original leader in PPC Engines, now owned by Yahoo! Delivers PPC results to many search engines.

Page title

See "title tag"

Pageviews

See "Impression"

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.

PageRank (PR)

Google uses a weighted form of link popularity called PageRankT. Not all links are created equal. Google differentiates a link from an important site (such as CNN.com) as being better than a link from Jim-Bob's personal home page. The Google Toolbar (which is a free download from http://toolbar.google.com) has a PageRank meter built into it, to see which web pages are considered important by Google and which aren't. PageRank scoring ranges from 0 to 10, 10 being the best. PageRank scores get exponentially harder to achieve the closer to 10 they are. For example, increasing your own homepage's PageRank from a 2 to 3 is easy with not a lot of additional links, jumping from a 7 to an 8 is very difficult to achieve. The higher the PageRank of the page that's linking to you, the more your site's PageRank will benefit. The better your PageRank, the better you'll do in Google, all else being equal.

PageRank (PR) For Money

Selling or buying a link from a web page with a high Google PageRank for the stated purpose of increasing the other page's PR. This is highly frowned upon by Google and will result in a penalty for both pages if Google finds out about it.

Page Popularity

See "link popularity".

Paid Inclusion

Paying a search engine to have your web pages included in that search engine's index.

Paid Placement

Paying a search engine to have your listing show up prominently. These listings are usually denoted as "sponsored listings".

Pay-per-click (PPC)

A pay-for-performance pricing model where advertising (such as banners or paid search engine listings) is priced based on number of clickthroughs rather than impressions or other criteria. Overture is an example of a search engine which charges advertisers on a pay-per-click basis.

Pay-for-performance

A pricing model based on delivering sales or something else that can be directly attributed to the bottom line. Contrast this with traditional banner advertising which is based on impressions, a chunk of which come from people you have no desire or ability to do business with.

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.

Penalty

A punishment levied against a web page by a search engine as a result of using an SEO tactic that it doesn't approve of. Tactics that most often result in penalties include using hidden text, sneaky redirects, and linking to a bad neighborhood.A penalty usually results in a web page being credited for a lower Google PageRank (PR) than it has actually "earned". Penalties also result in a page being "buried" deep within the SERPS where it will almost never be found again by searchers

PFI

Short of Pay for Inclusion. Used by various search engines that guarantees that your site will be listed in a search engine database. Google is a noteable exception that does not 'offer' such a service.

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.

Placement

See "ranking".

Politeness Window

In order not to overburden any particular server, most search engine spiders limit their access to each server. If your page is hosted on the same server as thousands of other pages, the spider may never get the time to reach (and index) your page. This can be a powerful argument for having your own server.

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

PPC Engine

'Search Engine' whose results are driven by PPC [paid per click] listings. Essentially all the search results are of CPC type.

Portal

This is a generic term which refers to an entry website for a large population of users. This includes directories such as Yahoo! And search engines such as Google. In a more specific context, a portal is a website that is the leading authority on a specific subject.

Position

The ranking assigned by a search engine to a page. The position denotes where that page is displayed in the search results for a given keyword or phrase.

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".

Pandemic

A very large scale spread of infection. Epidemic is a regional spread of infection.

Query

A word, a phrase or a group of words, possibly combined with other syntax used to pass instructions to a search engine or a directory in order to locate web pages.

Ranking

This refers to the process by which search engines display websites so that the most relevant websites appear on the top. Search engine optimization is a technique by which high rankings may be obtained.

RealNames

An alternate website address system in operation at Altavista. Brand names used in searches are mapped directly to the appropriate website, usually because the company owning the brand-name has paid a fee to RealNames. http://www.realnames.com/

Reciprocal Link

When two sites link to each other.

Redirect

A tactic sometimes used to send a user to a different page that the one she found in the SERPS. For example, a webmaster optimizes a web page for a very popular keyword. When a user finds the page by searching on that keyword, she is subsequently redirected to a different, possibly non-relevant page that the webmaster stands ready to make money from.

Referrer

A web page, containing a link to your web page, that delivered your visitor to your web page. For example, if Google's search results (for example on a search for "britney spears") contained a link to a page on your site and the user clicked on that link to access your page, the referrer's URL might be http://www.google.com/search?q=britney+spears

Registration

See "submission service".

Relevance

The degree to which the content on a web page that is returned in a list of search results (SERPS) "matches" the topic of the information that the user was searching for. In other words, if you use the search phrase "small green widgets" and a page is returned that deals with "large red thingamajigs", the relevancy of that page is very poor.

Render

Format and stylize HTML source code into the final format for the visitor's screen. For example, text within tags will be made bold.

Replica

A copy of a dynamic web site or a group of web pages from a dynamic site, saved as static HTML files.

Resubmitting

Submitting your web page address(es) to search engines after you've already submitted those addresses previously or after the search engine has already included your site in its index. Search engines don't like it when you resubmit as it simply clutters their queue with duplicate requests.

Robot

See "spider".

Robots.txt

This is a text file that is used to control spiders that visit your website. Only spiders that conform to the Robots exclusion standard will obey the contents of the robots.txt file. This file allows you to grant and exclusive access to certain folders, file types, and specific files depending on the robot accessing the site. This file is not necessary for your site.

ROI

Short for return on investment.

Sandbox

Many SEO experts believe that Google 'sandboxes' new websites. Whenever it detects a new website, it withholds its rightful ranking for a period while it determines whether your site is a genuine, credible, long term site. It does this to discourage the creation of SPAM websites (sites which serve no useful purpose other than to boost the ranking of some other site). Likewise, if Google detects a sudden increase (i.e. many hundreds or thousands) in the number of links back to your site, it may sandbox them for a period (or in fact penalize you by lowering your ranking or blacklisting your site altogether).

Scooter

The search crawler of Altavista.

Scumware

Scumware is a generic/catch-all label that applies to software that:Installs itself secretly, dishonestly or without consent;Does not allow for easy uninstallation / removal;Monitors or tracks users actions without the users awareness or consent (aka spyware); Alters the behavior/default options of other programs without the users consent or awareness (aka thiefware).

Search Engine (SE)

A web site that offers its visitors the ability to search the content of numerous web pages on the Internet. Search engines periodically explore all the pages of a website and add the text on those pages into a large database that users can then search. With a search engine, publishing web pages that incorporate relevant key phrases, prominently positioned in particular ways, is critical. Contrast this with directories, which don't siphon content out of the HTML of a site's constituent pages, but instead are comprised solely of site names and descriptions written or edited by human reviewers.

Search Engine Friendly

A web page that has been designed and optimized for high search engine rankings. A search engine friendly page also makes it easy for search engines to follow the links on the page.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Strategies and tactics undertaken to increase the amount and quality of leads generated by the search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Strategies and tactics undertaken to improve web pages so they gain a higher ranking in the search engines.

Search Engine Positioning (SEP)

Strategies and tactics undertaken to increase a site's rankings in the search engines for particular keywords.

Search Query

A word of collection of words (phrase) that are passed on to a search engine in order to find relative sites.

Search Term

See "keyword".

Search Term Popularity

See "keyword popularity".

Select List

See "pull-down list".

SERP

Short form search engine results page, SERPs are the actual results returned to the user based on their search query.

Server

A computer that hosts web pages and delivers them to a user's internet browser when requested. A dedicated server hosts one website only. A shared server hosts multiple websites. Dedicated servers deliver web pages faster and provide more capacity and features than shared servers, but they're also considerably more expensive to use.

Session

See "user session".

Sidewinder

The name of the Infoseek search engine's spider.

Sig File

Closing used in advertising and email that contains the users name, URL and other contact info. Usually includes a slogan that describes the business.

Siphoning

The use of various means to steal another site's traffic. Techniques used include the wholesale copying of web pages (with the copied page altered slightly to direct visitors to a different site, and then registered with the search engines) and the use of keywords or keyword phrases "belonging" to other organisations, companies or web sites.

Site Depth

The number of pages contained within a web site. Sites with more depth have a higher number of pages.

Site Map

This is a web page that links to all pages found on your website in an intelligent and coherent manner. Such a page is excellent resource in getting a search engine to spider all pages found within a website.

Site Submission

This is the actual process by which a site is directly submitted to a search engine for inclusion into their database. Some search engines charge a certain amount for 'guaranteed inclusion' into their search index.

Skewing

Artificially changing search engine results so that, for example, popular queries will return artificially created listings. Infoseek is currently experimenting with this technique, using a small group of reviewers to artificially force higher relevance for certain sites.

Slurp

Search engine spider used by Inktomi.

Sniffer script

A small program or script that detects which web browser software an Internet user is using and then serves up the particular browser-specific cascading style sheet to match. Sniffer scripts are also used to detect whether a user has the Macromedia Flash plug-in installed, and if so, a Flash version of the page is displayed.

Source Code

The HTML code behind a web page.

Spamdexing

See "spamming".

Spamglish

Keyword-rich gibberish used as search engine fodder instead of thoughtfully written, interesting content. Spamglish often includes meaningless sentences and keyword repetition.

Spamming

As in "spamming the search engines". Spamming is most commonly associated with the act of sending unsolicited commercial email, but in the context of search engine optimization, spamming refers to using disreputable tactics to achieve high search engine rankings. Such spamming tactics include bulk submitting spamglish-containing doorway pages.

Spider

Also known as a bot, robot, or crawler. Spiders are computers used by a search engine to periodically explore your web site, download the HTML content (not including graphics) of your pages, strip out whatever it considers superfluous and redundant out of the HTML, and store the rest in a database (i.e. it's index).

Spider Trap

An infinite loop that a spider may get caught in if it explores a dynamic site where the URLs of pages keep changing. For example, a home page may have a different URL and the search engine may not be able to ascertain that it is the home page that it has already indexed but under another URL. If search engines were to completely index dynamic web sites, they would inevitably have large amounts of redundant content and download millions of pages.

Splash Page

A home page for the most part devoid of content. Splash pages usually say something to the effect of "Enter Here" or "Choose our Flash-enabled site or the HTML version". Splash pages are an annoyance to Internet users as they introduce an extra hoop that the user has to jump through before they get to any meaningful content. Splash pages are also damaging to search engine rankings. Consider that your home page is typically considered by search engines as the most important page of your site. If your home page is a content-less splash page, then it's a wasted opportunity.

Spoofing

Spoofing is deliberately tricking a search engine spider. Please refer to spamming and cloaking for more information.

SSI

Server Side Includes. Used (for example) to add dynamically generated content to a web page.

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.

Stealth Script

A CGI script which switches page content depending on who or what is accessing the page. See agent name delivery.

Stemming

Variations of a root word. For example, using the query 'write', stemming might also result in returns for 'writing' and 'writes.'

Stop Character

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.

Streaming Media

Audio-visual content that is played as it is being downloaded. Thus, an Internet user could begin watching a video clip as the footage downloads rather than having to wait for the clip to download in its entirety beforehand.

Submitting

Submission Service

Services that submit your website to search engines for inclusion are referred to as submission services. These can be either automated programs or manual hand submission. This is un-needed if your site is properly optimized.

Suppliement Pages

Suppliment pages are 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 Word

Stop words are words that are ignored by search engines when indexing web pages and processing search queries. Common words such as the.

Target Market

The customers interested in the type of product or service you offer.

Targeted Traffic

Visitors to your web site that are interested in your particular product or service.

Title Tag

The text displayed in the blue bar at the very top of the browser window, above "Back," "Forward," "Refresh," "Print," etc. Although inconspicuous to the user, the title tag is the most important bit of text on a web page as far as the search engines are concerned. Search engines not only assign the words in the title tag more weight, they also typically display the title tag in the search results, making the title tag an important potential call-to-action as well. Thus, the wording of each page's title tag should be thought through carefully. Also see "keyword prominence."

Top-10 Ranking

A web page that is listed in the first 10 search results for a search query. Top-10 in Google also means on the first page using the standard search criteria

Traffic

This refers to the visitors that visit a website.

Tweaking

In SEO terms making minor adjustments to your web pages in order to improve ranking.

Unethical SEO

The opposite to Ethical SEO. It involves employing underhand or illegal activites to increase search engine ranking. They are many unethical seo practices including cloaking, gateway pages, keyword spamming.

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.

Unique Visitors

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.

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.

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.

Virtual Domain

A domain hosted by a virtual server account.

Virtual Server

An account on a hosting company server, usually linked to its own domain. This provides an inexpensive way to run a web site with its own top level domain, and is usually indistinguishable from having a separate physical server, except that the virtual server may share an IP address with other virtual servers on the same machine. A virtual server account is fine for most uses, but will often be slower to respond than a physically separate server, and physical access to the machine will seldom be allowed. The cost of a virtual server account is a small fraction of that needed to run a real server, mainly because of the expense of the dedicated line needed to connect the server continuously to the rest of the net.

Visibility

How well-placed your web site is in the search engines for relevant keyword searches. Also see "Invisible Web."

Visible Text

The text on a web page visible to the human eye.

Visit

See "user session".

Vortal Site

Site built around one theme or subject.

XML

Short for eXtensible Markup Language, XML promises more efficient and organized delivery of data over the internet. XHTML is the XML version of HTML.

XML Feed

Spider-built search engines sometimes cannot crawl a Website even though they try and try. Indexing is important to large content providers such as Amazon.com and IBM, but the same problems that affect indexing with smaller sites can be magnified in large, complex sites such as these. To resolve these issues, all major spider-built search indexes offer a fee-based custom crawl service to large content providers.Many of these search engines have taken the service to the streets by partnering with vendors who often operate their own spiders. The vendors automate the crawling process for the engine and feed the data directly into the index entirely on the basis of trust. Beware, not all vendors are alike and some have unsavory pasts.

XSL

Extensible Scripting Language - an XML style sheet language supported by the newer web browsers Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 5.

Yahoo

One of the largest and most popular websites on the internet. Second most popular search engine after Google.

Web Copywriter

A "copywriter" who understands the unique requirements of writing for an online medium.

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, Netscape, and Opera.

Webmaster

A person responsible for the management of a particular website.

Web Ring

A means for navigating a group of related sites primarily by going forward and backward.

Wordcount

The number of words on a particular web page.

World Wide Web (WWW)

The vast array of documents published on the Internet. It is estimated that the World Wide Web now consists of approximately 11.5 billion pages.

Zeitgeist (Google Zeitgesit)

A service provided that shows snippets of the emerging and declining trends of what people are searching for through the Google search engine. http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.htm

SEO Services

Lead Generation

Web Design and Development

Branding

Interactive Marketing

Market Research

Marketing Result Tracking

SEO SERVICES