Online Digital X – Blogspot

Algorithm: A mathematical formula that a search engine uses to rank the listings in its index when a particular keyword is queried. Search engines do not release how their algorithms specifically work to protect themselves from competitors and spammers.

Alt Tag: An image tag attribute that allows web page authors to provide information about the image’s content. The alt tag’s text is shown prior to the image loading on the web page and when a user holds the mouse over the image.

Active Server Pages (ASP): HTML pages that contain scripts processed on a server before the user sees the page. This allows the page to be dynamically created.

Automated Submitting: Using automated software to submit web pages to search engines. This practice is not recommended by most search engines. Some search engines have taken steps to block this practice, requiring users to manually key in a single-use code displayed within a graphic when submitting pages.

Banned: When a search engine removes a website from its index for practices considered to interfere with the quality and relevance of search results.

Benchmark Report: Measures where a website ranks in search engines results for particular keywords. This provides a baseline for ongoing tracking of search engine rankings.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): A style sheet language that allows multiple web pages to reference a single document for control of formatting for appearance attributes such as fonts and colors.

Click Fraud: Posing as a legitimate pay-per-click website visitor with the intent to cost the advertiser money or generate revenue for the agencies with which the advertiser has contracted.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): The number of people who click on a link out of all those who see the link. If 100 people do a search for a particular keyword and 25 of them click on the same link, that listing has a 25 percent click-through rate.

Cloaking: The practice of feeding content to a search engine that is different than what website visitors will see in order to improve a site’s rankings. This deceptive practice is against the guidelines of several search engines and can result in a site being banned.

Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action—such as making a purchase or requesting additional information—out of the total number of visitors to the website.

Cost Per Click (CPC): See Pay Per Click.

CPM: Stands for “cost per thousand” impressions. Under a CPM system, advertisers pay for the number of times their listing or ad is seen by a user—regardless of whether or not the user clicks on the link to their site.
Crawler: The technology a search engine uses to index web pages. The crawler follows links to sites and stores copies of the pages it finds in the search engine’s index. Also referred to as a spider or robot.

Delisting: When a search engine removes a page from its index.

Directories: Website listings compiled by humans, not crawlers. A staff reviews, summarizes, and categorizes websites for inclusion in the search engine’s directories.

Doorway Page: A web page designed only to appeal to search engines in order to increase rankings for specific keywords. These pages provide little content to visitors, who typically are forwarded to the actual site automatically or must click to enter it. Also referred to as bridge, gateway, and jump pages.

Frames: A method of combining multiple web pages into one. Framed websites make it more difficult for search engines to index pages properly.

Hidden Text: Words that are hidden in web pages by methods such as making the text the same color as the background. Designed to increase search engine rankings, this practice is against most search engines’ guidelines and can result in pages being banned.

Hit: When a user visits a web page, the images and other files utilized by that web page are requested from the server. Each file requested is considered a hit.

Impression: When a site visitor has the opportunity to view a website listing or advertisement, this is considered one impression.

Index: A search engine’s collection of web pages that can be queried.

Indexed Pages: Web pages that are stored in a search engine’s index and have the potential to appear in search results.

Java Applets: Programs created by the Java programming language that can be embedded in web pages. Navigation or content contained within a Java applet will not be indexed by search engines, as they cannot run applets.
JavaScript: A programming language that runs on the user’s computer instead of the website’s server. Search engines cannot run JavaScripts, so content or navigation embedded in a JavaScript may not be indexed.

Keywords: The words or phrases a user enters when conducting a search. Also referred to as search terms or queries.

Keyword Density: The number of times a keyword appears on a web page in relation to the page’s total content.

Keyword Popularity: How frequently a search is conducted on a particular keyword within a given time period.

Keyword Research: Identifying the best keywords, or search terms, to target for a website’s search engine rankings based on the popularity of relevant keywords.

Keyword-Rich: A web page with a high density of keywords that users are likely to query in relevant searches.

Keyword Stuffing: Attempting to boost a web page’s ranking by putting excessive keywords in the copy and source code. This can include using tactics like hiding keywords by making the background the same color as the text. Keyword stuffing can detract from a page’s readability and usability and can also be considered spamming by search engines.

Landing Page: The web page by which a user enters a site when clicking on a search engine listing.

Listings: The results produced by a search engine in response to a query.

Meta Tags: Descriptive text within a web page’s HTML source code that provides content information to search engines but is invisible to visitors.

Meta Description Tag: Invisible text within the HTML source code that provides a description of the web page when it is returned in the results of a search. Meta description tags are not used by all search engines.

Meta Keywords Tag: Invisible text within the HTML source code that allows web authors to list keywords related to the page’s content. Meta tags have become largely irrelevant to search rankings, due to widespread abuse. Many web page authors filled meta tags with popular keywords unrelated to page content to drive traffic to their sites, so most search engines have stopped using meta tags to rank sites.
Meta Robots Tag: A tag that sets permission for whether a web page may be indexed by search engines, allowing web page authors to exclude certain pages from searches.

Organic Listings: Web pages that appear on the results page due to a search engine deeming their content relevant to the search, as opposed to paid listings. Also referred to as “natural” listings.

PageRank: Google’s method for measuring the importance of a web page based on links to it. Pages are ranked on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the most important. If a site considered important—such as the New York Times (www.nytimes.com) or Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com)—links to a certain site, it boosts the PageRank of that site. A link from a friend’s personal home page, though, would likely have little effect on PageRank.

Pagejacking: When high-ranking content is stolen from one site and placed on another with the goal of increasing search engine rankings. This illegal tactic can result in a site being banned from search engines.

Paid Inclusion: Paying for a website to be included in a search engine’s index. Typically, paid inclusion does not guarantee any particular ranking within search results.

Paid Listings: Paying for a website to be listed in a search engine’s index through paid inclusion or placement programs.

Paid Placement: Paying for a website to show up prominently in a search engine’s results for a particular keyword. A paid placement is typically designated as a “sponsored listing” in the search results.

Pay Per Click (PPC): A system under which an advertiser pays a search engine an agreed-upon amount every time a user clicks on the link to their website. The cost per click varies depending on the popularity of the keyword and the advertiser’s positioning in the results.

Professional Search Engine Optimization: When a company or individual specializing in search engine optimization designs or re-designs a website to improve search engine rankings and increase traffic.

Rank: Where a website or page appears in the search engine results for a particular keyword or term. Also referred to as position.

Reciprocal Link: An exchange of links between websites.
Results Page: The page or pages of listings displayed in response to a user’s search. Also referred to as a SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Search Engine: A technology that allows users to conduct queries for information on the Internet or in specialized collections of information.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Activities taken to promote a website via search engines through organic listings, paid listings, or a combination of the two. SEM can also refer to a company that does search engine marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Designing or modifying a website to improve its organic search engine rankings for particular keywords and drive traffic to the site.

Search Terms: See Keywords.

SERPS: see Results Page.

Spam: Practices that a search engine considers to detract from its ability to return quality, relevant search results to users. Spamming tactics, which include practices such as doorway pages or hidden text, can result in a site being banned from a search engine’s index.

Spider: See Crawler.

Submission: Submitting web pages for inclusion in a search engine’s index. While the process generally does not guarantee listing, it can help search engines find and index key pages more quickly.

Title Tag: A title tag produces the text that appears at the top of the browser window. In addition, title tags typically serve as the hyperlink to pages from the search engine’s results page, so they must be relevant and appealing to draw visitors.

Unique Visitor: This refers to a single visitor to a website–no matter how many times the visitor returns to the site–when tracking a site’s traffic.

Website Marketing: All activities taken to promote a website. In regards to search engine optimization, this covers any steps taken to increase a site’s ranking in search engines’ organic and paid listings.

Website Optimization: See Search Engine Optimization.

Website Submission: See Submission.
XML Feeds: Feeding information about pages to a crawler-based search engine via eXtensible Markup Language (XML). A form of paid inclusion, marketers pay to have their pages included in the index on a per-URL or CPC basis.