Glossary of SEO terms
Algorithm - A set of complex
mathematical formula used by search engines to rank web pages.
ALT Tags - This is used to show a text description
of an image. They assist you with your search engine ranking
by increasing the keyword density. For example:
< img src="images/seo.jpg" width="300" height="450" alt="Photo
of SEO" >
Anchor Text - The visible text for a particular hyperlink
is called Anchor Text. For example:
< a href="http://www.uditi.net /" >this is the anchor text< /a >
ATW - This is the abbreviation for AllTheWeb, a search
engine powered by FAST.
Backlinks - Also called Incoming Links, Backlinks are
links on another web page in the direction of your page.
Broken Link - A link that does not lead you to a destination
page when you click it. This may happen when the destination
page is renamed or deleted from the server. Broken link is
also referred to as a Dead Link.
Bot - it is a shortened form of Robot (also called
a spider or spyder). Bot refers to software programs that
scan the web. Bot is used by search engines for scanning web
pages. It is also used by spammers for harvesting e-mail addresses.
Click Through Rate (CTR) - This refers to the number
of times a link is clicked on divided by the number of times
a link is displayed. In short, it is the ratio of clicks per
impression. An impression is nothing but a link displayed.
For example:
A link is displayed 100 times (100 impressions) and clicked
on 10 times. The CTR is 10% (10/100=.10).
Cloaking - It is a technique used by spammers to show
one page to a human visitor and another version to a search
engine. It is a violation of the Terms of Service, looked
down upon my major search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Cross Linking - When two websites of a single possessor
are interlinked in order to boost search engine ratings, it
is called Cross Linking. If detected, it attracts search engine
penalty.
CPC - This abbreviation stands for Cost Per Click.
It is the base unit of cost for a PPC campaign.
CTA - This abbreviation stands for Content Targeted
Advertising. CTA refers to placing relevant PPC ads on content
pages for non-search engine websites.
Deep Linking - When linking is done to a page that
is removed from one or more levels from the home page, it
is called Deep Linking. It is often sought to build Page Rank
to a specific page on a website. For example:
http://www.yoursite.com/articles/seo.html
Doorway Page - also called Gateway Page, it is usually
built for the specific purpose of driving traffic to another
page. Designed more for search engines than human visitors,
Doorway Page is written for gaining high ranking on search
engines. This practice is looked down upon by major search
engines.
Duplicate Content - when two or more web pages contain
almost the same content, they are said to have Duplicate Content.
Filters are set by search engines to detect such duplicate
content when their crawlers are active on the web. Duplicate
content is penalized when detected, often resulting in lowering
of the ranking.
Dynamic Content - Also called Dynamic Pages-web pages
generated from database information based on queries initiated
from users are called Dynamic Content or Dynamic Pages. These
pages often include the ? character in the URL.
You can often find these extensions .asp, .cgm or.cgi in the
URLs of the Dynamic Pages. Most search engines don't index
dynamic content well (sometimes not at all).
Dynamic IP address - It is an IP address that changes
every time a computer logs on to the internet.
FFA - This abbreviation stands for Free For All. Most
of FFA sites post large unrelated links to anyone and everyone,
links that are mostly useless. With little relevance to users,
search engines minimize their importance in ranking formulas.
Gateway Page - See Doorway Page.
Google Dance - When Google updates its nine data centers,
the positions of the sites appear to dance as they fluctuate
from minute to minute. This fluctuating positions, when Google
is performing it index update, are unofficially termed Google
Dance. Simply put, when Google updates its index, it is called
Google Dance.
Header Tags - HTML tags which help outline a web page
or draw attention to important information are called Header
Tags. Keyword inside Header Tags can boost rankings on the
search engines. For Example:
< h1 >Uditi Technologies< /h1 >
< h2 >Uditi Technologies< /h2 >
Hidden Texts and Hidden Links - Text font that have
the color as the background become virtually hidden, rendering
the text invisible to the eye. Such texts are called Hidden
Text or Hidden Links. Used to increase Keyword or Keyphrae
density, they artificially boost the link popularity of other
pages.
Hits - This is wrongly understood as visits to a site.
A hit takes place every time a file is accessed on the website.
Inbound Links - See Backlinks.
Ink - This word is a shortened form of Inktomi, the
back-end search engine of Yahoo. This, however, is now being
phased out by Yahoo and a new one is being built using Inktomi's
technology with elements of Yahoo's other search engines.
Indexing - The placing of a URL in a rank-wise position
by the search engine on its database is called Indexing. It
is also called Index.
Keyword/Key Phrase - Words or phrases that are used
in search engines by users to locate a particular site are
called Keyword or Keyphrases. SEO uses Keywords or Keyphrases
strategically to gain higher ranking of a site by search engines.
Keyword Stuffing - The adding of keyword or Key phrases
to gain higher ranking by search engines is called Keyword
Stuffing. The addition may or may not be visible to humans.
When they are visible, it detracts from the impact of the
page. Sometimes search engines may discount large blocks of
such keyword or Keyphrases that do not confirm to grammatical
structures.
Link Exchange - also known as reciprocal link, Link
Exchange is the placing of a link to another website on your
own site in exchange for a return link.
Link Popularity - This is a term used describing how
popular a web page is on the internet. It is measured by the
number of inbound links pointing to your web page. This is
one of the main factors that search engines consider while
ranking a web site.
Log Files - These are files that are constantly and
automatically created and updated on your web server. They
provide very specific details about the activities taking
place on your web site. Log Files include URLs, IP addresses,
pages visited, errors generated, number of unique visitors,
total page views, total hits and other pieces of information.
When carefully reviewed they throw a lot of light on the performance
and visitors to the site.
Meta Search Engine - This is a website that takes your
query and conveys it to several different engines and directories
and then summarizes the results in a logical manner for review.
Mirror - This is an identical or near identical web
site (or page) of another site, purposely done to target optimization
of keywords or keyphrases. It is a violation of the Terms
of Service of search engines.
PFI - The abbreviation that stands for Pay For Inclusion.
PFI is offered by most search engines to assure spidering
or indexing of a site or a page. There is no guarantee that
your site will be ranked high. It just offers webmasters the
opportuynity to quickly make changes to a site into a search
engines index.
Portal - A designation for websites that are either
authoritative hubs for a given subject or content driven sites.
Most portals offer relevant content and ad proposals for relevant
sites.
PPC - It is a short form of Pay Per Click. It is an
advertising model where advertisers pay only for the traffic
generated.
PR - it is an abbreviation for PageRank, a Google's
trademark for their proprietary measure of link popularity
for web pages.
Robots.txt - This is a file which well-behave spiders
read to determine which parts of a website they may visit.
Scumware - This is a generic label for softwares that
install themselves secretly or without consent or dishonestly
and tracks users activities without the user being aware of
it. Scumware does not allow easy uninstallation or removal.
It can also change the default position of other programs.
Search Engine Friendly - Used of a web page that has
been specially designed for search engine with the aim of
gaining high ranking. It makes it easy for the search engine
to follow the links on the page.
Search Engine Optimisation - The process of optimizing
a web page for high search engine ranking for a particular
search term or a set of search terms.
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) - These are the
ranked listing of web pages that are returned for a specific
search query.
Search Query - This stands for the keyword or Keyphrase
that you type into a search engine to find web pages on topic
that you are looking for.
Spam - In SEO terminology, Spam refers to manipulation
techniques that violate search engine Terms of Service. The
manipulation is often indulged in getting higher ranking for
a website or a web page. Spam can call for banning.
Spider - also called Crawler-This is a program that
search engine uses to 'crawl' along the web to follow the
links from page to page for indexing the page.
Stop Word - Word or words that search engines ignore
when they process a query and index the web page.
Unique Visitors - The number of visitors who visit
a web site within a given period of time (say 24 hours) from
a single IP address. If a person visits the site three times
a day, it is counted as one visit for that day.
www2/www3/www-xx - A short hand term used by Google
dance watchers to refer to different Google data centers.
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