Glossary

Search Marketing – SEO Glossary

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200 Status OK - The file request was successful. For example, a page or image was found and loaded properly in a browser. 301 Moved Permanently - The file has been moved permanently to a new location. This is the preferred method of redirecting for most pages or websites. 302 Found - The file has been found, but is temporarily located at another URL. 404 Not Found - The server was unable to locate the URL.

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AdSense Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site, you'll have a way to both monetize and enhance your content pages. It's also a way for website publishers to provide Google web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages. 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 ads relative position within the paid search results. Google applies such a weighting factor in order to feature those paid search results that more popular and thus presumably more relevant and useful. Google has also started taking into account the quality of the landing page and applying a quality score to the landing pages. Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing programs allows merchants to expand their market reach and mindshare by paying independent agents on a cost per action (CPA) basis. Affiliates only get paid if visitors complete an action. Agent Name Name of the Crawler/spider that is currently visiting a page. Spider is a robot sent out by search engines to catalogue websites on the Internet. When a spider indexes a particular website, this is known as 'being spidered'. Algorithm An algorithm is an operational programming rule that determines how a search engine indexes content and displays the results to its users. Alexa Amazon.com owned search service which measures website traffic. "Alexa" is heavily biased toward sites that focus on marketing and Webmaster communities. While not being highly accurate it is free. AllTheWeb “AllTheWeb” is a search engine owned by Yahoo and using its database. Alt Attribute The ALT attribute is designed to be an alternative text description (provide a text equivalent) for images. Alt Tags Alt tags 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.). Note that the value of Alt tags for SEO have been discounted over time by the search engines to the point that now it is of minimal value. Analytics Software that allows you to track your page views, user paths, and conversion statistics based upon interpreting your log files or through including a JavaScript tracking code on your site. Examples are Google Analytics, ClickTracks etc. Anchor Text Anchor text is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined). Used by search engines as an important ranking factor. Google pays particular attention to the text used in a hyperlink and associates the keywords contained in the anchor text to the page being linked to. Also see "Google bombing." Animated Ad An ad with movement, often an interactive Java applet or Shockwave or GIF89a file. ASP An acronym for Active Server Pages, a Microsoft-invented, proprietary programming language for building dynamic web sites. ASP is also an acronym for Application Service Provider, a hosted service available via the Internet. Automated Bid Management Software Software that makes it easier to control your ad spend. Some of the more advanced tools can integrate with your analytics programs and help you focus on conversion, ROI, and earnings elasticity instead of just looking at cost per click. Automated Submitting Automated Submitting is 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. The search engines frown upon this tactic. 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.

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Back Links Back links are inbound links pointing to a web page or 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 (PR). Banned When a search engine blocks your site from appearing in its search results. Banner Ad A graphic image, usually a GIF or JPEG, that can be placed anywhere on a web page, most frequently centered across the top. The tile ad is a smaller counterpart, typically grouped with other tile ads along a side margin. The Interactive Advertising Bureau regulates guidelines and standards for display advertising sizes. Bid Management Tool Software or an ASP service used to manage bids on pay-per-click search engines such as Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) and Google AdWords. Bidding Bidding means placing a bid price that you are willing to pay as an advertiser on a pay-per-click search engine. The highest bid for a given keyword achieves the top spot in the PPC search results. Black Hat SEO Black Hat SEO is sometimes called spamdexing (the opposite of White Hat SEO). Black Hat SEO can be any optimization tactics that cause a site to rank more highly than its content would otherwise justify or any changes made specifically for search engines that don’t improve the user’s experience of the site. In other words, Black Hat SEO is optimizations that are against search engine guidelines. If you step too far over the mark, your site may be penalized or even removed from the index. 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. Blog Also known as a "weblog". An online diary with entries made on a regular if not daily basis, typically formatted in reverse chronological order. Some blogs are maintained by an anonymous author who uses a nickname or handle instead of his or her real name. Many blogs not only archive and categorize information, but also provide a feed and allow simple user interaction like leaving comments on the posts. Bookmarking Most browsers come with the ability to bookmark your favorite pages. Many web-based services have also been created to allow you to bookmark and share your favorite resources. Some search engines may eventually use bookmarks to help aid their search relevancy. Social bookmarking sites are often called tagging sites. Del.icio.us is the most popular social bookmarking site. Yahoo! MyWeb also allows you to tag results. Google allows you to share feeds and / or tag pages. Bot Short for robot. See "spider" Brand The emotional response associated with your company and/or products. A brand is built through controlling customer expectations and the social interactions between customers. Building a brand is what allows you to move away from commodity based pricing and move toward higher margin value based pricing. Branded Keywords Keywords or keyword phrases associated with a brand. Typically branded keywords occur late in the buying cycle, and are some of the highest value and highest converting keywords. Brin, Sergey Brin is the co-founder of Google and currently holds the position of President of Technology at Google. Browser Client used to view the World Wide Web. The most popular browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Safari, and Opera. Broad Match Broad Match is a form of "keyword matching" and refers to the matching of a search listing or advertisement to selected keywords in any order. Broad match terms are less targeted than exact or phrase matches. 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")

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Cache Copy of a web page stored by a search engine. When you search the web you are not actively searching the whole web, but are searching files in the search engine index. Some search engines provide links to cached versions of pages in their search results, and allow you to strip some of the formatting from cached copies of pages. Call To Action A call to action is copy used in advertising to encourage a person to complete an action as defined by the advertiser. Call to action words are "doing words" such as "Click here", "Buy Now", "Enter Now" or "Click to download". 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 are 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. CMS Content Management System. Tool used to help make it easy to update and add information to a website. Blog software programs are some of the most popular content management systems currently used on the web. Cold Fusion A web scripting language with limited capabilities, mostly centered around database access. ColdFusion program files are saved on the web server with a .CFM file extension. Content Integration Advertising woven into editorial content or placed in a special context on the page, typically appearing on portals and large destination sites. Also known as web advertorial or sponsored content. 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. 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 Lead (CPL) Pricing based on the number of new leads generated. For example, people who click from an ad and then complete an inquiry form is considered to be a lead. The advertiser would pay based on the number leads received. Cost Per Order (CPO) Pricing based on the number of orders received as a result of your ad placement. Also known as cost-per-transaction. Cost Per Sale (CPS) Pricing based on the number of sales transactions your ad generates. Since users may visit your site several times before making a purchase, you can use cookies to track their visits from your landing page to the actual online sale. Also known as cost-per-acquisition or pay-per-sale. Cost Per Thousand (CPM) The cost incurred or price paid for a thousand impressions. Counter A simple program, which tracks the total number of webpage impressions. Crawler See "spider". CSS Cascading Style Sheet - used to control the design of website. CTR - Click Through Rate Click Through Rate is a measure of the number of clicks received from the number of ad impressions delivered. The formula to calculate CTR is: “number of clicks” / “number of ad impressions” x 100 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. 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. Cutts, Matt Matt Cutts heads the Search Quality team of Google and specializes in search engine optimization issues. He is well known in the SEO community for enforcing the Google Webmaster Guidelines and cracking down on link spam. Cutts also advised the public on how to get better website visibility in Google.

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Dead Link A link, which is no longer functional. Most large high quality websites have at least a few dead links in them, but the ratio of good links to dead links can be seen as a sign of information quality. 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. Del.icio.us Popular social book-marking website. Demographics Statistical data or characteristics which define segments of a population. Some internet marketing platforms, such as AdCenter and AdWords, allow you to target ads at websites or searchers who fit amongst a specific demographic. Some common demographic data points are gender, age, income, education, location, etc. Digg Social news site where users vote on which stories get the most exposure and become the most popular. Directory Human editors group websites into categories and provide site descriptions or edit descriptions that are submitted to them. With a directory, picking the right category and composing a description rich in key phrases will ensure maximum visibility. Some directories cater to specific niche topics, while others are more comprehensive in nature. DMOZ The Open Directory Project is the largest human edited directory of websites. DMOZ is owned by AOL, and is primarily run by volunteer editors. Duplicate Content Content, which is, duplicate or near duplicate in nature. Search engines do not want to index multiple versions of similar content. For example, printer friendly pages may be search engine unfriendly duplicates. Dynamic Content Content, which changes over time or uses a dynamic language such as PHP to help render the page. In the past search engines were less aggressive at indexing dynamic content than they currently are. While they have greatly improved their ability to index dynamic content it is still preferable to use URL rewriting to help make dynamic content look static in nature. Dynamic Languages Programming languages such as PHP or ASP, which build web pages on the fly upon request.

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Earnings Per Click Many contextual advertising publishers estimate their potential earnings based on how much they make from each click. Ethical SEO Search engines like to paint SEO services, which manipulate their relevancy algorithms as being unethical. Any particular technique is generally not typically associated with ethics, but is either effective or ineffective. Error Page A web page stating an error message such as "File Not Found" Exact Match Exact Match is a form of keyword matching where the search query must be exactly the same as the advertisement keyword. Exclusive Advertising A contract that allows advertisers to purchase all inventory on a given page or for chosen keywords. External Link Link, which references another domain. Some people believe in link hoarding, but linking out to other related resources is a good way to help search engines understand what your site is about.

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Favicon Favorites Icon is a small icon, which appears next to URLs in a web browser. Upload an image named favicon.ico in the root of your site to have your site associated with a favicon. Feed Many content management, systems such as blogs, allow readers to subscribe to content update notifications via RSS or XML feeds. Feed Reader Software or website used to subscribe to feed update notifications. Bloglines and Google Reader are examples. Firefox Popular extensible open source web browser. Flash Vector graphics-based animation software, which makes it easier to make websites look rich and interactive in nature. Flash intro An animated 'shot' 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. Floating Ads An ad that appears within the main browser window on top of the page's normal content, appearing to "float" over the top of the page. Forums A virtual community. Also known as discussion forums. Forums are threaded, which means a reply to a particular posting becomes part of the "thread" of that posting that can be followed to provide a cohesive progression through a particular topic. 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.

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GAP - Google Advertising Professional Google Advertising Professional is a free program, offered by Google, for professionals wishing to manage multiple Google Adwords clients. Geo-Targeting Advertising that is distributed based on geographic location. Online advertising allows for targeting of countries, states, cities and suburbs (in some markets). Google The world's leading search engine in terms of reach. Google pioneered search by analyzing linkage data via PageRank. Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google. Google AdSense See Adsense Google Analytics Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offering detailed visitor statistics. The tool can be used to track all the usual site activities: visits, page views, pages per visit, bounce rates and average time on site etc. Google Base Free database of semantically structured information created by Google. Google Base may also help Google better understand what types of information are commercial in nature, and how they should structure different vertical search products. Google Bombing Google Bombing is when a group of sites such as blogs join forces to link to an unflattering page about a company such that this page rises to the top of the search results in Google. Making a pank rank well for a specific search query by pointing hundreds or thousands of links at it with the keywords in the anchor text. Google Bowling Google Bowling is a black hat SEO technique used to knock competitors down or out of search engine results. It is knocking a competitor out of the search results by pointing hundreds or thousands of low trust low quality links at their website. Generally newer sites are more susceptible to Google Bowling as older sites are better established with a range of existing high quality links. Google Cache See Cache Google Checkout Payment service provided by Google, which helps Google, better understand merchant conversion rates and the value of different keywords and markets. It was designed to simplify the online purchase/payment process. Google Dance In the past Google updated their index roughly once a month. Those updates were named Google Dances, but since Google shifted to a constantly updating index, Google no longer does what was traditionally called a Google Dance. Google Labs Google Labs is the home to Google's latest innovations and beta products. It is a testing ground for new services in development.A number of popular products are graduates of Google Labs including: Google Reader, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Video, Personalized Search, Google Desktop and iGoogle. Google Pack Free software specifically selected by Google. There are no trial versions or spyware and it's ready to use in just a few clicks. Google Supplemental Index Google's Supplemental Index, is a secondary database containing Supplemental Results – pages deemed to be of less importance by Google’s algorithm or are less trusted. Pages may be placed in Google's Supplemental Index if they consist largely of duplicate content, if the URLs are excessively complex in nature, or the site which hosts them lacks significant trust. Google Toolbar Google Toolbar is Internet browser add-on available for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Google Traffic Estimator Google Traffic Estimator is a tool that indicates the number of clicks to expect on Google Adwords ads for particular keywords. Google Trends Google Trends allows you to see how Google search volumes for a particular keyword have changed over a period of time. It shows the popularity of search terms from the beginning of 2004 onwards. Google XML Sitemap Google Sitemaps are XML files that list the URLs available on a site. The aim is to help site owners notify search engines about the URLs on a website that are available for indexing. Googlebot Googlebot is a search bot used by Google. It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google search engine.If a webmaster wishes to restrict the information on their site available to a Googlebot, or other well-behaved spider, they can do so by with the appropriate directives in a robots.txt file. Googleware The assortment of tools produced by google that can be used to search, report, play, research Googlewhack A Google search query consisting of two words that returns a single result. Grey Hat SEO SEO using both Black Hat and White Hat techniques.

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Heading tag An HTML tag that is often used to denote a page or section heading on a web page. Search engines pay special attention to text that is marked with a heading tag, as such text is set off from the rest of the page content as being more important. Hidden keywords Keywords that are placed in the HTML source in such a way that these words are not viewable by human visitors looking at the rendered web page. Hidden Text - SEO Spam Tactic Hidden Text is a SEO spam tactic to hide contextual html text from human visitors to a webpage, however making it available to search engines to spider the text. Google Quality Guidelines specify to “Avoid hidden text or hidden links”. Hijacking of Websites Hijacking of websites is a practice that makes search engines believe that a specific website resides at another URL. It is a form of search engine spam and cloaking. The reason why this method is undertaken by spammers is to increase rankings in search engine result pages. Webpage Hijacking is an illegal spam tactic. Hits Link based algorithm, which ranks relevancy scores based on citations from topical authorities. It is 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. Homepage The main page on your website, which is largely responsible for helping develop your brand and setting up the navigational schemes that will be used to help users and search engines navigate your website. The homepage offers an index of navigation that organizes content and leads to other parts of the website. HTML Stands for HyperText Markup Language. The programming language used to mark up web content and display it in a formatted manner. HTML Source The raw, unrendered programming code. It can be accessed in Internet Explorer by going to the "View" menu then selecting "Source". HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol is the foremost used protocol to communicate between servers and web browsers. Hypertext transfer protocol is the means by which data is transferred from its residing location on a server to an active browser. Hubs Topical hubs are sites which link to well trusted within their topical community. A topical authority is a page, which is referenced from many topical hub sites. A topical hub is a page that references many authorities.

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Impression The number of times your search ad is served to users by search engines. Inbound links (IBL) Links that point to your website from other sites. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's PageRank (PR). Most search engines allow you to see a sample of links pointing to a document by searching using the link: function. Index A search engine's database in which it stores textual content from every web page that its spider visits. Index may also refer to the root of a folder on a web server. Inlinks A synonym for back links. Popularized by Yahoo! Internal Links An Internal Link is a hypertext link that points to another page within the same website. Internal links can be used as a form of navigation for people, directing them to pages within the website. Search engines also use internal text links to crawl pages within a website. Internet Vast worldwide network of computers connected via TCP/IP. The Internet is a publicly accessible worldwide system of computer networks that enable people to send and receive information from other computers. Internet Explorer Microsoft's web browser. Internet Explorer is the most widely used browser in the world to view information on the World Wide Web (WWW). Invisible Web Portions of the web, which are not easily accessible to crawlers due to search technology limitations, copyright issues, or information architecture issues. IP Address IP Address stands for “Internet Protocol Address” and is sometimes referred to as “IP” or “Internet Address”. Every computer connected to the Internet has an IP address. Some websites and servers have unique IP addresses, but most web hosts host multiple websites on a single host. ISP - Internet Service Provider An ISP provides a range of Internet related services to customers including Internet connectivity, email, website hosting, domain name registration and hosting. Usually provided for a monthly fee, an ISP can be a commercial business, a university, a government organization, a school or any other entity that provides access to the Internet to members or subscribers.

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JavaScript A client-side scripting language that can be embedded into HTML documents to add dynamic features.

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) KPIs help organizations achieve organizational goals through the definition and measurement of progress. The key indicators are agreed upon by an organization and are indicators, which can be measured that will reflect success factors. Key Phrase (or keyword phrase) A search phrase made up of keywords. Keyword A word, which implies a certain mindset, or demand that targeted prospects is likely to search for. 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. 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. Keyword Funnel The relationship between various related keywords that searchers search for. Some searches are particularly well aligned with others due to spelling errors, poor search relevancy, and automated or manual query refinement. Keyword Matching Keyword matching is the process of selecting and providing advertising or information that match the user's search query. Keyword Popularity The number of occurrences of searches done by Internet users of a given keyword during a period of time. Keyword Prominence The location (i.e. placement) of a given keyword in the HTML source code of a web page. Keyword Research The process of discovering relevant keywords and keyword phrases that people use to find something, then compiling them into a list for use on web pages for SEO and PPC marketing campaigns on. Keyword Stuffing 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. Keyword-rich When a given page or bit of text is chock full of good keywords rather than a bunch of meaningless words or irrelevant words.

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Landing Page The landing page is a web page where people go to once they click on an online advertisement or natural search listing. Link Bait Useful or entertaining web content, which compels users to link to it. Link baiting is the art of targeting, creating, and formatting information that provokes the target audience to point high quality links at your site. Link Building Requesting links from webmasters of other sites for the purpose of increasing your "link popularity" and/or "PageRank," to trust if your website is authoritative, relevant, and trustworthy. Link Farm A link farm is a group of highly interlinked websites with the purposes of inflating link popularity (or PR). A link farm is a form of spamdexing, spamming the index of a search engine. Link Popularity The number of links pointing at a website. The more web pages that link to you, the better your link popularity. Link Spam Links between pages that are specifically set up to take advantage of link-based ranking algorithms such as Google's PageRank (PR). Links Text or graphics that, when clicked on, take the Internet user to another web page location. Links are expressed as URLs. Most major search engines consider links as a vote of trust. Log File Server files which show you what your leading sources of traffic are and what people are search for to find your website. 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. Long Tail Phrase describing how for any category of product being sold there is much more aggregate demand for the non-hits than there is for the hits. Long Tail keywords are more precise and specific, thus have a higher value.

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Manual Submission Submission by hand to an individual search engine, rather than using an automated submission tool or service. Manual submission is the more polite way of submission, and as such is less likely to land you in trouble with the search engines. Meta Description The meta description tag is typically a sentence or two of content which describes the content of the page and it get displayed in search results of search engines. If Meta description does not reflect the page content, you may be accused of spamming. Meta Keywords It is an HTML tag used to highlight keywords and keyword phrases, which the page is targeting. Meta Refresh A meta tag used to make a browser refresh to another URL location. Meta Search Search results derived from several sources or search engines and consolidated into a single SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Meta Tag Stuffing Repeating keywords in the meta tags and using meta keywords that are unrelated to the site's content. 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. Meta descriptions and meta keywords are two of the types of meta tags. Mirror Site Site which mirrors (or duplicates) the contents of another website. Miserable Failure A well-known example of "Google bombing." it poignantly illustrates how inbound text links can affect SERPs. Mod_rewrite A module or plugin for Apache web servers that can be used to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. Mouseover 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. Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox is a web browser that is a free and open source software developed by the Mozilla Corporation and a community of external contributors. This cross-platform browser provides support for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. MSN Refers to Microsoft Network and also to the Search engine built by Microsoft. MSN is the default search provider in Internet Explorer.

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Natural Search The unpaid / algorithmic listings are called the organic or natural search results. Natural search results are organized by relevancy, which is largely determined based on linkage data, page content, usage data, and historical domain and trust related data. Navigation Scheme to help website users understand where they are, where they have been, and how that relates to the rest of your website. Negative Keyword Negative Keyword is a term referenced by Google AdWords and is a form of keyword matching. This means that an advertiser can specify search terms that they do not want their ad to be associated with. 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. Nofollow Attribute used to prevent a link from passing link authority. Commonly used on sites with user-generated content, like in blog comments. Noframes Tag An alternative non-framed HTML on a frameset page for very old, non-frames capable web browsers and search engine spiders.

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Open Source Software that is distributed with its source code such that developers can modify it as they see fit. Opera A fast standards based web browser. Organic Search The unpaid / algorithmic listings are called the organic search results. Organic or Free search results are organized by relevancy, which is largely determined based on linkage data, page content, usage data, and historical domain and trust related data. Outbound Links Links that direct "off-site" to another website. Overture The company, which pioneered search marketing by selling, targeted searches on a pay per click basis. Yahoo later acquired it and branded as Yahoo Search Marketing.

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Page Title See Title Tag 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. Pageviews See Impression 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-for-performance Payment structure where affiliated sales workers are paid commission for getting consumers to perform certain actions. 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 click-throughs rather than impressions or other criteria. PDF Adobe's Portable Document Format, a file format that renders the page exactly as intended regardless of the computer used. PHP An "open source" programming language for building dynamic web sites. Phrase Match Phrase Match is a form of keyword matching where an ad will be displayed if the user's search query includes the exact phrase, even if their query contains additional words. 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. Pop-ups are often times used for promotions, ads etc. Portal A site that functions as a point of access to information on the web. Portals are either authoritative hubs for a given subject or popular content driven sites. Pull-down List On a web form, where the user chooses from a list of items. A pull-down list is usually displayed with the first item within a box and a down arrow immediately to the right.

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Quality Link Search engines count links votes of trust. Quality links count more than low quality links. Query A keyword, or phrase inquiry entered into a search engine or database. A person types in words and the search engine database returns results that match the user's query.

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Reach Sometimes expressed as the percentage of the universe of a target audience, however it is measured by the total number of unique users who will see the ad over a specific period of time. Reciprocal Linking The practice of trading links between websites. Redirect A method of alerting browsers and search engines that a page location moved. Registrar A company which allows you to register domain names. Reinclusion If a site has been penalized for spamming they may fix the infraction and ask for reinclusion. Depending on the severity of the infraction and the brand strength of the site they may or may not be added to the search index. Referral Fees Fees paid in exchange for delivering a qualified sales lead or purchase inquiry. Referrer a web page, containing a link to your web page, that delivered your visitor to your web page. Relative Link A link that shows the relation of the current URL to the URL of the page being linked at. Relevance The likelihood that a given web page will be of interest or useful to a search engine user for a keyword search. Repeat Visitor A repeat visitor is a single individual or browser who accesses a website or webpage more than once over a specified period of time. Reputation Management Ensuring your brand related keywords display results, which reinforce your brand. Many hate sites tend to rank highly for brand related queries. Resubmission 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. Results Refers to SERPs. Reverse Index An index of keywords which stores records of matching documents that contain those keywords. Robot See "spider" Robots.txt A text file placed in the root of a site and tells search engines which files not to crawl. Allows for SEO's to control the actions of search engine spiders on the site or even deny them access. ROI - Return On Investment The benefit gained in return for the cost of investing budget into advertising or project. RSS Rich Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication is a method of syndicating information to a feed reader or other software that allows people to subscribe to a channel they are interested in.

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Scraper Sites Designed to 'scrape' search-engine results pages or other sources of content (often without permission) to create content for a website. Scraper sites are generally full of advertising or redirect the user to other sites. Search Engine A tool or device used to find relevant information or a web site that offers its visitors the ability to search the content of numerous web pages on the Internet. 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) Search engine optimization is the art and science of publishing information and marketing it in a manner that helps search engines understand your information is relevant to relevant search queries. Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Search Engine Results Page is the page on which the search engines show the results for a search query. Search History Many search engines store user search history information. This data can be used for better ad targeting or to make old information more findable. Search Marketing Marketing a website in search engines via SEO, buying pay per click ads, and paid inclusion. Search Term A keyword, or key phrase used to conduct a search engine query. Search Term Popularity See "keyword popularity" SEM Acronym for Search Engine Marketing SEO Acronym for "search engine optimization" and/or "search engine optimizer." SEO Copywriting Writing and formatting copy in a way that will help make the documents appear relevant to a wide array of relevant search queries. SERP An acronym for Search Engine Results Page. SERPs Plural for SERP (search engine results pages). Server Computer used to host files and serve them to the WWW. Sitemap Page which can be used to help give search engines a secondary route to navigate through your site. Skyscraper A tall, thin ad unit that runs down the side of a web page. A skyscraper can be 120 x 600 pixels or160 x 600 pixels. Social Media Websites which allow users to create the valuable content. A few examples of social media sites are social bookmarking sites and social news sites. Spam Manipulation techniques that violate search engines or unsolicited email messages. Spamglish Keyword-rich gibberish used as search engine fodder instead of thoughtfully written, interesting content. Spamglish often includes meaningless sentences and keyword repetition. Spamming Spamming refers to using disreputable tactics to achieve high search engine rankings. Such spamming tactics include bulk submitting spamglish-containing doorway pages. Spider Spiders are programs used by a search engine to explore the World Wide Web in an automated manner and download the HTML content (not including graphics) from web sites, strip out whatever it considers superfluous and redundant out of the HTML, and store the rest in a database (i.e. its 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. Splash Page A home page that is, for the most part, devoid of content. Feature rich or elegantly designed beautiful web page that typically offers poor usability and does not offer search engines much content to index. Standards Compliant Sites that use valid XHTML and CSS. Standards compliant sites are accessible and usable to both humans and spiders alike, they tend to rank better in search engines than non-compliant sites. Static Web page was not created dynamically from a database, but instead previously created and saved as a HTML file. Stemming Search engines such as Google use a process called stemming to deliver results based on a word's root spelling. An example would be similar search results returned for clothes as for the word clothing. Stop Character Certain special characters, such as ampersand (&), equals sign (=), and question mark (?), when in a web page's URL, tip off a search engine that the page in question is dynamic. Stop Word Common words (ex: a, to, and, is ...) which add little relevancy to a search query, and are thus are removed from the search query prior to finding relevant search results. 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. Submission The act of making information systems and related websites aware of your website. Supplemental Pages Pages that generally are trusted less and rank lower than documents in the main search index. Syndication An option that allows you to extend your reach by distributing ads to additional partner sites.

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Target Audience The target audience is the market in which advertisers wish to sell their product or service to. Technorati Search engine for blogs which tracks popular stories and link relationships. Telnet Internet service allowing a remote computer to log into a local one for projects such as script initialization or manipulation. Term Frequency A measure of how frequently a keyword appears amongst a collection of documents. Text Ad A text ad is a concise, action-oriented copy describing the product or service that is being advertised. Text Link Ads Advertisements that are formatted as text links. Theme The main keyword focus of a web page. Thesaurus Similar to a dictionary but contains a lists of synonyms rather than definitions. Title Attribute Title Attribute is intended to provide supplementary information about an element. Title Tag The text displayed in the blue bar at the very top of the browser window. The title tag is the most important bit of text on a web page as far as the search engines are concerned. Token A tracer or tag attached by the receiving server to the address (URL) of a page requested by a user. Toolbar Many major search companies aim to gain marketshare by distributing search toolbars. Google toolbar is an example. Topic-Sensitive PageRank Method of computing PageRank that instead of producing a single global score creates topic related PageRank scores. Tracking Online advertising opens the opportunity to track audience response throughout the life of a campaign. Trademark A trademark is a word, phrase, logo or symbol that identifies and distinguishes a product or service from others in the marketplace. Traffic The amount of users that surf a site. Traffic Estimator Google’s AdWords Traffic Estimator is a tool that provides search volume, average cost-per-click, and position estimates for search advertising in Google's search results and content network. TrustRank Search relevancy algorithm, which places additional weighting on links from trusted seed websites that are controlled by major corporations, educational institutions, or governmental institutions. Typepad A blogging service that hosts blogs and small business web sites.

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Unethical SEO Unethical search engine optimization techniques that are considered unscrupulous and can result in getting sites banned from the search engines. Unique Visitors Unique visitors are a count of individual users who have accessed your web site. URL Uniform Resource Locator is the unique address of any web document. It is used interchangeably with web address. URL Rewrite A technique used to help make web site URLs more user and search engine friendly. Usability The ease of use that a user can perform an action or task through the user interface. User Agent The name of the browser/spider that is currently visiting a page. User Generated Content User-generated-content (USG) is content created and published by the end-users online. User Session An instance of an Internet user accessing your web site for a length of time, and then leaving.

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Vertical Search A search service which is focused on a particular field, a particular type of information, or a particular information format. Viral Marketing Self propagating marketing techniques. Common modes of transmission are email, blogging, and word of mouth marketing channels. Visibility How well placed your web site is in the search engines for relevant keyword searches. Visit An instance of an Internet user accessing your web site for a length of time, and then leaving.

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Web Browser Software installed on the Internet user's computer that allows him or her to view web pages. Popular web browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Web Crawler It is a program or automated script, which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web Standards Web standards are widely adopted guidelines for CSS, XHTML etc. Web standards help ensure that web sites are accessible on a wide variety of platforms and to a wide range of users including users with disabilities. Web2.0 Web2.0 refers to the new generation of web based services and communities characterised by participation, collaboration and sharing of information among users online. Web2.0 applications include wikis, folksonomies, blogs and social networking sites. Weblog A weblog, or blog is an online journal. Weblogs are something of a phenomenon and have become increasing mainstream. White Hat SEO Ethical or legal way of SEO that are approved by the search engines and is long lasting. Wiki Software which allows information to be published using collaborative editing. Wikipedia Free online collaborative encyclopedia using wiki software. Wikipedia is now the largest and fastest growing encyclopedia online and is one of the world’s ten most visited websites. Wordpress Wordpress is an excellent open-source web publishing system or content management system. Created primarily as blogging software, it is written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database, it is ideal for managing content that is frequently updated. Wordtracker Popular keyword research tool. It is designed to assist search marketing professionals and webmasters in identifying important keywords and phrases relevant to their website.

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Xenu Popular free software for checking a site for broken internal or external links and creating a sitemap. XML Extensible Markup Language is a simple, very flexible text format, used to make it easy to syndicate or format information. It is a scripting language that allows the programmer to define the properties of the document.

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Yahoo! Internet portal company, one of the oldest and most established directories; also one of the top 3 search engines. Yahoo! Answers Free question asking and answering service that allows Yahoo! to leverage social structures to create a bottoms up network of free content. Yahoo! Directory One of the original, most popular, and most authoritative web directories, started in 1994. Yahoo! Search Marketing Yahoo!'s paid search platform, formerly known as Overture. Yahoo! Site Explorer Research tool which webmasters can use to see what pages Yahoo! has indexed from a website, and what pages link at those pages. YouTube Feature rich amateur video upload and syndication website owned by Google.

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Zeal Non-commercial directory which was bought by Looksmart for $20 million, then abruptly shut down with little to no warning.