I posted the "almost complete" SEO and Internet Marketing glossary list for my friends and regular visitors consumptions. The list can help you figure things and terms along with your works and hobbies in understanding the world wide web. If you have something new, keep me posted and I will add on the list.
A good online credit to: AZLA Management Institution for the list
AdWords: is the Cost Per Click text advertising used by Google. Its position in the paid search engine result depends upon not only the advertiser's bid but also the clickthrough rate. Thus ensuring that the paid search results are useful, relevant and popular.
Alt Tag: it is an alternate text that provides a description of a visual or a graphic and contains key words that are relevant to it. They are visible when the mouse is over the image. Alt tags are useful for the visually impaired as with a web browser that reads aloud text they will be able to understand that there is a graphic or visual on the web page and also what it shows.
Automated Submitting: is the use of software or an application service provider to make web page submissions to search engines. The search engines do not like it.
Anchor Text: is the actual text of a web page or a link and it plays a tremendous role in proving a good ranking on search engine results.
Agent Name: is a term used for the spider that is visiting a web page and cataloguing it.
Banned: is a term used when a website is not allowed to feature in the results of a search engine. There can be many reasons for banning a site. it might be having duplicate content or it may be involved in spamming a search engine.
Blacklist: includes websites listed by search engines or vigilante users as spammers.
Bid Management Tool: An ASP service or software that handles bids FOR pay-per-click on search engines is called a bid management tool.
Bidding: is the term used when you bid for a top spot on PPC search results on a search engine.
Blog: A blog is a 'web log' that can be like a personal journal or one maintained by a website. It provides information and provides a chance for other people to convey their views and thoughts.
Body Copy: is the text and content that is visible to the visitor to the website and contains all the information that the website wishes to convey to its audience. It does not include visuals or graphics, navigation information or HTML code.
Bulk Submission Services: An ASP that on behalf of a client makes bulk URL submissions to a search engine is said to provide bulk submission services.
Bot: A short form for robot, which is a term used for the computers used by the search engines to regularly search out the content of websites that it stores in various categories.
Cache: refers to the memory area which stores copies of web pages on your PC that make it easier for you to open up a website. Google allows its users to access cached pages of listed website.
Click-through Rate: is the rate at which visitors on a search engine click on search listing or banner ads. The click-through rate for search listings is far higher than that for banner ads.
Cloaking: is the process by which websites provide spiders keyword rich content so as to assure a good search listing. However the audience is not shown this data and in contrast finds useless and irrelevant information.
Conversion Rate: is the actual rate at which visitors to the website become customers.
Cookie: is the information that is placed by a web server on a visitor's computer. It is accessed and retrieved once the web site is visited. Cookies are frequently used for user IDs, for e-mail addresses, etc.
Cost-Per-Action: As the phrase suggests it is the price charged for an action such as signing up for an e-zine, downloading trial software, entering a contest online, etc. It is an online advertising payment model.
Cost-per-click: or CPC is the charge that has to be paid to a search engine every time a visitor goes to your website by clicking on a link.
Cost per Thousand: is the price that is to be paid by the client to the search engine for a thousand click impressions. Impression means the number of times an ad or a banner is downloaded and is assumed to be seen by the visitors.
Crawler: is another term for search engine spiders that regularly search websites for data and information and store in the database.
Google Bombing: is when a group of websites mostly blogs link an unfavorable page to a company website in a manner that it ranks high on the Google search result. This takes advantage of hyper link and PageRank as a group of websites with high PageRank can link to the unflattering page that would lead to it coming up on search results when you search for the company.
Google Cache: are the cached pages of website that are stored on Google and visitors are free to access them. It is a snapshot of how the Google spider saw it when it indexed the page.
Googlebot: Googlebot is the spider used by Google to search or crawl websites. It usually does so monthly but for websites that show a daily change in content it visits it daily and marks the search result as 'Fresh'.
Googleware: refer to the various tools available on Google to search, research, report and play with. This includes Adwords, Google Earth, Blogsearch, Google News and Froogle.
Heading Tag: is an HTML tag used to mark an important page or section of a web page. This is important to the website search engine ranking as search engines pay importance to heading tags that are considered as being important to the web page.
Hits: Whenever a user requests a page from the server, each request is termed as a ' hit'. A hit doesn't just stand for the one page being opened but will also include the graphics that open on the web page i.e. each element present in a page is counted for a hit. Thus a page with 10 graphics would have 11 hits every time that it is down loaded: 10 hits for graphics and 1 hit for the HTML page.
HTML: stands for Hypertext Markup Language, which is a programming language utilized to mark web content. It is shown in a set format.
Hyperlink Text: is the underlined text that links to another web page. Search engines pay special attention to the keywords used in the hyperlink text and relate it to the web page. This may be used negatively for Google bombing.
Hyperlinks: are links that are shown as URLs and take the Internet user to another web page. Hyperlinks may be text or graphics.
Impression: An impression is a page or ad viewed by an Internet user. It is also referred to as 'pageview'.
Inbound Links: Links from sites other than your own that point towards your website are called inbound links. They help in improving PageRank.
Index: is the textual content database of a search engine, where text from each page that the spider has crawled is stored.
Invisible Web: Refers to the huge amount of information on the internet that is not stored -INDEXED-by search engines.
Java Applets: Java applets are basically small programs written in Java that can be embedded in the web pages. These run on the internet user's computer and not on the web server's. So since these Java applets are invisible to the search engine and if content or navigation is embedded in it, it will not be indexed.
Java source code combined into executable code is called 'bytecode'.
Java Scripts: Programs written in the programming language Java are called JavaScripts. They don't run on the web server's computer and only run on the Internet user's computer. JavaScripts cannot be run on search engines and if navigation or content is embedded in a JavaScript, it will be invisible to the search engines and will not get indexed.
JavaScripts are not compiled, i.e. the source code and the executable code are the same. By selecting the 'View Source' option an Internet user can view the website's JavaScript source code. They are used to design interactive sites.
Key Phrase: Key phrase is a phrase that contains key words.
Keyword: A keyword is a word that the internet user may use to find relevant web pages. If the keyword doesn't appear in the page it is unlikely to find a place in the search result, unless the website has bid for the keyword in a pay-per-click search engine.
Keyword Density: is the number of times the keyword occurs in a page. It is calculated as: number of keywords of the page/ number of words on the page. It is expert opinion that maximum density should be 4-8%.
Keyword Popularity: is calculated from the number of times a keyword has been used in searches done by internet users. WordTracker.com and Overture's Search Term Popularity Tool (http://inventory.overture.com) provide keyword popularity numbers.
Keyword Prominence: Keyword prominence is the placement of the keyword in the HTML source code of the web page. The higher up in the page that the keyword is the more the keyword prominence and more weight provided by search engine. Thus it is ideal to make the first paragraph keyword rich.
Keyword-rich: is a description of a web page or text that is full of keywords and not meaningless words.
Keyword stuffing: is the excessive use of keywords that renders the page unreadable and reduces its usability. Keyword stuffing may be in the form of making the text and background on the same color or over-filling alt tags with long strings of keywords.
Keyword Research: is the process of deciding the keywords and phrases used by internet users for searches. Keyword research may be provided on web pages, etc.
Landing Page: The landing page is the page that an Internet user goes to by clicking on a banner ad or a search result listing.
Link Building: is the process of requesting webmasters of other web pages to link to your website. This is done to increase link popularity and to increase PageRank. Link building also includes directory submissions and press release syndication.
Link Popularity: is based on the number of other web pages that are linked to your web page; the more the number of linked pages the better the link popularity.
Links: may be text or graphics that when clicked take the Internet user to another website. Links are expressed as URLs.
Log File: is a record of all access to a web server. This includes date and time of access, filename accessed, user's IP address, referring web page, user's browser software and version, and cookie data.
Mod_rewrite: Mod rewrite is a part of apache servers that can rewrite requested URLs on the fly. As it supports an endless number of rules that in turn have unlimited attached rule conditions it is very flexible and an important URL manipulation mechanism. It can be used for internet users and for search engine friendly URLs. This increases the chance of the database driven website to be indexed.
Mirror: Static HTML files that are a copy of a dynamic website or a set of web pages from it.
Machine-generated: These web pages are without much meaningful content and don't use software tools that auto-generate doorway pages.
Manual submitting: is done by hand and don't use an automated submission tool or service. It is appreciated by search engines.
Meta description: is the meta tag that describes the content of the page and is embedded in the HTML. It is about 12-20 words long and is a good chance of influencing the manner in which the web page is described in search results.
Meta keywords: is a meta tag that contains keywords pertaining to the web page content and is hidden in the HTML. It is now ignored by most search engines due to the abuse of meta keywords by search engine spammers. Only Inktomi still pays it attention.
Meta tags: These are basically meta information or information about information about the relevant page and are within the HTML. They cannot be viewed by internet users and are usually paid no attention to by search engines. The two important examples of meta tags are meta description and meta keywords.
Meta Search: A meta search is a consolidated single SERP that is got from search results from various sources.
Miserable Failure: This is an example of Google bombing where inbound links are abused and affect SERPs. In this case hyperlinks with the keyword phrase miserable failure were used.
Mousetrapping: Mousetrapping is when the 'Back' button of the web browser is rendered ineffective in websites where pagejacking has been done. The user finds it frustrating as he is unable to leave the website either because of appearance of repeated pop-up windows or the window cannot be closed. In other words, he is made a captive.
Noframes tag: The Noframes tag is an option for non-framed HTML on a frameset page for old non-frames capable browsers and search engines. Placing keyword rich noframes tags is a good idea for a framed website. However the ideal option is to change the entire structure of the website. A framed website with a noframes tag is not search engine friendly.
Negative SEO: constitutes bringing down a page or website from SERPs.
On-theme: On theme is related to content that is specific to a certain topic.
Outbound links: These are links that direct the Internet user to another website.
Page title: The page title is displayed on the blue bar that is on the top of the browser, above functions such as 'Back' and 'Forward'. While it may go unnoticed by the user the page title is given a lot of importance by search engines. Many a time it is even displayed in search results. The words used in the page title must be carefully selected.
Pageviews: A page view is a banner ad or page viewed by an Internet user. It is also referred to as an impression.
Pagejacking: Pagejacking is the act of stealing content from a high ranking web page and placing it on one's own website in order to influence search engine results. This practice is frowned upon and discouraged. It can be termed as digital plagiarism .
PageRank: PageRank is a weighted link popularity used by Google. Not all links are treated as equals and links from high PageRank web pages help with a website's own PageRank. PageRank is scored from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best. With everything else remaining equal a high PageRank insures good performance on Google.
Paid inclusion: is the practice of paying a search engine to include a website's pages to the search engine index.
Paid placement: Paid placement is prominent placing of your listing by a search engine. It is also known as 'sponsored listings'.
Pay-per-click (PPC): Pay-per-click is a pricing model where payment is made on the basis of performance. So payment for banner ads and search listings needs to be made only for 'clickthroughs'.
Pay-for-performance: is a pricing model that is based on performance. And thus payment is made in accordance with the performance of the advertising. It is calculated on the basis of sales or some either criterion set to ascertain performance.
PDF: Portable Document Format or Adobe's PDF allows a file to remain and be viewed just the way it was created and does not depend on the computer and web browser software that is being used. It is usually used for files that are to be printed.
PHP: A popular web programming language PHP was created for web development and can be embedded into HTML. It is vastly popular because of its quick response time, good security and the fact that it is easy to learn. Over nine million websites or 24% of the internet uses PHP.
Pop Up: A pop up is a web page that displays in a new and smaller window rather than on the already active web browser. Pop ups are usually used for advertising, newsletter invitations and promotions.
Pull-down list: A pull down list is typically found on a web form where the user has to select from a list of items. The first item is often displayed in a box and to its right is an arrow, which, when clicked it opens the pull-down list. Search engines are unable to access pull-down lists and any information on it will not be indexed and will thus be a part of the invisible web.
Query: A query is a keyword or phrase used by an Internet user in a search engine.
Redirect: A redirect is an action that takes an Internet user to another page without his or her clicking on a link. This affects PageRank and is viewed negatively by search engines. Also there is a chance that the spider will not follow the redirect.
Referrer: A referrer is the web page that contains a link to your web page and results in delivering visitors to your website.
Relevance: Is the probability of a web page being useful to an Internet user making a keyword search on a search engine.
Render: The stylized HTML code and format that is finally shown on the user's screen is called render. For instance content within tags will be shown as bold.
Replica: A replica is a static HTML copy of a dynamic website or a set of web pages. It is also called 'mirror'.
Resubmitting: Resubmitting is the process of again submitting your web page address or addresses to a search engine. This is after you having submitted it earlier or been included in the search engine's index. Resubmitting increases their queue with duplicate submissions.
Rewrite: Rewrite refers to URL rewriting.
Robot: A robot is a search engine spider or computer that crawls websites in order to index content.
Robots.txt: This is the text file that is usually found in a website's root directory. It is linked in the HTML code.
Reciprocal linking: Reciprocal linking, as the name suggests, is when websites link to each other.
Real Simple Syndication (RSS): Real Simple Syndication is a meant for content sharing and usually contains headlines with descriptions with links to the actual publishing site of the story. RSS is in XML-based format. It is meant for collection of information from across the web.
Search engine: A search engine is a website that provides visitors the opportunity to search for web pages with specific content based on the keywords that they provide. A search engine regularly uses its spider to index content from websites so as to offer users a large and updated database. While search engine results bring up web pages which have the relevant keywords or keyword phrases, a directory only provides website addresses and descriptions as written by reviewers.
Search-engine marketing (SEM): Search engine marketing or SEM is essentially the strategies and tactics used to increase the number and quality of leads created by search engines.
Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO or search engine optimization is the process of improving web pages to get better rankings on search engines.
Search engine positioning (SEP): Search engine positioning is the strategies undertaken to increase a website's ranking on search engines for certain keywords.
Search term: A search term is the keyword or keyword phrase used by an Internet user to initiate a search on a search engine.
Search term popularity: A replica is a static HTML copy of a dynamic website or a set of web pages. It is also called 'mirror'.
Spamdexing: Spamdexing is the use of unethical tactics to gain high rankings on a search engine. This includes submission of doorway pages with spamglish.
Spamglish: is basically keyword rich gibberish used to gain high search engine rankings. Spamglish usually contains keywords written in a meaningless manner.
Spamming: Spamming with respect to search engines is the use of unethical actions and tactics to get high rankings on search engines. It is also known as spamdexing.
Spider: A spider is a search engine computer that searches websites for content or text, downloads it, removes what it considers unnecessary and indexes it. It is also called a robot, bot or crawler.
SEO tutor: A search engine optimization specialist who educates others on how to optimize their website in order to gain high rankings.
Spider trap: A spider trap is an endless loop, created by a dynamic website in which URLs are constantly changing, where a spider may get caught. If search engines indexed dynamic websites they would end up downloading unnecessary content and web pages.
Splash page: A splash page is a homepage with very little content and usually has something like "Enter Here" or "Choose Flash enabled site or HTML site" on the homepage. This is annoying for the Internet user as it involves one more step to getting to a web page that they want to visit. Also since search engines consider the homepage extremely important and a splash page can negatively affect a website's ranking on search result listings.
Stop character: Characters such as ampersand (&), equals sign (=), and question mark (?) suggest that the page is dynamic and search engines usually avoid such pages due to spider traps. Eliminating stop characters from your URL tremendously increases the chances of your web site being indexed by a search engine.
Stop word: Stop words include 'a', 'an', 'the', 'of' and 'with' and are ignored by search engines when they index a page. Thus if your title tag has too many stop words it will effect keyword density. Search engines often replace stop words with a marker in order to save space.
Submitting: is the process of submitting one's web address to search engines in the hope that the web pages will be indexed by it. Submitting may be done manually or by automated methods. Some search engines penalize web pages that have been submitted as compared to web pages found by a spider.
Supplement Pages: are pages that are indexed in Goggle but currently do not exist. However when searching for a related keyword phrase they are shown to provide the internet user more information about the search.
Standards compliant: Characters such as ampersand (&), equals sign (=), and question mark (?) suggest that the page is dynamic and search engines usually avoid such pages due to spider traps. Eliminating stop characters from your URL tremendously increases the chances of your web site being indexed by a search engine.
SEM: Acronym for search engine marketing.
Search engine algorithm: These are the operational programming rules that determine how a search engine indexes text or content and shows it to the Internet users.
Stemming: This is the practice of showing search results based on the keyword's root spelling.
SERP: Acronym for search engine results page.
Title tag: The title tag is displayed at the top of the browser window on the blue bar and is paid special attention to by search engines. In fact often the title tag is displayed in the search results and thus need to paid keen attention by websites.
Traffic: is the number of Internet users accessing and viewing a website.
URL: URL or Uniform Resource Locator is also often called the address of a website. A URL can provide the location of a web page, an e-mail address, a FTP server file, etc.
Unique visitors: This is a count of the number of people who have accessed the website. The 'user session metric' doesn't provide accurate number of unique visitors as a single unique visitor can create multiple user sessions.
User session: A user session is when an Internet user accesses a website for a while and then exits it. In a single user session any number of web pages may be viewed. Generally a user session is considered finished after 30 minutes of inactivity. It is determined by IP address or cookie.
Visibility: Visibility is a description of how well placed a web site is on search engines for significant keyword searches.
Visit: A user session is also called a visit.
Web browser: A web browser is the software installed on an Internet user's computer to view web pages. Some popular web browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape.
Web Standards: Web standards require content to be separate from presentation. Web standards websites tend to do better on search engines as they are coded properly.
XML: XML or Extensive Markup Language is a scripting language that is characterized by the fact the programmers can define the properties of the page.
Yahoo!: Yahoo is one of the oldest directories on the internet and is also one of the top three search engines.
1 comment:
This is a great list. Thanks.
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