SEO - Glossary of Terms

I looked around and well to my surprise there were no articles related to the actual terms used in our industry. So I decided to write this one. I re-searched for some of the definitions and I hope it comes in handy to some of our readers.

Search Engine Ranking:
A program that searches documents for specified Keywords and returns a list of the documents where the Keywords were found. Although Search Engine is really a general class of programs, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Alta Vista and Excite that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web and USENET news groups.

Search Engine Optimization:
Short for Search Engine Optimization, the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a website by ranking high in the search results of a Search Engine. The higher a website ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site.

Webmaster:
An individual who manages a website. Depending on the size of the site, the Webmaster might be responsible for making sure that the Web server hardware and software is running properly designing the website, creating and updating Web pages, replying to user feedback, creating CGI scripts or monitoring traffic through the site.

Search Engine positioning:
Typically, a Search Engine works by sending out a spider to fetch as many documents as possible. Another program, called an indexer, then reads these documents and creates an index based on the words contained in each document. Each Search Engine uses a proprietary algorithm to create its indices such that, ideally, only meaningful results are returned for each query.

Internet Marketing Terms:
Ad blocking, banner blindness, buzzword, cookie, email spam, FFA, mouse-trapping, opt-out, page-jacking, spam, Search Engine spam, trick banner.

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.

Submissions:
The act of supplying a URL to a Search Engine in an attempt to make a Search Engine aware of a site or page.

Keywords:
A word used by a Search Engine in its search for relevant Web pages.

Spamming:
Excessive manipulation to influence Search Engine rankings, often for pages which contain little or no relevant content.

Google's Page Rank:
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Internet:
A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions.

Meta Tags:
A special HTML tag that provides information about a Web page. Unlike normal HTML tags, meta tags do not affect how the page is displayed. Instead, they provide information such as who created the page, how often it is updated, what the page is about, and which Keywords represent the page's content. Many Search Engines use this information when building their indices.

Doorway page:
A page made specifically to rank well in Search Engines for particular Keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content.

Title Tag:
HTML tag used to define the text in the top line of a Web browser, also used by many Search Engines as the title of search listings. Example:

HTML:
Short for Hypertext Markup Language, the authoring language used to create documents on the World Wide Web. HTML is similar to SGML, although it is not a strict subset. HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes.

Domain:
A name that identifies one or more IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html, the domain name is pcwebopedia.com. Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. For example:
gov - Government agencies
edu - Educational institutions
org - Organizations (nonprofit)
mil - Military
com - commercial business
net - Network organizations
ca - Canada
th - Thailand

Because the Internet is based on IP addresses, not domain names, every Web server requires a Domain Name System (DNS) server to translate domain names into IP addresses.

Image Alt Tag:
HTML tag that provides alternative text when non-textual elements, typically images, cannot be displayed. The image tag is a very important tag. It directs the browser to either a gif or jpeg file. The browser then displays that image file where the command is placed.

Link Popularity:
A measure of the quantity and quality of sites that link to your site. A growing number of Search Engines use link popularity in their ranking algorithms. Google uses it as it's most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas. Eventually every major engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining it are essential to your Search Engine placement.

Link Farms:
A link farm consists of sites that link to other sites for the sole purpose of increasing their link popularity score. Unlike perfectly valid links to sites with related information, sites that participate in link farming contain links to totally unrelated sites. This practice is also referred to as link stuffing. Google hates link farms and labels the links they generate as spam. In fact, Google gates them so much that some sites get removed from the index if they're affiliated with link farms. Spooked, some web masters are considering removing all outbound links from their sites.

Manual Submission:
Visiting a search engine and adding a URL to the Search Engines individually by hand.

HTTP:
HTTP is called a stateless protocol because each command is executed independently, without any knowledge of the commands that came before it. This is the main reason that it is difficult to implement websites that react intelligently to user input. This shortcoming of HTTP is being addressed in a number of new technologies, including ActiveX, Java, JavaScript and cookies. Short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web. HTTP defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. For example, when you enter a URL in your browser, this actually sends an HTTP command to the Web server directing it to fetch and transmit the requested Web page.

Keyword Count, Occurrence:
How often a Keyword or Keyword phrase occurs in a particular HTML page section.

Keyword Density:
Most search engines look for keyword density. Some will only look at the first 200-400 characters of your site, and count the number of times the keyword appears. Some index a small amount of text from the top, middle, and bottom parts of your web page, and search them for keywords. Generally keyword density should be in the 6-8% range. Simply repeating the keyword will not work because some search engines consider grammar structure in their calculations. For a very competitive keyword you could aim a little higher perhaps targeting a 10% range, but you have to take into consideration the search engine may consider this spamming.

Keyword Prominence:
Prominence is the ratio of the position of one keyword or keyword phrase to the positions of the other keywords in an HTML section of the page. For example in the text enclosed by the BODY tag is one of sections of the page we measure keyword prominence in.

Your most important keywords must appear in the crucial locations on your web pages because search engines like pages where keywords appear closer to the top of the page. They should preferable appear in the first paragraphs of your page. Also keep in mind if you include keywords closer to the bottom of your page it will have a negative effect on the overall keyword prominence calculations.

Algorithm:
A formula or set of steps for solving a particular problem. To be an algorithm, a set of rules must be unambiguous and have a clear stopping point. Algorithms can be expressed in any language, from languages like English or French to programming languages like FORTRAN. We use algorithms every day. For example, a recipe for baking a cake is an algorithm. Most programs, with the exception of some artificial intelligence applications, consist of algorithms. Inventing elegant algorithms- algorithms that are simple and require the fewest steps possible-is one of the principal challenges in programming.

StopWords:
Words that are common in a full-text file but have little value in searching. Words in a stopword file will be excluded from the indexes, considerably reducing the size of the indexes and improving search performance. For example these are stopwords a about an are as at be by com for from how.

Google API:
You can use your Google API license key to perform automated queries on Google that complies with Google's term of service agreement. To access the Google Web APIs service, you must create a Google Account and obtain a license key. Your Google Account and license key entitle you to 1,000 automated queries per day.

Archie Glikakis
Position Front Page
SEO Consultant
http://positionfrontpage.com