SEO Glossary of search engine optimisation terms and abbreviations |
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AdSense
Google AdSense is a program for web site publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their web site's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site — or matched to the characteristics and interests of the visitors your content attracts they are a way to ad relevant content while earning money from the site. |
Adwords
Google's CPC (Cost Per Click) based text advertising. Advertisers nominate how much they are prepared to pay to have their ad appear in the search results for selected keyphrases. AdWords takes click through rate into consideration in addition to the advertiser's bid to determine the ad's relative position within the paid search results. |
Algorithm
An algorithm is the equation or programming rule which determines how a search engine indexes content and displays the results to its users. |
Alt tags
Alt tags alternate text associated with a web page graphic that gets displayed when the Internet user hovers the mouse over the graphic. Alt tags also make web pages more accessible to the disabled. For example, a vision-impaired user may have a web browser that reads aloud the text and alt tags on a page. |
Anchor text
Anchor text is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined). Anchor text is used by search engines as a ranking factor. Google pays particular attention to the text used in a hyperlink and associates the keywords contained in the anchor text to the page being linked to. |
Automated Submitting
Automated Submitting is performed by software or submission services to submit your web pages to the search engines. |
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Back links
Back links are "inbound" links (i.e. links external to a web site), pointing to a web page within the site. |
Black Hat SEO
Any optimisation method that causes a site to rank more highly than its content would otherwise justify, or any SEO techniques that are against search engine guidelines. Black Hat seo techniques will lead to your site being banned by search engines, or penalised within search engine indexes. |
Clickthrough
The action of clicking an ad element and causing a redirect to another web page.
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Clickthrough rate
the rate at which people click on a link such as a search engine listing or a banner ad. Clickthrough rates are up to six times higher for search engine listings than for banner ads.
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Cloaking
A black-hat SEO technique which involves serving different content to search engine spiders than to human visitors. Cloaking is basically a "bait and switch" tactic, where the web server feeds visiting spiders content that is keyword-rich, thus fooling the search engine into placing that page higher in the search results. When normal web site visitors click on the link they are given different content, which may be totally unrelated. Search engines will penalize or ban sites that they catch employing cloaking techniques. |
Cost Per Click (CPC)
The cost incurred or price paid for a clickthrough to your search engine focus page. |
CTR - Click Through Rate
Rate of the number of clicks received from the number of ad impressions delivered.
The formula for click-through rate is: “number of clicks” / “number of ad impressions” x 100 |
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Doorway page
Also known as a "bridge page" or a "gateway page". A doorway page is a web page full of keyphrase-rich copy that doesn't deliver any useful information on it other than a link into the site. Doorway pages were discredited as a valid SEO technique around 2004, and can cause your site to be penalised if used. By contrast, content-rich pages which can draw traffic but are also search-engine friendly are a very important and valid SEO technique. More on search engine focus pages here. |
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Focus Pages
We have researched and created a page concept called a search engine focus page. A focus page is keyphrase-rich and optimised, and therefore will rank well in the search engines in its own right, but is also formatted within the parameters of the web site's overall design concept. It therefore serves two purposes - as a page that draws high search engine traffic in its own right, and as a page which we can aim your Google Adwords or banner ad click-throughs to. |
Frames
when separate web pages are combined into one, each potentially with its own scrollbar. You know you're on a framed website when part of the page scrolls while the rest of the page stays in place. Frames-based web sites are problematic for search engines to index correctly, and therefore using frames in a web site is best avoided. |
Frameset
A web page that is made up of frames. |
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Google
Google is the world's number one search engine. Part of Google’s success should be attributed to its unique algorithmic ranking system which includes their PageRank system – a system that assigns a score to a web page based on the number (and quality) of links to that page. |
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offering detailed visitor statistics. The tool can be used to track all the usual site activities: visits, page views, pages per visit, bounce rates and average time on site etc.
But it can also be used to specifically track Adsense traffic – therefore helping webmasters to optimize Adwords adverts based on where visitors come from, time on site, click path and geographic location.
We use Google analytics as part of our reporting system within our Power SEO campaigns |
Google Dance
The Google Dance refers to fluctuations in Google's indexes when Google updates the way it indexes its database. During this period search engine positions can fluctuate wildly for a few days. This fluctuation is due to each of Google's nine data centers being updated out of sync - meaning for a time the results are different. |
Google XML Sitemap
Google Sitemaps are XML files that list the URLs available on a site. The aim is to help site owners notify search engines about the URLs on a website that are available for indexing.
Webmasters can include information about each URL, such as when it was last updated and its importance in the context of the site. |
Googlebot
Googlebot is a search bot used by Google. It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google search engine.
If a webmaster wishes to restrict the information on their site available to a Googlebot, or other well-behaved spider, they can do so by with the appropriate directives in a robots.txt file. |
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Heading tag
An HTML tag that is often used to denote a page or section heading on a web page. Search engines pay special attention to text that is marked with a heading tag, as such text is set off from the rest of the page content as being more important. [edit]
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Hidden Text
Hidden Text is a SEO spam tactic to hide contextual html text from human visitors to a web page, however making it available to search engines to spider the text. Hidden Text is an illegal technique as search engines consider it search engine spam, and sites employing this technique will be penalised in search engine indexes. |
Hits
A download of a file (of any type) from a web server. Hits do not correlate with web page visits. Every element within a web page counts as a hit. For example, if your web page has 4 graphics and a flash file, for each visit to the page 5 hits will be recorded. People who talk in terms of hits are usually either ignorant of the true meaning of the term, or are trying to exaggerate the number of visits to their site. The most widely accepted measure of a web site's performance is in "user sessions" or "visits" - both these terms refer to a web site visitor's accessing the web site - one visit is recorded from the time they enter the site, until the time they exit, no matter how many pages they access or the amount of content downloaded. |
HTML / HTML source code
Stands for HyperText Markup Language, and is the main markup language for creation of web pages. It defines how data is structured and informs the web browser how the page is to be displayed with the use of formatting text and images.
Some of the page elements that can be coded with HTML include Page Titles, Text (paragraphs, lines and phrases), Lists (unordered, ordered and definition lists), Tables, Forms, Basic HTML Data Types (character data, colors, lengths, content types, etc) and much more. |
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Impression
The number of times your search ad is served to users by search engines.
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Inbound links (IBL)
Links that point to your site from sites other than your own. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's PageRank (PR).
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Internal Links
An Internal Link is a link that points to another page within the same website, in the form of a graphical or hypertext link. Here's an example - this link points to our seo campaign plans comparison. Internal links can be used as a form of navigation for people, directing them to pages within the website. Links assist with creating good information architecture within the site. Search engines also use internal links to crawl or spider pages within a website. |
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Keyphrase (or keyword)
A search phrase made up of keywords. See "keyword."
A phrase that a search engine user might use to find relevant web page(s). If a keyphrase doesn't appear anywhere in the text of your web page, it's highly unlikely your page will appear in the search results (unless of course you have bid on that keyphrase in a pay-per-click search engine). |
Keyphrase density
The number of occurrences that a given keyphrase appears on a web page. The number of occurrences, positioning and weight of a keyphrase within your web site content has a huge impact on the relevance that the page is accorded by a search engine's algorithm.
The search engine's algorithm is what determines the order in which their database is presented to web searchers when a keyphrase is typed entered. |
Keyphrase Matching
keyphrase matching is the process of selecting and providing advertising or information that match the user's search query.
There are four types of keyphrase matching including:
Broad Match
Exact Match
Phrase Match
Negative keyphrase |
Keyphrase popularity
the number of occurrences of searches performed by Internet users of a given keyphrase during a period of time. We research keyphrase popularity as part of stage 1 of our Search Engine Optimisation Plan. |
Keyphrase research
Determining the words and phrases that people use to find a product or service. Keyphrase research is the foundation on which we build your seo campaign.
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Keyphrase-rich
A page is key-phrase rich when the page's content has a high percentage of keyphrases being targeted by the web site's optimisation plan. |
Keyword
Any word used in a search engine query. Most web searchers use 2 or 3 word phrases to search, known as keyphrases. |
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Landing Page - see also FOCUS Pages
The landing page is a web page where people go to once they click on an online advertisement or natural search listing.
We have researched and created our own version of this concept, called a search engine focus page. A focus page is keyphrase-rich and optimised, and therefore will rank well in the search engines in its own right, but is also formatted within the parameters of the web site's overall design concept. It therefore serves two purposes - as a page that draws high search engine traffic in its own right, and as a page which we can aim your Google Adwords or banner ad click-throughs to. |
Link building
Requesting links from webmasters of other sites for the purpose of increasing your "link popularity" and/or "PageRank."
This is an essential element in successful SEO campaigns, as the major search engines assess not just the number of your inbound links, but also their "weight" - the importance of the page which links to yours. Learn more about link building in our SEO white paper.
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Link farm
A link farm is a group of highly interlinked websites with the purposes of inflating link popularity (or PR). Sites linked to from link farms run a high risk of being blacklisted or penalised by search engines. |
Link popularity
When other web sites link to your site, your site will rank better in most of the major search engines. The more web pages that link to you, the better your link popularity. This however needs to be balanced with the need for inbound links to be from related web sites. |
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Meta description
a meta tag hidden in the HTML that describes the page's content. Should be relatively short; around 12 to 20 words is suggested. The meta description provides an opportunity to influence how your Web page is described in the search results, but it will not improve your search rankings. Make sure your meta description reflects the page content or you may be accused of spamming. |
Meta keywords
a meta tag hidden in the HTML that lists keywords relevant to the page's content. Because search engine spammers have abused this tag so much, this tag provides little to no benefit to your search rankings. Of the major search engines, only Yahoo! still pays any attention to the meta keywords tag. |
Meta search engine
A search engine which draws it's results from multiple search engines - e.g. webcrawler.com |
Meta tags
Information in a web page's source code which provides technical data and information to web browsers and search engine spiders / bots, but is not necessarily displayed for a web site visitor to see. There are a range of meta tags, only a few of which are relevant to search engine spiders. Two of the most well-known meta tags are the meta description and meta keywords. |
Optimisation
The process of optimising a web site's pages in order to (as closely as possible), match the requirements of a search engine's algorithm. The more closely a web site matches what the search engine is looking for via its algorithm, the higher the web site will appear in the search engine's results pages. |
Organic Search results
Search results gathered by search engines’ web crawlers and ranked according to relevance to the search terms. This relevance is calculated by criteria such as extent of keyword match and number of sites linking to that website. |
Outbound / external links
Links that point to other web sites. |
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PageRank (PR)
Google uses a weighted form of link popularity called PageRank™. Google assigns more "weight" or importance to a link from a high-traffic, prominent site (e.g. microsoft.com) than to a personal home page.
The Pagerank of any site can be displayed by downloading and installing the Google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com), which has a pagerank meter built in. The pagerank meter displays a rating for each page you visit from 0 to 10. Page rank has decreased in importance over the last few years, as Google has reduced the number of times it updates its pagerank listings compared to its overall index. However, it is a good measure to use when assessing a link request - if the page linking to yours has a pagerank of 0, then the value of its link to your site is dubious. And PageRank is still considered by Google as part of its overall algorithm when determining its indexing for search engine results pages. |
Pay-per-click (PPC)
A pay-for-performance pricing model where advertising (such as banners or paid search engine listings) is priced based on number of clickthroughs rather than impressions or other criteria. |
Primary keyphrase
The primary keyphrase for a web site is the keyphrase that the majority of people looking for your goods or services will use in the search engines to find your web site. When we perform keyphrase analysis, the primary keyphrase identified becomes the major focal point of our optimisation process. |
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Reciprocal linking
the practice of trading links between websites. |
Redirect
Where a hit on a web page is automatically re-directed to a different web page address. Web page re-directs invite penalties from search engines, as the technique was widely used in black hat seo techniques. |
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Search engine marketing (SEM)
strategies and tactics undertaken to increase the amount and quality of leads generated by the search engines. |
Search engine optimization (SEO)
strategies and tactics undertaken to influence the rankings of web pages in the search engines. |
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
a page of search results delivered by a search engine. |
Search term
A keyword or keyphrase entered into a search engine as a query. |
Spamming
In the context of search engine optimisation, spamming refers to using blackhat SEO techniques such as re-directs or doorway pages to achieve high search engine rankings. |
Spider
Also known as a bot, robot, or crawler. Spiders are programs used by a search engine to explore the World Wide Web in an automated manner and download the HTML content (not including graphics) from web sites, strip out whatever it considers superfluous and redundant out of the HTML, and store the rest in a database (i.e. its index).
Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine, that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches. Crawlers can also be used for automating maintenance tasks on a web site, such as checking links or validating HTML code. Also, crawlers can be used to gather specific types of information from Web pages, such as harvesting e-mail addresses (usually for spam). |
Submitting
submitting a web page address to a search engine in the hopes that it will index it. Submitting your pages using an automated tool (see "automated submitting"), submitting multiple pages of the same web site (see "deep submitting"), or submitting multiple times (see "resubmitting"), particularly if those pages are already indexed, are techniques typically frowned upon by search engines. It is suspected that some search engines apply a penalty factor to pages that were submitted versus those that the search engine spiders found on their own. Indeed, Inktomi was engaging in this practice before they discontinued accepting free submissions altogether. |
Title tag
The text displayed in the blue bar at the very top of the browser window, above "Back," "Forward," "Refresh," "Print," etc. Although inconspicuous to the user, the title tag is the most important bit of text on a web page as far as the search engines are concerned. Search engines not only assign the words in the title tag more weight, they also typically display the title tag in the search results, making the title tag an important potential call-to-action as well. Thus, the wording of each page's title tag should be thought through carefully. Also see "keyword prominence." |
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Unique visitors
Unique visitors are a count of individual users who have accessed your web site. It should be noted that the "user session" metric does not yield an accurate unique visitor count, as multiple user sessions can be generated by one unique visitor. |
URL
Uniform Resource Locator, more commonly referred to as the web address of a site or page. |
User session
An instance of an Internet user accessing your web site. During a user session any number of pages may be accessed. A user session is considered finished once when the user leaves the web site, or when a period of inactivity - typically 30 minutes - is exceeded. |
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Visit
see "user session" |
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Web Crawler
Also known as a 'web robot' or 'web spider', it is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. |
White Hat SEO
Ethical SEO approved by the search engines. |
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XML
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language (filename.xml) - a scripting language that allows the programmer to define the properties of the document. |
Yahoo Search Marketing
A PPC search engine advertising product marketed by Yahoo where advertising (in the foem of paid search engine listings) is priced based on number of clickthroughs to the advertiser's web site. |
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