 |
Algorithm - A complex mathematical formula used by a search
engine to rank the web pages that it finds by crawling the web.
ALT Tags - Used to display a short text description of an
image when you hover your mouse over it. The ALT description is also displayed
in place of the image if the user is browsing with image display turned
off.
Image ALT tags are useful to your page's visitors. Equally as important,
they can help with your search engine rankings by increasing the keyword
density (if you use your keywords in your ALT tags).
Example:
<img src="blue-widget.jpg" width="156" height="175"
ALT="Photo of blue widget">
Apache Web Server - The web server software that is most
used on the internet today.
Bad Neighborhood - A web page that has been penalized by
a search engine (most notably Google) for using shady SEO tactics, such
as hidden text or link farms.
Backlinks - Links from another web page to
your web page. Most search engines provide an easy way to get a list of
all of the backlinks to a specific page. Also referred to as Incoming
Links.
Broken Link - A link that no longer takes the user to the
destination page when it is clicked on. This is usually the result of
the destination page having been renamed or deleted from the server. Also
referred to as a Dead Link.
Click-Through - The action of clicking on a link to visit
a web page.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR) - The number of times a link is
clicked on divided by the number of times that same link is displayed
(called an impression).
Example:
A link is displayed 100 times (100 impressions) and clicked
on 5 times. The CTR is 5% (5/100=.05).
Cloaking - Serving one version of a page to a human visitor
and a different version of the same page to the search engines. This is
usually done to "fool" the search engines into giving the page a higher
rank than it would normally receive while making sure the human visitor
sees a useful and attractive page.
Note: Cloaking is discouraged by most major search engines, including
Google.
Comment Tags - Used in a web page's HTML source code to
indicate certain information about a section of the page code. Some search
engines will consider keywords contained in comment tags for keyword density
purposes, others (including Google) will not.
Example:
<!--This is a comment-->
Content - The information located on a web page. This includes
text, images, and any other types of information that a webmaster places
on the page.
Counter - A script that counts the number of hits, unique
visitors, and/or page views that a web page (or an entire site) receives.
These "stats" provide very useful information for the webmaster.
Crawler - A program used by search engines to "crawl" the
web by following links from page to page. This is how most search engines
"find" the web pages that they place in their index. Also referred to
as a spider or robot.
Crawling The Web - Search engines use crawlers to
move from web page to web page by following the links on the pages. The
pages "found" are then ranked using an algorithm and indexed
into the search engine database.
Cross Linking - This is where the owner of two or more websites
interlink the sites in order to boost their search engine rankings.
If detected, cross linking often results in a search engine penalty.
Dead Link - See Broken Link.
Deep Linking - Linking to a page that is one or more levels
removed from the home directory. Deep linking is often desirable
to build PageRank to a specific page on a website.
Example:
http://www.yoursite.com/tutorials/diy-seo.html
Description - A short sentence or paragraph that describes
a web page's content, usually used as part of a link to describe the page
being linked to. See also link anchor text.
Description Meta Tag - A meta tag that describes the content
of the web page in which it is found. Used by some search engines for
keyword density purposes. Also, some SE's will use the description meta
tag for the description provided to a user when the page is returned in
a listing of search results. It is recommended that you use a couple of
your targeted keywords in the description meta tag.
Example:
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="This sentence
describes the content on this page.">
Directory - A categorized list of websites that is maintained
by human editors instead of crawlers. Yahoo.com is the most
widely recognized directory on the web, but there are literally thousands
of others.
Domain - The human-friendly "address, or URL" of a website.
When a user types a URL into a web browser, a dedicated computer somewhere
on the web known as a Domain Name Server, or DNS translates
the URL into a discrete IP address which is then used to find the actual
website being requested.
In the URL http://www.rlrouse.com/, rlrouse.com
is the domain.
Domain Name Servers (DNS) - These are special computers
that translate human-friendly URLs into computer-friendly IP
addresses. This process takes place every time a user requests a page
from a website.
DNS Propagation - Every time a new domain name is registered
(or an existing one is transferred to a new DNS), the information about
the domain and the DNS that hosts it must make its way around the entire
internet. This process usually takes around 24 hours, during which time
the domain will be inaccessible to users.
Doorway Page - A page that is usually optimized for a particular
search engine and search term. Multiple doorway pages are often used to
help ensure that the same basic content is ranked well on several different
search engines. The use of doorway pages for this purpose is frowned
upon by most larger search engines, including Google.
Duplicate Content - Two or more separate web pages that
contain substantially the same content are said to contain duplicate content.
Google and other top search engines have set up filters to detect
duplicate content when their crawlers are active on the web. When
pages containing duplicate content are detected, they are often assessed
a duplicate content penalty which means a lowering of the page's
ranking from what it would have received naturally.
Dynamic Content (dynamic pages) - Web pages that are often
generated from database information based upon queries initiated by users.
Dynamic pages often include the ? character in the URL.
The URLs of dynamic pages often use these extensions: .asp, .cgm, or .cgi.
Most search engines don't index dynamic content very well (or at all).
Google has recently been doing a better job at indexing them however.
Dynamic IP Address - An IP address that changes every time
a computer logs on to the internet. See also Static IP Address.
Filters - A filter is a software routine that examines
web pages during a robot's crawl looking for search engine spam.
If the filter detects the use of spam on the page, a ranking penalty is
assessed.
Common filters look for hidden text, links to bad neighborhoods,
and many other SEO techniques that the search engine doesn't like.
Google.com - The leading search engine on the internet today
with approximately 80% of all search traffic. When people speak
of search engine optimization (SEO), they're often referring specifically
to Google.
Googlebot - The crawler that Google uses on a daily
basis to find and index new web pages.
Google Toolbar - A downloadable toolbar for Internet Explorer
that allows a user to do a Google search without visiting the Google
website. The toolbar also displays the Google PageRank (PR) of
the page currently displayed in the browser. The latest version also includes
a very good popup-blocker. The Google Toolbar is a must have
for every serious webmaster.
The Google Toolbar can be downloaded here:
http://toolbar.google.com/
Header Tags - HTML tags that help outline a web page or
draw attention to important information. Keywords located inside header
tags can provide a rankings boost in the search engines.
Examples:
<h1>This is an H1 tag.</h1>
<h2>This is an H2 tag.</h2>
Hidden Text and Hidden Links - Using a text font that is
the same (or nearly the same) color as the background color, rendering
the text or link invisible or very difficult to read. The same effect
can also be achieved by using various HTML tricks.
Hidden text and hidden links are often used to artificially increase a
web page's keyword density for a keyword or keyphrase and/or to artificially
boost the link popularity of other pages on your site(s).
The use of hidden text and hidden links is frowned upon by Google and
most other search engines. Using them will most likely result in your
web page(s) incurring a penalty by the search engines.
Hits - The term hits is commonly misused. Many people think
of a hit as a visit to one of their web pages. This is incorrect. A hit
takes place every time a file is accessed on your website.
For example, let's say your friend's home page has a logo gif and 12 pictures
on it. Every time a visitor loads that page, 14 hits are recorded:
1 for the logo gif, 12 for the pictures, and one for the page itself.
So don't be all that impressed if he boasts that his site receives 1000
hits a day. In our example, those 1000 hits could have been generated
by as few as 72 visitors to the site.
The only meaningful way to evaluate the traffic flow of a site is to consider
the average daily or monthly number of unique visitors
and page views a site receives.
Home Directory - The main directory where your site's main
index page is located. The index page in your home directory can be accessed
like this: http://www.yoursite.com
Image Map - Placing separate hyperlinks on different areas
of the same image. Clicking on different parts of the image will take
the user to different web pages. Not very search engine friendly.
Inbound Links - See Backlinks.
Index - The list of web pages stored and ranked by a search
engine. Also known as a database.
Indexing - After a search engine has crawled the web,
it ranks the URLs found using various criteria (see algorithm)
and places them in the database, or index.
IP Address - A unique numerical Internet Protocol Address
(IP Address) that is assigned to every computer that connects to
the internet. IP addresses can be either static (never unchanging) or
dynamic (changes with every internet connection).
Your computer's IP address is what enables it to be "found" on the internet
in order to receive email, web pages, etc.
Example:
216.239.36.10
IP Spoofing - Returning an IP address that is different
from the one that is actually assigned to the destination website. This
is often done with redirects. A huge no-no (it's even a criminal offense
when done under certain circumstances).
Keyword (Key Phrase) - A word or phrase typed into a search
engine in order to find web pages that contain that word or phrase. A
web page can (and should be) optimized for specific keywords/phrases that
are relevant to the content on that page.
Keywords Meta Tag - An HTML meta tag that lists all of the
main keywords and key phrases that are contained on that web page. Some
search engines use the keyword meta tag to help rank web pages in their
databases. Google does not.
Example:
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="small business,
business,advertising,sales">
Link Anchor Text - The "clickable" part of the link structure.
Using keywords in the link anchor text of your inbound links
will help your search engine rankings for those keywords.
Example:
<a href="http://www.yoursite.com">This
is the link
anchor text for this link</a>
Link Exchange - Placing a link to another website on your
own site in exchange for a return link back. Also known as reciprocal
linking.
Link Farm - A web page created solely for search engine
ranking purposes that consists almost entirely of a long list of unrelated
links. These types of pages are penalized by almost all search engines,
including Google.
Link Popularity - A measure of how "popular" a web page
is on the internet as measured by the number of inbound links pointing
to your web page. Link popularity is one of the main factors used to help
determine search engine rankings.
Linking - Placing a link to another web page (usually on
another web site) on one of your own web pages.
Links - URLs placed within a web page so that when they're
clicked on the browser is served with a different web page, often on a
completely different web site.
Log Files - Files that are constantly and automatically
created and updated on your web server that provide very specific details
about the activities taking place on your web site.
This includes referring URLs, IP addresses, pages visited, errors generated,
number of unique visitors, total page views, total hits, and much more.
Carefully reviewing your log files can provide valuable information about
your site's performance and visitors.
Meta Search Engine - A website that takes your search query
and passes it on to several different search engines and directories,
then summarizes the results in a logical manner for you to review.
Mirror Sites - Identical, but separate websites on different
domains. They are commonly used legitimately by large websites
to share heavy server loads, and by search engine spammers to
generate more search engine referrals and revenue.
In general, the search engines frown upon mirror sites and do not hesitate
to assess duplicate content penalties when they feel they are warranted.
Outbound Links - Links from your web page to
another web page.
PageRank (PR) - A proprietary numerical score that is assigned
by Google to every web page in their index. PR for each page is calculated
by Google using a special mathematical algorithm, based on the
number and quality (as determined by Google) of the inbound
links to the page.
Page Views - Each time a web page on a site is accessed
by a visitor, it counts as one page view. It doesn't matter if the same
user viewed the same page 5 minutes ago, it still represents another page
view.
For example, let's say that a website receives two unique visitors in
one day. The first visitor surfs around the site and views a total of
six pages. The second visitor views 11 pages. This represents 17 page
views for the day by two unique visitors. (This poor webmaster needs to
do some serious SEO and site promotion!)
Paid Inclusion - Some directories will only consider placing
your URL into their database if you pay them a fee.
Yahoo charges a $299 per year evaluation fee for commercial sites.
Note that this fee doesn't guarantee that your URL will be accepted
and placed in the Yahoo database, but rather that Yahoo will consider
your site for inclusion in a timely manner. If your site is rejected,
you're just out your $299. But you do have an opportunity to appeal the
decision.
Other smaller directories will guarantee to list your site upon payment
of their fee, provided that your site meets their guidelines (these are
clearly explained ahead of time).
Many search engines also have a paid inclusion program, including Inktomi
and Alta Vista. You don't have to pay to be included in search
engines however. If you have a few quality inbound links to your
site, the search engines will find and index your site on their own eventually.
The advantage of utilizing their paid inclusion services is they'll usually
crawl and index your site within 48 hours or less instead of the weeks
or even months that it often takes otherwise.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engines - This is a traffic generating
method where a search engine or directory places your link in their searchable
database and charges you a fee every time your URL comes up in
a search and it gets clicked on. The amount of the fee that
you pay is usually determined by bidding on keywords or keyphrases.
The two largest PPC search engines are Overture and Google AdWords. There
are also numerous smaller PPC engines on the net, some very good a delivering
affordable targeted traffic, others not.
Penalty - A punishment levied against a web page by a search
engine as a result of using an SEO tactic that it doesn't approve of.
Tactics that most often result in penalties include using hidden text,
sneaky redirects, and linking to a bad neighborhood.
A penalty usually results in a web page being credited for a lower Google
PageRank (PR) than it has actually "earned". Penalties also result
in a page being "buried" deep within the SERPS where it will almost never
be found again by searchers.
Rankings - The order in which individual web pages are
returned in the SERPS for a given search query. Search engines
rank the web pages based upon relevancy to your search terms
according to their proprietary algorithm.
Reciprocal Links - Links to another website placed on your
site in exchange for links back to your site from theirs. This is a proven
way to build link popularity which is instrumental in getting high
search engine rankings.
Redirect - A tactic sometimes used to send a user to a different
page that the one she found in the SERPS. For example, a webmaster optimizes
a web page for a very popular keyword. When a user finds the page by searching
on that keyword, she is subsequently redirected to a different, possibly
non-relevant page that the webmaster stands ready to make money from.
This is considered to be an invalid use of a redirect and the search engines
(including Google) will penalize pages that use one in this manner.
Referrer or Referring URL - The URL of the web page where
a visitor clicked a link to come to your site.
Relevancy - The degree to which the content on a web page
that is returned in a list of search results (SERPS) "matches"
the topic of the information that the user was searching for. In other
words, if you use the search phrase "small green widgets" and a page is
returned that deals with "large red thingamajigs", the relevancy of that
page is very poor.
Robot - A program used by a search engine to crawl the
web in order to find, rank, and index new web pages.
Robots.txt - A special file that is commonly used to exclude
some or all robots from crawling certain files or directories on
a website. This file should b placed in your website's root directory.
Search Engine Friendly - A web page that has been designed
and optimized for high search engine rankings. A search engine friendly
page also makes it easy for search engines to follow the links on the
page.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of optimizing
a web page for high search engine rankings for a particular search
term or set of search terms.
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) - The ranked listing
of web pages that are returned for a specific search query.
Search Query - The keyword, keyphrase, or
list of words that you type into a search engine to find web pages on
a topic that you're interested in.
Search Term - A list of keywords or a keyphrase
that a user types into a search engine to find a list of web pages related
to topic that he/she is interested in.
SEO - See Search Engine Optimization.
Server - A computer that hosts web pages and delivers them
to a user's internet browser when requested. A dedicated server
hosts one website only. A shared server hosts multiple websites.
Dedicated servers deliver web pages faster and provide more capacity and
features than shared servers, but they're also considerably more expensive
to use.
PageRank (PR) For Money - Selling or buying a link from
a web page with a high Google PageRank for the stated purpose of
increasing the other page's PR. This is highly frowned upon by Google
and will result in a penalty for both pages if Google finds
out about it.
SERPS - See Search Engine Results Pages
Spam - When speaking of search engines, spam is loosely
defined as any technique used to give your web page(s) an unfair ranking
advantage over other pages.
Spider - See Crawler.
Static IP Address - An IP address that is permanently
assigned to a computer. The IP address doesn't change with
each connection to the internet. See also Dynamic IP Address.
Submitting Your URLs - This is the process of telling a
search engine or directory about your web pages. The URLs that you submit
are placed into a queue for later crawling or human review.
If you have backlinks pointing to your web pages, there is usually
no need to submit your URLs to the search engines because their crawlers
will find the pages on their own and index them. You do need to
submit your URLs to directories however because they use humans instead
of robots to visit the sites that you submit and evaluate them.
Title Meta Tag - This HTML tag is used to provide web browsers
and search engines with an "official" title for the page currently being
displayed. Using a couple of keywords in your title tag can help boost
the page's search engine ranking for those keywords.
Example:
<META NAME="TITLE" CONTENT="Page title goes here">
Top-10 Ranking - A web page that is listed in the first
10 search results for a search query. Top-10 in Google also means
on the first page using the standard search criteria
Traffic - A website's average rate of traffic flow within
a given time period. It can be measured in a couple ways, including unique
visitors and total page views. Don't confuse hits with
unique visitors and page views. The term hits is virtually useless when
evaluating website traffic statistics.
Unique Visitors - The number of visitors who access a website
within a given time period (usually 24 hours) from a single IP address.
If you visit the same website three times within a 24 hour period, your
visits only count as one unique visit for that day.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) - Each web page has it's
own specific human-friendly URL, or web address. URLs are mapped
to computer-friendly IP addresses by special computers called Domain
Name Servers, or DNSs.
Example: http://www.rlrouse.com
User - See Visitor.
Visitor - A person who visits your website. Also
known as a User.
| |
