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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Glossary
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Backlinks - the links that point to a particular webpage.
Banned - in SEO jargon it indicates that webpages have been included in a search engine blacklist due to improper ranking practices.
Brand Awareness - indicates the likelihood that a particular brand will be thought of and recognized by consumers.
Cloaking - a technique for identifying when a search engine visits a site and redirecting it to another site which is not the same as the one seen by users. The technique can be implemented in several ways, but search engines have explicit rules against cloaking. Violation of these rules results in the websites being banned.
Cookies - a cookie is a message sent by a web server to a browser which then saves the message in a text file on the user's computer. This message can then be sent to the web server every time the client requests a page. For example, cookies allow the server to know that a user requesting access to a reserved page has already been authorized. Cookies are often used to record information about the user for commercial purposes, such as to present the user with advertising and product information tailored to the user's past interests.
Cost per Click (CPC) - normally called Pay Per Click (PPC): the amount paid by an advertiser for every user that clicks on sponsored ads linking to his webpage.
Crawler - see robot
Description - the descriptive text associated with a webpage. It is generally displayed with the title and URL in the results page of a search engine or directory query. Some engines display the descriptive text written in the Meta tag while others generate it automatically by selecting a portion of webpage text. The directories normally display the text provided by the user in his registration form.
Directory - a portal that contains a catalogue of websites divided by category. i.e. www.dmoz.org
Doorway - or doorway page. An optimized page that introduces visitors who arrive at the page from a search engine to other pages in the site.
Frames - a technique used to display one or more HTML pages in a single browser window. Composite interactive documents can be created to build a more effective webpage with a presentation in multiple windows or sub-windows. This technology does not interact well with search engines and should be avoided or adequately optimized if websites are to be visible.
Gateway Page, Doorway or Welcome Page - a page created to provide search engines with the necessary data for the page to achieve a high level of relevance for the subject in question. A Gateway can provide different content depending on whether the page is visited by a robot or "human" user. There are different reasons for using this technique: the author of the page may not want to make public his ranking tactics, or the format used to build the page was optimized for a robot and is not presentable to a human visitor. Also, the formats used to obtain better rankings often differ from engine to engine. Using a gateway it is possible to present the site to each search engine in the format that is known or is thought to be the best for the robot of that engine. The gateway pages are also known as bridge pages, doorway pages, entry pages or welcome pages.
Hidden Text - a technique used to include invisible text in a webpage with the goal of achieving better search engine rankings without modifying the look of the page. It generally consists in giving text characters the same color as the background of the page. Hidden text is often used as a spamming technique. Many search engines are able to identify hidden text and remove pages that use the technique from their databases or lower their ranking. Text can also be hidden using agent name delivery or IP delivery techniques to present a different text to every search engine.
Impression - A single viewing of a banner or sponsored advertisement by a user. It is a counter used in ADV online campaigns.
Index - the information included in a search engine database by the engine's spiders. This information is then elaborated by a search engine query to generate a listing.
Indexing - the inclusion of information concerning a website in a search engine database. Indexing does not mean ranking and is a simple operation which, however, usually requires a long wait.
JavaScript - a language used to execute operations inside a webpage. The instructions are normally interpreted and executed by the user's browser. Probably by mistake, some engines also index this JavaScript code.
Keyword - a word which is part of a search engine query and is used to specify the subject of the webpages displayed as results. The <KEYWORD> tag allows the author to emphasize the importance of certain words that appear in a webpage. Some engines take this tag into account while others ignore it.
Keyphrase - the sentence a user searches for in an engine.
Keyword Density or Frequency - indicates the density with which keywords appear in a webpage. It corresponds to the keyword/total number of words ratio of the webpage. Some search engines use this property to determine ranking. Thanks to programs that allow the comparison between several pages, it is possible to build pages with a keyword density similar to the pages with the best search engine rankings.
Landing Page - the specific page that a user reaches after clicking on a search engine link.
Link Popularity - the number of links referring to a given webpage which appear in other websites.
Sponsored links - Paid text boxes or graphics (normally Pay Per Click) that appear in search engines or in content portals when keyword advertising campaigns are activated. They are the advertisements offered by Google AdWords, Overture and Espotting.
Listing - the information that appears in a search engine results page in reply to a keyword search.
Log File - a file on the server in which all the access details of the files on the server are registered. The analysis of the Log file is an excellent method to discover information on visitors such as: the website from which they reached the page, what pages they visited, what queries were used in a search engine to find the site. There are several software programs available to analyze Log files.
Meta tag and Tag- the HTML language instructions present in the heading (<HEAD>) of a webpage which provide information that is not visible using a browser. The most common and also the most relevant to search engines ranking are the <KEYWORD> and <DESCRIPTION>. Other common commands are <GENERATOR> (which indicates the software used to build the page) and <AUTHOR> (used to identify the name of the author of the page, and often contains his email address, homepage, URL and other information).
Optimization - the series of changes made to a webpage in order to improve its search engine ranking to assist potential clients and visitors to find the website. Optimization can comprise numerous changes such as the modification of the commands <TITLE>, <META>, <ALT> and modification of the text of the page.
Natural or organic search results - the results that the engine returns following the elaboration of all the information in its database of indexed websites. The results appear as a listing that obeys criteria that are not susceptible to paid variation. Instead, to improve a site's rank in the listing, the site must be optimized so that Page Rank and Link Popularity values are maximized.
Outbound Link - exit link from a webpage which links to other pages in the same site or to other sites.
Page Popularity - measures the number and quality of the links that direct users to a certain page (Inbound link). Some search engines use this value in their ranking process. The number and quality of the inbound links becomes as important as the optimization of website content.
Pay per visit - purchase of guaranteed visits to the site by means of a selection of keywords related to the subject.
Site positioning - an activity to ensure the webpage is displayed in the first page of search engine results.
Positioning or Ranking - It's the process by which a search engine arranges the websites or webpages in its database in ranking order, so that the most relevant websites appear first when the engine is queried.
PPC - Pay Per Click - service where every click on a banner is paid.
PPI - Pay Per Inclusion - a paid service to include a website in a search engine index.
Search query - the operation of querying a search engine by providing keywords in order to return websites associated with the subject.
Page Rank - value with which Google expresses the popularity of a webpage on the Web.
Rank or Ranking Report - a report of the positions achieved in the search engine rankings and the monthly variations.
Reciprocal Link - mutually beneficial exchange of links between two pages of different websites.
Redirect - a ploy to redirect some webpages to another webpage.
Referrer - the URL of the website of origin of a visitor. This information is contained in the referrer log file of the server. If the visitor arrives at the website directly from the search results page of a search engine, the referrer URL also displays details of the query used to search for the webpage displaying the keywords used by visitors.
Refresh - the <HTTP-EQUIV> meta tag is used to include HTTP commands and is often combined with the REFRESH attribute which changes the page automatically after a defined number of seconds. The gateway pages can use this technique to force a browser to open a different webpage. Most search engines contrast this technique by indexing the destination page of the command or by lowering the page's ranking. Infoseek adopts a very strong policy against this method by lowering the ranking of sites that use this technique or, alternatively, by banning and excluding the sites from the index of the engine.
Robot - any program that can follow hypertext links and access webpages without human control. An example are the search engine "spiders" and "harvesting" programs that extract email addresses and other information from webpages.
ROI - "Return On Investment" refers to the ratio of income or profit generated by a specific activity to that activity's cost. For example, the ROI of a PPC campaign could be measured by comparing the total amount spent on the campaign (i.e. $200) with the amount generated (i.e. $1,000). The ROI would be 500%.
SEM - acronym of Search Engine Marketing.
SEO - acronym of Search Engine Optimization. The action of optimizing a website to improve the search engine visibility of its content.
SERPS - an acronym indicating the Search Engine Results Pages
Spam - all the methods that a search engine considers detrimental to listings. Examples of spam are the "cloaking" technique or the heavy repetition of search terms in a page as well as hidden text. The definition of what is considered Spam is complicated by the fact that different search engines have different rules.
Spider - software that "reads" the site. It normally operates on behalf of a search engine which archives the content of the site through the spider.
Tag - see metatag
Conversion Rate - the ratio between the users of a website and their "conversion" actions such as sales or requests to receive more information. If a website has 50 users and 25 of these make purchases, the conversion rate is 50%.
Title - the text in the <TITLE> tag of a webpage. This text is displayed by the browser in a dedicated position, which is usually in the top part of the browser window. The title text is normally the link to the page which is displayed in the search engine results pages. Search engines usually pay close attention to the text contained in the tag when they index the page. Do not confuse the title text with the page heading which is built using the heading tags <h1>, <h2>, etc..
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