SEO Glossary Terms

Adwords- Google's Pay-Per-Click program.

Algorithms- An SEO Term meaning a proprietary set of rules that search engines utilize to rank searches on their index pages for users' queries. The algorithms are proprietary secrets of search engine companies to keep websites from cheating to get top results for search queries.

Alt Tags- These are textual attributes given to web graphics.

Anchor text- refers to the visible text for a hyperlink; the visible link text given to a link that points to another website or web page.

Austin Update- refers to Google's complex algorithmic changes in Jan. 2004 that saw many websites disappearing from the search engine result pages (SERP). The update upended free subdomains and sites with spam-type links pointing back.

Backlinks- are links that point back to a website; also known as inbound links.

Banned- An SEO term used when a site has been removed from a search engine's index due to terms of violations.

BlackHat SEO- is generally referred to as search engine optimization that abuses and goes against the terms of servic set forth by each inidividual search engine's policy.

Blind Ads- also called "banner blindness"- A Search Engine Optimization term that refers to how users may see banner ads or flashing ads by just naturally ignoring them. Generally Banner Ads that are vague in content and ask users to sign up or click through for some enticing benefit. Many of these ads are seen through free email accounts that internet users procure.

Blog- short for weblog that is a journal or newsletter that is regularly updated and often reflects the personality of the author.

Bot- Abbreviation for a robot or spider that scans the web. Bots are geared toward different functions from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.

Broken or Dead Link- a link that does not actually point to a web page on the internet.

Clickthrough Rate- Also known as CTR, refers to the number of people who view a link versus the number of people who actually click on that link; the rate is represented in a percentage.

Cloaking- Cloaking is presenting a page to a search engine spider that is not what a human sees. The technique is abused by spammers for keyword stuffing. Cloaking is a violation of the Terms Of Service of search engines and may lead to banning.

Conversion- an action where a user buys a product, fills out a form or signs up for a newsletter for example. Analytical software can help determine visitor's actions within a website to increase performance for a more productive ROI.

Conversion Cost- a term representing the total cost of adverstising or investment divided by the number of sales conducted during the advertising campaign. An example would be 10 sales where $1,000 spent on the campaign would result in $100/ sale.

Clustering- techniques search engines use to report more than one web page from a single domain in a results query; this prevents single domains from dominating an entire results page.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)- This is the figure used to determine how much an advertiser pays when a potential buyer cliks on the ad to be taken to the advertiser's site.

Crawlers- the search engine bots that crawl web pages for indexing.

De-listing- is when a web page or domain is removed from a search engines index; usually occurs because of a violation of a search engines' TOS.

Directory- an organized collection of internet sites; some directories are related to specific topics called niche directories.

Drill Down- refers to clicking through categories and subcategories to get to specific topics.

Dynamic Pages- refer to web pages that change on a regular basis versus static pages that rarely change or add content. Users actions or selections may change the page with content delivered from a database.

Everflux- a Google term that refers to its algorithm adjusted in small increments, on a daily/regular basis versus major algorithmic changes where sites may be upended across the spectrum of natural topics/searches.

FFA- stands for free-for-all; these are websites that are primarily just stuffed with any links, with no categories or content structure and offering little to no value by search engines.

Florida Update- referes to a big change in Google's algorithm in Nov. 2003.

Frames- an html tag that allows for multiple web pages to be displayed simultaneously. Most search engines cannot properly index pages with frames which does not compliment search engine optimization.

Google Bombing- An SEO term meaning a technique used to influence keywords or keyword phrases. This can happen when several sites use consistent anchor text when referencing a particular subject. One of the most famous examples was when "miserable failure" was linked to President George Bush. Google claims it has fixed this technique and it is no longer valid.

Googlebot- Google's spider that crawls web pages and indexes them.

Google Supplemental Results Pages- Google maintains several search databases. Some are specialty databases such as blogs, news services, etc., however the main two databases are the primary databases and the supplemental databases. The determination to these databases responsibilities' is that primary results are always returned alone unless few results are available in which supplemental results will also be returned.

Heading or Header Tag- An html tag for headings and subheadings where up to 6 headings are allowed on a page. The search engines consider them important when keywords are contained in the (sub)headings.

Hidden Text- is text that is not visible to humans but is visible to search engines. Most often the text is cloaked from view by assuming the same color as the web page.

Hit- a hit is often confused with page views or visitors but it is the number of requests on a server. For example, a web page with 3 images would deliver 4 hits, one for the webpage and 3 for the images.

ICANN- the description on their sites states that it, "is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. These include domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .UK), as well as the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols. Computers use these identifiers to reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability."

Inbound Link (IBL)- An SEO term that refers to a link on another page (b) that points to another web page (a); web page "a" has an inbound link while web page "b" has an outbound link. Also called inbound links or IBL's.

Indexable- the ability for web pages to be indexed by the search engines. Locked .pdf files and text within graphics are examples of content not able to be indexed.

Java Script- a relativley simple programming script that is not search engine optimization friendly.

Keyword- An SEO Term meaning a single descriptive word entered into a search engine query.

Keyword Phrase- An SEO Term, meaning a set of multiple words entered into a search engine for a query.

Keyword Stuffing- is when search engine optimizers overuse keywords heoping to get better placement in the search results.

Latent Semantic Indexing-

Link Farms- websites that have a huge amount of unorganized links and are designed to get as many links as possible without regard to the quality of site and what it offers human visitors.

Link Popularity- An SEO term that refers to the number of inbound links and the quality of those links as far as page ranking (PR).

Link Swapping (Reciprocol Links)- Refers to one website exchanging links with another website.

Link Validator- a program that scans a website for broken links then generates a report.

Log File- Each website has a log file that is stored on the server that has various information such as search terms that internet users entered into search engines to get to the site, other websites that brought traffic to the site, inbound links a user followed, how much time the user spent on pages, unique visitors, visitor geographic locations, etc.

Long Tail Phrases- An SEO term that refers to less commonly used keyword phrases that clients may target in order to have quicker success in SERPs, however, the targeted traffic would naturally not be as great using broader keyword phrases. This phrase has its origination in statistics from the Bell Curve statistical model.

Made-for-Adsense (MFA)- A term that refers to websites that are made to simply bring in traffic that will be directed to click on Adsense ads to deliver pay to the web owner. These sites usually have no user value but are highly optimized on-page and off-page for search engines.

Manual Submission- refers to submitting a site to a directory mannually, by hand, versus submissions using software programs.

Meta Description- one or two sentences hidden within the html code describing the webpage.

Meta Keywords- the sets of individual keywords or keyword phrases grouped by commas that are relevant to the webpage and hidden with the html coding.

Meta Search Engine- A search engine that retrieves indexed pages from other search engines such as Google and Yahoo then presents them to users with their own proprietary algorithms versus Google's or Yahoo's algorithms.

Meta Tag- An html tag that is entered within the head of a webpage that describes the content of the webpage. Many webmasters have abused this tag which search engines used to help index the page properly along with keyword descriptions; it is becoming less important as far as SERP's.

Negative SEO- a blackhat technique that uses bad text links with negative connatations linking back to a competitors site, linking competitors to link farms and free-for-all sites, etc.

Off-page Ranking- An SEO term that refers to factors considered by the search engines when ranking a web page such as number of backlinks, quality of backlinks, actual linking text, etc.

On-page Ranking- An SEO term that refers to factors considered by search engines to rank a web page such as number of inbound links, outbound links, text headings, quality of content, unique content, number of worded text, etc.

Ontology- a search engine term that refers specifically to a file that defines relationships between words.

OutBound Link- is when web page "a" links to web page "b" then web page "a" is said to have an outbound link and "b" has an 'inbound link' from "a".

Page Rank (PR)- A Google term given to a particular web page. That factor is now updated often if not daily and given a ranking score upon a multitude of variables known mostly to Google. The primary factor of PR is link popularity.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)- an advertising term where advertisers only pay for the ad if a user clicks the ad which takes the user to the advertiser.

Query- a word or group of words entered into a search engine's search box.

Ranking- refers to the position of a webpage when a query is entered into a search engine. An example would be "SEO" entered into a search engine with a site listed in the fourth position' the site would be considered to rank 4th for that particular keyword or phrase.

Robot- refers to the search engine mechanisms that crawl sites to index information.

Robots.txt- An SEO term that refers to a simple notepad file where webmasters ask the bots or search engine spiders which pages they may access and index within a website.

ROI- means 'return of investment' where the return comes from an investment of cash value or labor or a combination of both.

Score- web pages are assigned scores while the "best", most relevant page should fall into the top of the search results and is assigned a score while the other pages are scored in reference to the top listing and are listed in scored order.

SEM- Search Engine Marketing which SEO is a smaller or separate part.

SEO- SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which is a technique to have web pages rank as high as possible using on-page optimization and off-page optimization.

Search Engine Result Page (SERP)- Refers to the page(s) of the search results.

Spam- An SEO term that is referred to in the search engine world of manipulating search engine results in order to achieve a higher position. Several techniques may be used such as keyword stuffing, useless content generated by software with keywords stuffed in the document, etc. This violates Terms of Service of search engines and will generally get sites banned.

Spamdexing- refers to a cross between spamming and indexing where blackhat SEOers attempt to get listed high in the SERPs.

Spiders- Spiders are search engine robots or bots that crawl web pages on sites to index them and gather the content on the site.

Splash Pages- An introductory, beginning page on a website that generally uses Flash or another type of heavy graphics that usually has little value in SEO and can easily have no value to search engines but esthetic value to human visitors.

Splog-

Three-way Linking- An SEO term that refers to a technique used to deceive the search engines where one site links to the second site who links to a third site which in turn links back to the first site. A technique not endorsed by SEO Metro.

Upperfold-- refers to the viewable text on a folded newspaper; the upper half of a newspaper.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)- an internet address such as http://www.seo-metro.com/search-engine-optimization.html where the http is the access protocol, the domain name seo-metro.com and the file name or resource, in this case search-engine-optimization.html whith html as the file extension.

Yahoo! Slurp- Yahoo!'s bot that crawls web pages for later indexing and in the end, search results.

SEO Glossary Terms