A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
Above the fold
Above the fold refers to the ads and content that are placed at the top of the screen, and which are visible prior to scrolling. These ads play a significant role in marketing strategy. They serve a better purpose if they are quite compatible with the content present in the webpage.
Absolute link
Absolute link is a link, which contains the whole or complete link to the page that is described. In some cases, relative links are also used. See ‘relative links’.
Accessibility
Accessibility is the process of making a website accessible to search engine crawlers. Essentially, crawlers are blind to pictures and images. Thus the website is made accessible to crawlers by adding tags to them. Usually websites with keyword rich text has higher page ranking than others with images.
Adcenter
Adcenter is the Microsoft’s version of Google Adwords. It is a pay per click program, used to generate traffic into the site by placing paid ads on the website. Pay per click programs revenues some amount of money to the provider every time an user clicks on the ad. See ‘Adwords’
Adlabs
A program created by Microsoft to improve performance in marketing by placing ads in affiliate websites.
Adsense
Google adsense is used to place ads by google in websites and pages alongside content, which can earn the website publishers and owners some income. This is a great way to monitor your webpage along with earning some revenue for the ads. Visit www.google.com/adsense
Adwords
This is a pay per click text advertisement provided by google. Websites pay a certain amount of money, which is usually bid to a certain amount, when someone clicks through the ad into their webpage. The space available for the adwords is quite small, and hence care and precaution must be taken to include keywords and content of interest rather than unnecessary wordings. This can increase the rate of clicks. The higher the rate of clicks, the higher is the result in the search results. Visit http://adwords.google.com/
Affiliate marketing
The process of creating ads and placing them in websites using google adwords to increase site traffic is known as affiliate marketing. See ‘Adwords’.
Agent Name
Most of the search engines work by crawling the web pages using crawlers. The name of these crawlers that visits a web page is referred to as an agent name. Google uses spiders as crawlers for the entire web.
AJAX
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is the process of obtaining the required data from the database in the same page without actually loading a new page.
Algorithm
Algorithm is a set of instructions that are issued to a crawler to index web pages while crawling. Thus the algorithm plays an important role in determining the relevancy of content in a web page, and decides the page rank of the concerned webpage. The result on the SERP is displayed according to the page rank. Refer ‘SERP’.
Alt tag
An alt tag doesn’t play any significant role in SEO, but is quite essential to convey the meaning of an ad that is done in graphics. Alt tag appears as text in an ad when the user hovers the mouse over the ads for some time. This text can give a general idea about the details of the ad.
Analytics
It is a general statistics on the amount of traffic, view and cost per click that are found out from the log of the websites using software. Keeping track of this statistics can help in availing huge profits in affiliate marketing.
Anchor text
Placing anchor text in content can highly increase the page rank. A text in which a hyper link is inserted is known as anchor text. Search engines pays special attention to these anchor text and is quite a determining factor in improving the page rank in the SERP. Users can click directly on these words and are taken to the respective web page.
Announce Site to Search Engines
This is the process of pasting links to websites on pages that are already indexed by the search engines. Indexed pages have higher page rank and newer pages can take opportunity of this by including their URLs on these indexed sites.
Announcing
Announcing is the process of submitting web pages to the search engines to be included in the search list. It is highly advisable to let the search engines crawl your page and index it, rather than submitting it. See ‘submitting’.
API
API stands for Application Program Interface. It is a set of routines and protocols that determines how to create and access software that can be used to determine the services and other features of marketing.
ASP
ASP or Active Server Pages is a dynamic programming language developed by Microsoft to create dynamic web pages. Visit www.asp.net
Authority
It is the capability of web pages to rank higher in SERPs. Usually a page rank is determined by the content and dynamic features of the web page. A web page which is constantly updated has a greater probability to rank higher in the search engine results pages.
Automated Bid management software
It is a software used to automate the process of bidding. Since the number of marketing websites and other services are high, it is quite difficult for search engines to track all the transaction and provide service to all publishers in limited time.
Automated Submitting
Automated submitting includes submitting links of web sites and web pages to search engines by automated software. This software work efficiently, but this system of submitting is highly unfavourable, as the search engine’s algorithm tends to give these pages a lower page rank. It is most suitable to submit these web pages manually.
B
Bait and Switch
It is a marketing technique by which the ad offers something interesting for the users to tempt them to click through the ad. After clicking, the ad offers the user an entirely different content to the one mentioned in the ad.
Banner Blindness
Almost all content in the websites are usually associate with banner ads designed with graphics. Of late, users have learned to turn a blind eye to the ads. This is known as banner blindness. But text ads can serve the purpose of banner ads, as the users will read through them, considering them as part of the content.
Back Links
Back links are links present in websites that lead to another website. This is one of the most widely adopted techniques in marketing, such as placing links in websites that are already indexed by the search engines.
Banned
Due to unethical SEO works, search engines often ban websites as spam. Unethical SEO work includes stuffing keywords in gibberish manner, intended just to increase the page rank in SERP. See ‘Black hat SEO’.
Bid Management Tools
Special tools and software that are used to track the details of pay per click programs in search engine marketing systems.
Bidding
In pay per click programs you are supposed to place a bid for placing your ad on SERP for the relevant keywords you wish. The highest bid for a particular keyword gets the top spot in the ad space or the PPC search result. The higher the spot in the ad space, higher is the possibility of users clicking through.
Blacklist
It is a list of the spammers who manipulate the search engines by practising unethical means of SEO in their content. The web pages of these spammers are eliminated from the search engine results and are restricted from publishing their web pages in the future.
Black Hat SEO
SEO work basically deals with optimising the content for obtaining higher page rank in the search engine results page. But there are many spammers who stuff keywords in their articles, that are meaningless, and others hide their keywords that are invisible to readers by typing them in background colours. As a result, the crawlers crawls the page and naturally give these pages a higher rank. But once found out, the publisher will be penalised and will be eliminated from publishing in the search engine in the future. This method is not at all advisable, as the search engines will eventually find out these spammers, by changing the rules in their algorithm. Also refer ‘White Hat SEO’.
Block Level Analysis
This technique involves the breaking up of the content in web pages into smaller blocks and checking the relevancy of the articles and the links in association with the SEO.
Blog
Blog is derived from the word Weblog. It is similar to a journal or an entry which provides information on a variety of topics. These blogs are updated periodically, and often provide the option to the readers to leave their comments on it.
Body copy
It is the actual text that is visible to the user. It does not include text ads, graphics ads, meta tag, and other ad that appear in the web page.
Bookmark
Bookmarking is the process of marking a site as a favourite as a result of its excellent content or services. Several web pages provide the option to the users for bookmarking the site.
Bot
Bot is the short term for robot that crawls a webpage. Google search engine uses spider to crawl a web page.
Bridge Page
Bridge page or doorway page is a page which contains keyword rich articles, which serves the purpose of search engine optimisation for websites. This page is more like an introduction to the website, and has many links that take the user into the website.
Broken Link
It is a hyperlink that is no longer functional. This link may be broken due to reasons such as expiry of the webpage.
Bulk Submission Service
A program that is capable of submitting URLs in bulk quantities to search engines is known as Bulk Submission Service. This is not favourable, and the search engines algorithms are designed to give these pages a lower page rank.
C
Cache
Cache is nothing but the copy of the web pages that are temporarily stored in the user’s hard disk or stored in the web page database. These pages are retrievable by the user without actually downloading it again from the website. Googlebot stores cache in its database and allows the user to view them as and when they desire.
Cgi-Bin (Common Gateway Interface)
CGI is an interface software that links between the web server and the software that access them. CGI allows the search engines to determine whether the website is dynamic or not. The more dynamic the webpage, the higher will be its page rank.
Click Through Rate
Click through rate is the rate at which the users click through a result in the SERP or an ad. Results that are clicked often move higher in the listing and have better page rank.
Cloaking
Cloaking is another form of unethical SEO. In this type of SEO work, the web pages are so created so as to offer the search engine crawler with a different keyword rich article, which enables it to attain higher page rank. But the content in the web page may be entirely different from the keyword provided for the crawler. This process is unfavourable and if caught, the publisher will get penalised and banned from marketing with search engines.
Cold Fusion
It is a web script language used in database access. It has limited capabilities.
Content Management Systems
It is used to update the content on web pages on a regular basis. One such system is used to update changes in blogs and other content that include marketing techniques.
Conversion
Conversion is the process of converting a visitor into a customer is known as conversion. The content in the website must be tempting enough to the customer to enable them to sign up for your offers. One important consideration would be to obtain the contact information of the visitor.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the rate at which the website is able to convert the visitors to their website into customers or at the most into a possible customer.
Cookie
Cookie refers to the information stored in an user’s computer about the details of the visited website. This is done by the website itself, and can help the website to analyse the possibilities of a potential customer by keeping track of the frequency of the customer accessing the website.
Cost Per Action (CPA)
This is the cost of the services that the website avails from the user when they opt for their services. This can be increased by well placed ads and impressive marketing strategies.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
This is the cost that the website publisher has to pay to the search engine marketing system such as Google and Yahoo!, if any user clicks through the pay per click ad in the SERP. This depends on the amount of bid and the frequency of clicks.
Cost Per Thousand (CPM)
This is the cost for thousand impressions, the number of clicks that your result offers to the user. See ‘Impressions’.
Counter
It is a program which counts the number of webpage impressions in the SERP. It can keep track the amount of traffic that is generated in a website.
Crawl Depth
It is the intensity with which a website is crawled. A deeper page with internal links and keyword rich content can lead to very deep crawling, but sometimes the crawler may get confused in the process.
Crawl Frequency
This refers to the number of times a website is crawled by search engines. A dynamic website with varying content and SEO friendly techniques is sure to have a high frequency of crawling and this can also help to improve the page rank.
Crawler
Crawlers are programs created by search engines, which are used to search, or crawl, websites and pages for the relevant keywords. They are known as robots or spiders. They crawl along a page according to the relevancy of the keyword and index them in their database. These indexed pages can be further retrieved for future usage.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheet)
This program is used to control and regulate the design of the web page, enabling it to acquire higher page ranking.
Custom Error Page
A custom error page is displayed if the page requested by the user does not exist. The usual custom error page bears the number 404. It is important for search engine optimisation, as these pages are vital when the spider crawls along a webpage. They should be designed carefully and should also have some helpful links to the users.
D
Database Driven
In a database driven website, the website loads the content from the database directly as and when required.
Database generated
A database generated website is different from a static HTML page. In this type of website, the website is created directly from the database, according to a set of instructions and programs. Database generated websites are dynamic in nature.
Deep Link
Deep links are links that point to content or pages inside the website. Deep link are often found on the landing page. Refer ‘Deep Submitting’.
Deep Link Ratio
It is the ratio of the number of deep links that are present in the landing page or website to the overall number of links that lead to the website through the SERP.
Deep Submitting
Deep submission is the process of submitting deep links of a web page to a search engine. This is not favourable, and the spider will certainly crawl along the links if the keywords match. It is highly advisable to place deep links on the landing page, rather than submitting them to the search engines directly. The spider will certainly crawl along the links on the landing page if the keywords match.
De-listing/De-indexing
This is the process of elimination of a web page or a website from the list or index created in the search engine database. De-listing is done temporarily to websites which has broken links, and the spiders crawl deeply to find the relevancy of the content before re-indexing it. In permanent de-indexing, the search engine removes the website from its database and indexing list due to unethical means of SEO to manipulate the search engine and gain a higher page rank in SERP.
Directory
A directory is different from an SERP. In a directory, a group of websites are listed under one category, and there will be many categories with varying content. In search engines, the order is haphazard and importance is given to the frequency of crawling and the quality of content.
Doorway Page
Refer ‘Bridge Page’.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is that content in a webpage that repeats or has a duplicate copy of it in its webpage. These contents are disregarded by the search engines.
Dynamic
Dynamic refers to something that changes constantly. Dynamic pages have a higher page rank with respect to search engine SERP. See ‘database generated’.
E
Earnings Per Click
It is the amount of money generated by website publishers when users click through the ads placed in the SERP and avails their services. The total earning is divided by the number of clicks to find out the earnings per click.
Entry Page
This is the page that the user enters your website by clicking on the link from the SERP. Entry page is quite important, as the content in the page must have the data that is relevant to the keyword that the user has entered in order to convince them to use your services.
Error Page
Refer ‘Custom error page’.
F
Filter
Filtering is the process of eliminating websites and web pages from the SERP due to the lack of quality of content, unethical SEO, spamming and keyword stuffed articles, which represent no meaning in particular. Such websites are filtered and eliminated from indexing in the future, and in certain cases, the publisher is penalised for such an unethical act.
Find ability
Findability refers to the capability of a web page to allow itself to be crawled by the search engine spider. In other words, it is the visibility of the webpage to the spider, which can gain the web page a slot in the SERP.
Flash
Flash is a programmable software created by Macromedia to create graphical visuals and texts that can be placed in a web page. Flash is usually used to design ads, intros, and games and does not play any significant role in SEO.
Flash intro
Flash intros are designed by web programmers and publishers to make their website more attractive. It is a better alternative to create interactive and excellent intro movies to lure customers into the website, but web pages that are created by flash programs often find very low page ranks in SERP due to the absence of text content. Thus flash intro websites is not favourable for search engine marketing websites.
Forums
Forums are online virtual communities for professionals and are often used as a meeting place to exchange information.
Frames
When more number of web pages is merged into a single website, there appear frames between these pages. This type of framed web pages is common in many websites which have a varying content. Even though, the search engines support frames, it is highly unfavourable, and can decrease the page rank. This problem can be solved up to an extent by including <noframes> in the HTML to enable the spider to index the page as a normal web page.
Frame set
Frameset is a set of different frames in a web page. This contains all the frames in a website. See ‘Frames’.
Fresh Content/Web pages
Fresh content or web page is a web page which changes its content periodically. Fresh pages are considered as dynamic and are visited and indexed by the search engine crawlers regularly. This will also help the web page attain a higher rank.
FTP
FTP of File Transfer Protocol is a protocol that is used to transfer files between two computers oservers.
G
Google Adsense
Refer ‘Adsense’.
Google Bombing
Google bombing is the process of uniting or merging different web pages together to form a single large collection of links and keyword rich content that can certainly increase the page rank of a website. Together with anchor text in all the web pages, google bombing is extremely advantageous, as a higher page rank is assured.
Google Cache
It is the space used in the user’s computer by google to store the details of the visited websites. See ‘cache’.
Google Keyword tool
This a research tool provided by Google that can help you build content for your websites according to the most frequently searched keywords that match your websites. It also denotes the frequency of the keyword searches.
Google Traffic Estimator
Google traffic estimator is a program that keeps traffic of the click through rate of ads, and the amount of traffic that the website gets due to the ads placed in search engine results.
Google Trends
Google trends estimates the frequency and the probability of several keywords. It gives a precise statistics on the performance of several keywords.
Google XML sitemap
This is a service that google offers to the web page to ensure that it is indexed.
Googlebot
Googlebot is the name of the spider that is used to crawl the web for finding pages with the relevant information on the keywords. It runs on a set of rules or algorithms.
H
Hallway page
A hallway page is a web page which consists of all the list of web pages and links to a main website. This page is created to ease the job for the search engine spider, and the spider will index the page, together with crawling all the links provided in the hallway pate. Normally hallway pages have higher page rankings.
Heading tag
Heading tag is the headline of an article or content that is present in a webpage. Spiders pay special attention to a heading in a webpage, as this gives a general idea about the content that is present in the page. Hence a heading tag should be very much similar to the most commonly used keywords.
Hidden Keywords
Hidden keywords are keywords that are stuffed into articles in background colour, so that it is visible only to the search engine spider and not to the users. It is a form of unethical SEO. Refer ‘Black Hat SEO’.
Hits
Hits denote the number of download of a webpage by users from the web server. The number of hits increases for a single user if there are different graphics in the webpage, as the graphics are also downloaded along with the HTML page.
Home Page
It is the main page or the landing page of a website which contains information regarding the services that the website has to offer. The home page can have further deep links and is one of the main pages that are crawled by the spiders. It is extremely favourable to make the home page more SEO friendly, to enable the spider to index it and give the website a higher page rank.
HTML
HTML stands for ‘Hyper text Markup Language’. It is a coded program that is used to build a HTML webpage. A web browser such as the internet explorer renders the coded program and displays it as user friendly text to the user.
HTML Source
HTML source is the source code or the program code of the webpage which is not in the rendered form. A HTML source can be viewed by going to the view menu and choosing source. It is coded in text format.
HTTP
HTTP stands for ‘Hyper Text Transfer Protocol’. It is a protocol that is used to enable data transfer between the web server and the user’s browser.
Hyperlink
Hyperlinks are URL or addresses of websites or web pages. Users can click on these links to take them to the desired web page. These links are sometimes placed in text also. See ‘Anchor Text’.
I
Impression
Impression is the frequency or the number of times an ad has been clicked through by a user from the SERP. The number of clicks helps in determining the page rank of the concerned webpage.
Inbound Links
Inbound links are links that point to websites other than the website they are present in. It is a highly favourable search engine marketing strategy by which the spider will crawl and index inbound linked websites without actual submission. The page rank of these websites will be higher and even higher if the concerned webpage is highly ranked and indexed regularly by the search engines.
Index
Index is the list and content of the websites that the spider has crawled in the web. A dynamic page will be re-indexed periodically and will have higher page rankings.
Inlinks
It is the Yahoo! Version of inbound links. Refer ‘Inbound Links’.
Invisible Web
This is the part of the web that is not indexed by the search engines due to poor SEO techniques. A large part of the web is invisible to the search engine spiders and these websites may be rich in content.
J
Java Applets
These are small applets of programs that are written in Java Programming language. These programs are embedded into the web pages and are run from the user’s computer itself, unlike other programs that run from the web server. This technique is not favourable for SEO, as the search engine does not run java programs, and these pages are not indexed by spiders. This results in a reduced page ranking.
Java scripts
It is similar to Java applets and the programming is done in Java script language. Refer ‘Java Applet’.
Junk Pages
Junk pages are pages in the web that are keyword stuffed, intended to gain higher page rank. These junk pages usually contain no meaningful content, and such website publishers are penalised and eliminated from search engine marketing.
K
Key Performance Indicators
Key Performance Indicators or more commonly known as KPI are the performance factors that depend on the search engine marketing strategies of an organisation. Organisation which follow KPI and change their strategies according to the demand and the goals of the organisation will have a much profitable marketing strategy in the long run.
Key Phrase (Keyword Phrase)
Key phrase or keyword phrase is a collection of keywords that are commonly used with respect to the search engines and are used in search engine marketing strategies.
Keyword
A keyword is a word that the user enters in a search engine to find the information and service that they desire. Keywords play a major role in the search engine marketing strategy. Usually websites that follow strong SEO techniques and research on the most used keywords that describe their organisation the best; and work on creating keyword rich articles and contents in their websites that are search engine friendly have a greater likelihood of gaining higher page ranks.
Keyword density
Keyword density describes the occurrence of particular keywords that are present in an article or content of a webpage or a website. The relevance of the keyword along with a higher density of keyword is bound to gain the page some higher page rank in the SERP. Keyword stuffing is not acceptable by the search engines and will be de-indexed by the search engines.
Keyword popularity
It is the popularity or the frequency of certain keywords that users search for in the web using search engines. Keyword popularity and relevancy should be carefully studied before planning on search engine marketing strategies.
Keyword Prominence
Keyword prominence describes the prominence of keywords in the content present in the websites. Search engine spiders crawl through the web pages and give a higher priority to content which have rich keyword density in the top half of the page. This requires the heading, title, sub titles and the first few paragraphs to contain as many keywords as possible. Unnecessary words in the first few paragraphs are not advisable. This can certainly increase the page rank.
Keyword research
It is the process of researching the most commonly used keywords that are relevant to the website. A good research can come up with the most relevant keywords and can help the website publisher to create keyword rich content for his website.
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is a form of unethical SEO, in which the keywords are stuffed in a random manner to increase the page ranking in the SERP. In this process, the content and the HTML page is filled with keywords, along with alt tags, which will enable the spider to give it a good ranking. This type of SEO is not favourable and the website publisher will be penalised.
Keyword rich
Keyword rich article refers to the content which is rich in well placed keywords, which will give the webpage a higher page rank in the SERP, when crawled by a spider. In keyword rich article, the use of unnecessary words is eliminated, and the use of keywords is maintained.
L
Landing Page
It is the page which the user is directed to when he clicks on a result in the SERP. This page can be a bridged page or the home page of a website.
Link bait
Link bait is the process of creating interesting graphics and text that tempts the user into clicking through it. This is one of the interesting marketing strategies adopted by many websites.
Link building
Link building is the process of building links of different websites into one so as to increase the page rank of the website in the SERP.
Link popularity
It is the process of popularising a website by linking it to other websites. This process can increase the page rank as the page will be indexed regularly by the crawler. The more the number of web pages that links to a certain website, the higher is the page rank.
Links
Refer “Hyper Link’.
Log file
Log files store all the details of the user such as date, time, details of accessed files and pages and the IP address, when the user visits a website. This is useful in tracking the details of potential customers and these files are stored in the server database.
M
Machine generated
Machine generation is the process of creating pages and submitting them to search engines by the use of automated software. The content of these web pages are often found to be junk and search engines will de-index these pages once found out.
Manual submitting
Manual submitting is the process of submitting web pages without the help of automated software. This is an ideal way of submitting web pages to search engines. It would be a better tactic if the spider crawls to a website using reference and inbound links from other web pages, as these pages will have more page ranking.
Meta description
It is a short article that is included in the HTML source code that describes the content in the webpage. These tags will be crawled by the spiders and have more probability of gaining higher rank in the search engines. Special care must be chosen while adding meta description, as any deviation from the content described in the webpage can lead to de-indexing of the page.
Meta keywords
Keywords that are included in the HTML source code to improve search engine rankings previously. But due to the increase in number of spam and junk pages due to this, Meta keywords do not play any significant role in SEO.
Meta search
It is a list of search for met tags from a variety of sources and included in the SERP.
Meta tags
Meta tags are usually information on the content of the webpage. They are usually ignored by the search engines. Refer ‘Meta description’ and ‘Meta Keywords’.
Mirror
Mirror usually stands for duplicate of a website. Search engine crawlers don’t index these mirror sites.
Mod rewrite
This is a module or plugin that can be used to change or rewrite the link. This can be used to re-write the URL any countless number of times to enable good page ranking results. This has no particular limitations or any rules.
Mouse over
This is a marketing strategy to use more space than allotted to the ad. When the user hovers the mouse over the ad made in graphics or text, the ad widens, to show more content or graphics.
MSN
Short for Microsoft Network and their search engine. MSN is one of the major search engines.
N
Navigation Bar
It is a bar which consists of deep links and links to other web pages that may interest the user. This is one of the major requirements of the home page of a website. This can certainly increase the page rank of the website.
Negative SEO
Refer ‘Black Hat SEO’.
Noframes tag
It is the process of adding a tag to the HTML for the search engine spiders to index the framed web page normally. Refer ‘Frames’.
O
On theme
It refers to the particular theme or content that is relevant to the topic or keyword.
Outbound links
These are links in websites that point to another website. It is usually done in an attempt to create an effect such as Google bombing so as to increase the page rank. Refer ‘Inbound Link’.
Overture
It is the Yahoo! version of search engine marketing, which was formerly known as overture.
P
Page title
Page title or title tag is the name or title of the webpage. It represents the content that is present in the webpage. This title tag is an important part of SEO and the search engine spiders give a high amount of priority to these titles while crawling along a page.
Page jacking
Page jacking is the process of copying content from websites who have a higher page rank in the SERP. This is done to increase the page ranking of the jacked page. This is not at all advisable.
Page rank
Page rank is a special feature of the Google search engine which describes the weight given to a certain website or webpage in the SERP. Not all pages are ranked equally. The search engine spider crawls along a page and determine the quality of the content and the amount of keywords present in it. The page rank is usually weighed within a range of 0-10.
Page views
It is the number or frequency of the click through that an ad or search result gets from the SERP. This also describes the frequency of clicks that an ad gets.
Paid inclusion
This is the process of paying search engines to include the websites in the index without actual crawling. It is not necessary to adopt SEO works for this type of inclusion, but is advisable if it requires a higher page rank.
Pay for performance
This is a new type or model of advertising strategy which include paying for ads, which have performed well, by paying when the customers avail the services of the website. This is entirely different from the pay per click program. This is the best technique where the money has to be paid only for potential customers and not for every user that click through.
Pay per click (PPC)
A Pay Per Click program pays the search engine a certain amount of money when users click through the ad.
PDF
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It is a program created by ADOBE. This gives the website publisher a choice to create a page the way he desires it to be. Unlike HTML, whose design depends on the type and version of the web browser, PDF images are shown the exact way the publisher wants it to look like.
Penalty
Due to the increasing amount of spammers who manipulate the search engines by following unethical SEO, search engines follow a rule of penalising the website publishers whose websites has been found to be practising unethical SEO. Refer 'Black Hat SEO'.
PHP
PHP is a programming language that is used to create dynamic and user-friendly websites. PHP is he most popular programming language over ASP and JSP, which are the other programming languages used for creating websites. PHP programs are considered to be fast, safe and reliable.
Pop-under
A business strategy to lure customers into clicking on interesting graphical ads by opening pop-up windows when an user clicks on a link from SERP or any other web page. Usually these pop-up windows appear below the active window, and are visible to the user after minimising the active window.
Pop-up
A smaller window that opens up when a user clicks on certain links. The advantage of pop-up windows is that deep links can be opened with the main browser still active. But search engines usually does not crawl these pop-up windows. Certain advertisers also make use of this opportunity to advertise their services.
Pull down list
This list is usually included in webpages, which are used to collect user information regarding the country, age, etc.
Q
Query
Query is simply defined as the keyword that the user types into the search engines.
R
Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking is the process of trading links between websites in an attempt to increase the page rank. This will help attain a better page rank as these web pages are crawled time again due to the presence of links in another websites. Refer ‘Inbound Links’.
Redirect
Redirecting is the process of diverting the user to another page when the user clicks on a link. Redirecting can cause the web page to rank lower in the SERP, as spiders does not crawl these redirected pages.
Referrer
It is a web page that contains a link to the main website. Refer ‘Landing Page’.
Re-inclusion
Re-inclusion of the websites are requested by the website publishers to the search engines, who have been accused of spamming and are already penalised and de-indexed by the search engines.
Relevance
Relevance describes the authenticity and quality that the concerned web page offers to the keyword search. Relevancy mainly depends on the keyword density and the title tag of the article.
Render
Rendering is the process of converting the HTML source code into a user-friendly web page. The various web browsers do the rendering process.
Replica
Refer ‘Mirror’.
Resubmitting
Resubmitting is the process of submitting an already submitted web page to the search engines. This will create duplicate copies of the submission, and the web page has a high probability of being accused of spamming. Refer ‘Submitting’.
Results
This is the results page that is displayed to the user when they type in a keyword to the search engine. Refer ‘SERP’.
Rewrite
Rewriting is the process of changing the content in a website, or changing the address of the link.
Robot
Robot is a program that follows a set of algorithm to index or crawl websites for search engines. Refer ‘Crawler’.
Robots.txt
It is a text file included in the root directory of the website to direct the robot on which all links in the web page can be indexed by it. This file can control the amount of crawling done by a search engine spider.
ROI
Return On Investment gives the exact amount of revenue that an ad serves if a single dollar is invested in it.
S
Search Engine
Search engine is a large database that provides a wide variety of information on topics that are sought by the users. This information is present in websites available in the web, which are searched and indexed in the search engine’s data base. A search engine employs a robot or a program that crawls along these web pages for the relevant information. Some of the most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
A strategy of marketing that employs the use of search engines. With the extensive use of search engines for a variety of services, various online companies have resorted to improving their site traffic by employing SEO techniques. Refer ‘SEO’.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimisation is the technique of optimising content for websites or web pages so as to increase the page rank of these web pages in the SERP. This is done by including keyword rich content in the websites, along with tweaking the HTML source code to obtain maximum optimisation. But care must be taken so as to prevent any form of unethical SEO work. Refer ‘White Hat SEO’ and ‘Black Hat SEO’.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
This is a page that is displayed to the user when they type in a keyword to a search engine. This page displays links to websites according to the page rank of these web pages. The page rank is determined by the quality of the SEO work of these websites.
Search Term
Search term is a keyword or a phrase that the user types into a search engine to obtain a result. See ‘Query’.
Select List
Select list is similar to a pull down list, which is used in several web pages that are built to collect customer information.
SEM
Short for Search Engine Marketing. Refer ‘Search Engine Marketing’.
SEO
Stands for Search Engine Optimisation. People who master in SEO technique are also known as an SEO or search engine optimiser. Refer ‘Search engine Optimisation’.
SEO Copywriting
SEO copywriting is the process of creating keyword rich articles for web pages that can enable the web pages to attain better page ranking in SERP.
SERP
Short for Search Engine Results Page.
Siphoning
This is the process of stealing the traffic meant for one site to another by the use of spamming software and spyware.
Sniffer Script
Sniffer scripts are small codes that are encrypted in the HTML codes that are used to determine the version and the type of Internet Browser that is active in the user’s computer. This data is necessary for the source code to allow the browser to render the page with optimum performance.
Spamdexing
Spamdexing is the process of indexing the web pages by the search engines, who have attempted to manipulate the search engine to attain a higher page rank.
Spamglish
Certain website publishers use keyword rich content in their websites, that doesn’t provide any meaningful purpose to the user. This is done in order to attain higher page ranking in the SERP. Search engines often find out this type of spamming and penalise the website publisher along with de-indexing the website.
Spamming
In search engine marketing, spamming refers to the act of performing unethical acts in SEO techniques to gain advantage in the page ranking and other purposes.
Spider
A program used by search engines to crawl and index web pages. A spider follows a set of instructions or algorithm to crawl and index a website. The spider also decides the page rank or the priority that should be given to the web page in the SERP. Refer ‘Bot’ and ‘Crawler’.
Spider Trap
Spider trap occurs when the search engine gets trapped in a dynamic website. Dynamic website changes its content periodically and is also often found to change or re-write their URL. There can be several deep links in these dynamic websites, and this can cause the spider to crawl the same website in loops. Search engines constantly update their robots to escape spider traps.
Splash page
Splash pages are usually home pages of websites which are devoid of any meaningful content and are limited to pictures and flash intros. This is not an advisable for SEO technique, as using splash pages can result in lesser page rankings due to the lack of keyword rich content.
Sponsored Listing
Sponsored listing is done when the websites require to be showed at the top spot of the SERP. This is done by paying the search engine some amount of money to be at the top of the list when an user types a relevant keyword into the search engine.
Standards Compliant
Standards compliant web pages are pages created for SEO friendly techniques, while providing a good presentation for the user. These web pages are highly favourable and generally have better page rank.
Static Page/content
A static page or content refers to webpage that is static. It doesn’t constantly update its content from the database, neither does it does any attempt to prove dynamic to search engine spiders. Refer ‘Dynamic Webpage’.
Stemming
The technique adopted by search engines to find results for certain keywords by stemming the word into the root word, and then crawling the websites for similar keywords. Although, in SEO, it is always advisable to research on the most used keywords before starting to optimising the content for SEO.
Stop Character
Search engine spiders are very careful about dynamic web pages, as they might be prone to spider traps. Hence, in such a case, using a stop character in the website can help the spider to index the web page more efficiently.
Stop word
In dynamic pages, stop characters can help the spiders to index the web pages more efficiently. But in case of static web pages; stop words or characters can prevent the spider from indexing the website altogether.
Streaming Media
Internet videos are played in the browser as streaming media. In streaming, the video is downloaded along with the display of the video. Streaming media is sometimes used for advertising purposes.
Subheading
Refer ‘Subtitle’.
Submitting
Refer ‘Manual Submission’.
Supplemental Pages
These are web pages that have been indexed by the search engines, and whose data has been added to the database. These pages may be non-existent at the present time, but will show up in the SERP, however with a lower page rank.
T
Term Frequency
This refers to the frequency of terms or keywords that occur in the content of website as a whole.
Theme
Theme is nothing but the general idea or description of the content or the services offered by the website.
Title tag
It is the title of the whole web page that plays a prominent role during the process of crawling of the websites. Search engines pay special weight to these title tags.
Traffic
Traffic represents the number of users that enter a website by clicking through the links that are displayed in the SERP. The top most links in the search engines get the maximum clicks and hence quality SEO work should be employed in order to gain maximum traffic. Traffic is the most important part of search engine marketing.
Trust rank
A special algorithm created by search engines to give additional weight to trusted websites. The trusted websites include government web pages, institution and other websites.
U
Unique Visitors
They are visitors to a website, who has a high probability of availing the services of the website. Traffic to a website cannot be accounted for the number of visitors, as a single user may enter any multiple numbers of times.
URL
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. This is the address or link of a website, and may be changed according to the requirements of the website. URLs are quite important in SEO.
User agent
User agent is the robot or the search engine spider that visits a web page for crawling and subsequent indexing. See ‘Bot’.
User session
It is the amount of time that a user spends in the website. Though after a certain time of inactivity, the time watch stops recording the user session.
V
Visibility
Visibility describes the visibility it offers to search engines for indexing. A large part of the web is invisible to the search engines. Hence special care must be taken to do the right amount and quality of SEO work in order to be included by the search engines.
Visit
Refer ‘Traffic’.
W
Web browsers
A software in the user’s computer that is capable of rendering the HTML code of the websites. There are different web browsers, and hence the HTML source codes are tweaked for performing well.
Web standards
Refer ‘Standards Compliant’.
White Hat SEO
True form of SEO where the publisher abides by the rules and regulations of search engines in creating keyword rich content to enable higher page ranking for the website.
Wordnet
It is a dictionary intended for search engine spiders which allows them to decipher the word meaning and relations of certain keywords.
Word Tracker
It is a paid keyword research tool, used to research the most popular keywords for search engines.
X
Xenu
It is software used to check and repair broken links in websites.
XML
XML is short form for Extensible Markup Language, which is used by website designers to control the properties of a webpage.
Y
Yahoo!
A popular search engine after Google.
Yahoo! Search marketing
Yahoo web marketing strategy, used similar to the Google search engine marketing system.
