Glossary of Terms

• Above the Fold - the part of a web site screen that can be seen without needing to scroll; i.e., the top part of the page as it fits in your browser screen. The phrase is adapted from newspaper terminology signifying the top half of a newspaper front page. Your web page's most important content should ideally appear "above the fold" so it will be seen by the most people.


• AdWords - Google's Pay-Per-Click ad management system. A central dashboard that allows advertisers to manage text ads, banners, video and local ads.


• Algorithm - the mathematical formula used by a search engine to determine which web pages are displayed in what order in search results. Each search engine has its own proprietary algorithm, and they tweak these formulas frequently. For this reason, Search Engine Optimizers (SEOs) have to continually educate themselves about the latest changes in each search engine's formula.


• Anchor Text - see Link Anchor Text.


• Authority Site - a widely respected information site. If your site is linked on an authority site, that link will earn you additional SEO value and a better organic search rank, especially on Google.
 
• B2B - Business-to-Business. Commerce between vendors and clients in a business context. B2B marketing is quite successful online, even more so than direct-to-consumer marketing.
 
• B2C / Direct-to-Consumer - Business-to-Consumer advertising. Selling products and services directly to individual consumers.
 
• Back Link / Backlink - in-bound links pointing directly to your web site. These count heavily towards your site's SEO value, especially on Google.
 
• Blog - (formerly "web logs") chronologically organized "posts" on a kind of web site that is managed using specific content management software. Blogs get indexed rapidly by search engines, and are therefore valuable for SEO purposes. The 10% most popular blogs have become thriving communities of individuals posting their opinions about politics, entertainment, products they've bought, health and other issues. See Green Media's blogs, Big Green Blog.com.
 
• Best of the Web / BOTW.com / BOW - the Best of the Web Directory. Because of its age (established 1994) and prestigious-sounding name, the BOTW Directory is a valuable link resource that contributes to SEO value.
 
• Click-Through - a click on your ad (search ad, banner, etc.). Usually the person who clicked your ad are directed toward some landing page on your web site.
 
• Click-Through Rate / CTR - the number of Click-Throughs on your ad, divided by the total number of impressions for your ad. This is an important metric in managing online ad campaigns. The higher your CTR the better. Average Click-Through Rates: for Google and Yahoo Pay-Per-Click ads 2.00 to 5.00%; standard banner ads 0.32%; opt-in email 8.00 to 12.00%; rich media 0.75 to 4.00%.
 
• Click Tracking - Counting clicks on links via a redirected counter program that counts the clicks.
 
• Cloaking - Using some system to hide code or content from a user, and deliver custom content to a search engine spider. The word Cloak comes from Star Trek where the Klingons were capable of "cloaking" their ships invisible. There are three main types of cloaking: IP based, User Agent based, and the combination of those two. IP based cloaking custom delivers a page based on the users IP address (this can be used to deliver custom language based sites or target groups of users from particular ISP's such as AOL or @home users). User Agent cloaking sends a custom page based upon the users Agent (most often use to take advantage of a particular agents strengths or features). Finally, the combination of Agent and IP cloaking is use to target specific users with specific agents (such as search engines).
 
• Conversion Rate - The relationship between vistors to sales or actions. If 1 person out of 100 purchases a sites product, it has a conversion rate of 1 to 100.
 
• CPA / Cost Per Action - The website only gets paid for advertising if the user purchases something at the advertisers site.
 
• CPC / Cost Per Click - see Pay-Per-Click. Search engine such as Goto.com charge sites for the number of users they send them on a per click basis.
 
• CPL / Cost Per Lead - see also CPA / Cost Per Action. If Joe makes an inquery in to a house, and you refer him to Sallys Real Estate Agency, then you receive a payment for turning over the lead.
 
• CPM / Cost Per Thousand - CPM advertising models are based upon advertisers purchasing page views in blocks of 1000. If a website displays 7000 page views with banners, the site has just shown 7 blocks. If they are receiving $8 cpm, then they just made $56.
 
• Crawler - see Spider. A type of a Spider that will download multiple pages from the same web site. Crawling refers to the fact, that the spider will look for links in the pages it downloads and then walk or crawl down through a web site.
 
• CSS / Cascading Style Sheets - CSS is used to add simple display styles to web pages. Of the 3 major browsers, Opera is probably the most compliant and has won several CSS awards (http://www.opera.com).
 
• CTR - see Click Through Rate. The rate at which people click on a link when displayed on a page. The figure most often cited is a percentage of the page view rate. If a page is viewed 10 times and a visitor clicks once, then the CTR is 10%.
 
• Direct-to-Consumer - see B2C. Business To Consumer. Products and services designed to be sold to the general public.
 
• DNS Lookup - Or sometimes referred to as Reverse DNS Lookup. Most often used by webmasters while looking at server log files. It converts a unique IP address of a site visitor to its domain name.
 
• Domain - There are Top Level Domains (such as .com, .net, or .org), and then there are midlevel domains such as Ford (ford.com ford.net or ford.org). Domain is a generic term to describe any of these levels and is most often used to refer to the mid level domain (ford.com). In reference to search engine technology, domain names can play an important part in determining a sites rankings on the search engines.
 
• Doorway Page - A page designed as an entrance to a website. Many doorway pages a specifically created to rank high on a particular search engine. Sometimes referred to as a Gateway Page or a Welcome Mat Page.
 
• Dynamic Page - is a web page customized by an application server before the page is sent to a browser.
 
• Entry Page - Sometimes refers to a single page with a logo and "click here" to enter.
 
• EPC / Earnings Per Click - Earnings Per Click.
 
• EPV / Earnings Per Visitor - Earnings Per Visitor.
 
• Favicon - A small icon that some browsers display next to a bookmark when the site is viewed. It is placed in the root of a website and named "favicon.ico".
 
• FFA / Free-For-All Links - see Link Farm Free For All links. These are places that allow anyone to add a link.
 
• Frames - An HTML tag construct for making a website appear to have multiple windows within one browser. A frame with links can remain static while clicks cause a different frame to be updated. Most serious websites stay away from frame usage because of browser compatibility problems and search engine problems. Most search engines will not index a framed site.
 
• Googlebot - Spider operated by Google.com.
 
• Google PageRank - PageRank is a family of algorithms for assigning numerical weightings to hyperlinked documents (or web pages) indexed by a search engine. Its properties are much discussed by search engine optimization (SEO) experts. The PageRank system is used by the popular search engine Google to help determine a page's relevance or importance.
 
• Google Washing - GoogleWashing is either the accidental or intentional eplacement of an idea, phrase, or word through the search engines. example: "windows" used to be made of glass - now it is an operating system.
 
• Guerilla Marketing - Highly agressive marketing.
 
• Header Tag - An HTML tag of 6 sizes. Search engines can rank a keyword higher if it appears in a larger heading.
 
• Hidden Text - Placing same color characters on the same color background causes them to be hidden. This technique was popular for awhile, but search engines quickly caught on and began banning sites for it.
 
• Hit - A request for a file on a webserver. Most often these can been graphic files and documents. In more modern lingo, website owners referer to a HIT referrers as a request for documents only, while system administrators who are cheifly concerned about server performance, refer to it as any file request.
 
• Inbound Link - Links pointing to a website. When a user arrives at a website from another site, that link is called an Inbound Link.
 
• Javascript - A language embedded within HTML that is executed after a page of HTML is transferred to a users browser. Many search engines will ignore Java and JavaScript commands.
 
• Keyword Buy - Some search engines tie keywords to advertising sales. When a user searches for a particular keyword, the results page often have a banner advertisement displayed buy advertisers that purchased the keyword.
 
• Keyword Density - A percentage measure of how many times a keyword is repeated within text of a page. For example, if a page contains 100 words and ten of those words are "house", then "house" is said to have a 10% keyword density. There are programs that will rate keyword density by singular words or by groups of words, "new home for sale".
 
• Keyword Research - Doing research on a single keyword to find it's relatives and related keywords. This is often done to find the highest producing keywords.
 
• Keyword Stuffing - The process of loading a page up with keywords in the META tags or main HTML body.
 
• Keywords / Keyphrases - A singular word or phrase that is typed into a search engine search query. Keyword mainly refers to popular words which relate to any one website. For example web site about real estate could focus on keywords such as House, or phrases such as Home for Sale.
 
• Link Farm - Free For All links. These are places that allow anyone to add a link.
 
• Link Popularity - A count of the number of links pointing (inbound links) at a website. Many search engines now count linkage in their algorithms.
 
• Link Rot - A reference to when urls are removed and the url goes 404.
 
• Linkage / "Link Love" - A count of the number of links pointing (inbound links) at a website. Many search engines now count linkage in their algorithms.
 
• Localization - The process of determining or marking the location or site of a lesion or disease. May also refer to the process of keeping a lesion or disease in a specific location or site.
 
• Meme - An idea that catches on.
 
• META Tag - Author generated HTML commands that are placed in the head section of an HTML document. Current popular meta tags that can affect search engine rankings, are Meta Keywords, and Meta Description.
  
  Meta KEYWORDS tag is used to group a series of words that relate to a website. These tags can be used by search engines to classify pages for searches.
  
  The Meta DESCRIPTION is used to describe the document. The meta description is then displayed in search engine results.
  
  The Robots Meta Tag is used to control certain aspect of how a search engine indexes the page.
  
  An HTTP-EQUIV meta tag can sometimes be used to issue some server HTTP commands. Most common is a HTTP REFRESH command. Gaining in popularity is a NOCACHE command to thwart server caching of a page.
  
  Other useful tags are the CHAR SET tag to describe the document language and character set. The Author meta tag and the Generator meta tag (software used to generate the page).
 
• Misspellings - Intentionally making a spelling mistake in meta keywords or meta tags to catch search engine users who also misspell words when searching.
 
• Open Directory Project - The Open Directory Project (ODP) is a site directory run by volunteer editors. This is one of the great internet success stories of 1999. The ODP is used by Lycos, Hotbot, AOL-Netfind, Netscape Netcenter, and the home base www.dmoz.org itself. Currently there are around 700,000 hand picked and selected sites in the directory. The first edition of the ODP was known as NewHoo (a play on Yahoo). Netscape provided server space for the NewHoo directory and it was collectively renamed The ODP.
 
• Opt-In - A program that gives the user choice of participation.
 
• Opt-Out - Any program or process that requires a user to take action to stop being included in some action. eg: optout email lists.
 
• Optimization - Creating a page that is specifically intended to rank well as search engines. Basic optimization includes a descriptive paragraph of the site with keywords near the top, avoiding frames and deep tables that have menus on them.
 
• Outbound Link - A link that points away from your website.
 
• Page Rank - see also Google PageRank A method developed and patented by Stanford University and Larry Page (cofounder of Google) to rank search engine results. PageRank gives a unique ranking to every page on the internet. The ranking number is based on the number and quality of inbound links pointing at a page.
 
• Pay Per Lead - see CPL / Cost Per Lead.
 
• PPC / Pay-Per-Click - A Pay-Per-Click search engine charges websites on a per click basis. Often, an auction is held to see who is willing to pay the most for users.
 
• Ranking - see Page Rank. In the context of search engines, it is the position that a sites entry is displayed in a search engine query results.
 
• Referrer (from logs analysis) - The address (URL) of the web page a user came from, before entering another site. Each time a user clicks (selects) a new HTML link on a web page, most browsers report a "HTTP-REFERER" string to the new site. Web hosts can record these "referer strings" in a log file for usage by a web site.
  
  In the context of search engines, these referer strings are a powerful way to determine what searches users used to enter your website. As part of a referral string from search engine, the search terms a user typed in will be included.
  
  Some img tag counter style logging software can also record referral strings.
 
• ROI - Return On Investment. In relation to search engine advertising, it often refers to sales per lead.
 
• Search Bots - see Spider. The main program used by search engines to retrieve web pages to include in their database.
 
• Search Term(s) - see Keywords / Keyphrases. The words that are typed into a search engine search box. Also called Search Words, Keywords, and Queries.
 
• SERP (Search Engine Results Page) - Started at WebmasterWorld, it is short for "Search Engine Results Page". This is the page that is generated by a search engine in response to a search query.
 
• Session ID - Webpages that are produced at the time of the page request from programs, are called Dynamic pages. Programs often will use specific urls for each visitor. You will often see those as a string of numbers in the browser address bar. These numbers will track you via cookies and serve pages specific to your "session". A session can be any time limit and then it expires. Sites use these sessions to serve custom content, defeat browser caching, and to direct the flow of visitors through the website.
 
• Shopping Cart - Webpages that are produced at the time of the page request from programs, are called Dynamic pages. Programs often will use specific urls for each visitor. You will often see those as a string of numbers in the browser address bar. These numbers will track you via cookies and serve pages specific to your "session". A session can be any time limit and then it expires. Sites use these sessions to serve custom content, defeat browser caching, and to direct the flow of visitors through the website.
 
• Spamdexing / Spamming the Search Engines - The submission of pages that are intended to rank artificially high by various unethical techniques. These can include submitting hundreds of slightly different pages designed to rank high, small invisible text, or word scrambled pages. Most of these techniques are flagged by search engines as spam.
 
• Spider - The main program used by search engines to retrieve web pages to include in their database.
 
• Splash Page - Also referred to as a Welcome Mat Page. It is a page that normally just includes a logo and a "click here to enter" type link. These can be used to direct traffic based upon user variables.
 
• Stemming - Refers to root word origins. For example, Search, Searching, and Searches all have Search as the root stem. Some search engines use stemming to provide results from more than just the entered search terms. A search on Boat could return results on Boating or Boats.
 
• Stop Words - This term has been so often confused with Filter Words that it now refers to Filter words most of the time. A stop word is a word that causes an indexer to STOP indexing in the current procedure and do something else. Most common of these, is when an indexer encounters an Adult censored words.
 
• Submitting to Search Engines - The process of submitting a webpage to search engines.
 
• URL Submission - see Submitting to Search Engines. The process of submitting a webpage to search engines.
 
• Viral Marketing - Any program that results in customers or program members promoting the service for you.
 
• Virtual Domain - AVOID. A website setting on its own domain name. For example this web site is located on the Virtual Domain www.searchengineworld.com. Some web sites are hosted by other domains such as www.netins.net/showcase/phdss is my personal web site hosted by my ISP.
 
• Web Application - is a website that contains pages with partly or entirely undetermined content. The final content of these pages is determined only when a visitor requests a page from the web server. Because the final content of the page varies from request to request based on the visitor's actions, this kind of page is called a dynamic page.