SEO Dictionary
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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0-9
The terminology used in SEO and web marketing can sometimes be a little baffling. While we do our best to avoid jargon at PROPERO Digital, there are always some technical terms which can't be avoided. Take a look through our SEO dictionary. You might see some terms you're unfamiliar with, or learn some definitions that you weren't sure of before. Our SEO dictionary covers all of the main areas of search engine optimisation and web marketing. Nothing too complicated – just quick summaries and definitions. If you have a suggestion for a term for inclusion, get in touch and we'll add it to the list.
A
Above the fold/Above the scroll
Originally a print newspaper term, “above the fold” refers to the visible section of a newspaper after it has been folded in half. The idea is that the most important headline should be reserved for the top half, as that's what the customer will see.
When applied to a website, “above the scroll” means the part of a webpage visible on-screen before scrolling down. In general, the most high-impact content should be contained “above the scroll”.
AdCenter
AdCenter is Microsoft's pay-per-click online advertising system – their equivalent to Google's AdWords. Still in its infancy compared to Google's offering, it nonetheless works on the same principle – allowing advertisers to bid on keywords, then awarding text ads alongside organic search results to the highest bidders.
AdSense
AdSense is Google's contextual advertising hub. It works by allowing website owners to publish ads that are contextually relevant to their own content – and then receive a small fee for each click on the ad displayed.
Advanced search
Most search engines offer an advanced feature that allows users to specify different criteria for searching – such as dates, languages, and geographic locations.
AdWords
AdWords is Google's pay-per-click advertising network. It works by allowing users to bid on keywords and phrases that might be entered into the Google search engine. Successful bidders see their site and ad listed alongside or above the natural search listings when a searcher enters the particular keywords.
Each time an ad is clicked on, the owner of the ad pays an agreed amount (usually less than a dollar a click, depending on the popularity of the term).
Affiliate Marketing
An affiliate is a merchant who sells products on another company's behalf – and takes a percentage of the sale made. Affiliate marketing, via such avenues as AdWords, can be a very lucrative market when performed effectively (successful agents are known as “power affiliates”).
Alt attribute/alt tags
The alt attribute is the text applied to an image so that it can be recognised by screen reading software for blind people and the search engine spiders. An alt tag is also used to give a short description of the image when the mouse icon hovers over it.
Algorithm
In terms of SEO, algorithms are the systems and procedures used by search engines to rank websites and web pages. Search engine optimisation is in a large part based around understanding and working alongside these algorithms to produce the best results. Google's algorithms in particular are much speculated upon – and subject to much secrecy.
Alt attribute/alt tags
The alt attribute is the text applied to an image so that it can be recognised by screen reading software for blind people and by search engine spiders. If an image cannot be rendered, then the alt text appears in its place. In SEO terms the alt tag is an important element because it helps images to rank in image searches.
Analytics
Analytics is the term used for different types of software that track your web visitor data. This usually includes number of daily visits, number of unique visitors, how long spent on each web page, how the user found your site and so on.
Analytics software can be used as a way to track web marketing and online advertising to a very specific degree. Currently, Google Analytics is the most popular free analytics software available.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is simply the hyperlink text that users click on to visit another webpage or website. Anchor text is useful from an SEO point of view in terms of relevant keywords, and link building.
Automated Bid Management Software
As pay-per-click becomes ever more complex and competitive, many companies are turning to automated bid management software to manage part of their ad campaigns. This type of software focuses on mapping out and controlling how much is spent on keyword bidding.
B
Backlink
Sometimes called an inbound link, a backlink is a link from another website to your own (or the website in question). Links from quality and relevant sites are one of the most important factors considered by major search engines when ranking sites.
Linking to the correct webpage can be an issue. See: canonical URLs.
Banned
Sometimes a website may be banned (or delisted) from a search engine index. This is usually the result of spamming, or by use of methods deemed by the search engines to be unfairly manipulative.
Bans can be temporary or permanent. It's usually possible to request a review for re-inclusion in a search index.
Banner Advertisment
A banner ad is usually a graphic or text advertisment that appears at the top or alongside the main content on a webpage. While these can be useful forms of web advertising, the medium suffers from a phenomenon called banner blindness.
Banner Blindness
Banner blindness is the term used to describe the way that a large percentage of web users will overlook ad banners on websites, no matter what the content.
Beta
Beta refers to a product or website which is still officially in the testing stage. Google frequently releases new applications and sites in the beta stage and refines according to feedback and ongoing development.
Black Hat SEO
Ever since their first incarnations, search engines have been subject to spamming techniques. While there is nothing wrong with understanding how search engines work to help deliver the right results, crossing the line into immoral or manipulative techniques is known as Black Hat SEO.
Most search engines will list certain acceptable and unacceptable practices.
SEO techniques that work alongside search algorithms to deliver quality, relevant results are know as White Hat SEO.
Blog
A blog (short for “web log”) is a from of self-publishing (usually in news, journal or article form), and often in reverse-chronological order. Most blogs offer the ability for readers and visitors to leave comments beneath each blog post.
Blogs are increasingly being used by businesses and marketers for their SEO benefits. This is because a good blog can attracts lots of natural inbound links, as well as help a site rank for a greater spread of keywords (see the Long Tail).
Blogs are frequently hosted on a specific blog platform, such as Wordpress, Typepad or Blogger.
Body Content
Body content is the written content contained within the main section of a web page.
Bold
Using bold text in on-page content to emphasise words can help from both a usability and SEO perspective. A reader's eye is naturally drawn to bold letters, while some search engines give a slight extra weighting to bold words. This means that it's advisable to bold keywords at least once on a webpage. Of course, the technique should not be overused.
Boolean Search
A Boolean Search is a way to include or exclude words from a search result by using AND or NOT.
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs, or breadcrumb navigation, offers the user a visual demonstration of how their current page relates to other web pages within the site.
For example, a typical breadcrum trail, listed at the top of a page, might read:
Home --> Services --> Consultancy --> Marketing Consultancy
Browser Compatibility
Different browsers (such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari) display websites in slightly different ways. Although it's impossible to get a website to display exactly the same in every type of browser, a site should at least be compatible with the major browser types.
C
Cache
The cache is the store of web pages by a search engine – or indexed content. Search engines do not literally scour the web each time a query is entered. Instead they are searching their indexed cache for relevant results.
Canonical URLs
A problem that frequently arises when using content management system (CMS) which automatically generates URLs is duplicated pages. The canonical URL is the most important version of these duplicate URLs, and the one which the search engines will index. Other versions will, of course, dilute your link juice for each page.
This often affects a website's homepage. A range of URLs may all point to the same content, including (for example) www.properodigital.com, www.properodigital.com/index.php and http://properodigital.com.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Cascading style sheets, or CSS, are a way to separate content from formatting in web design. Instead of adding all styles and formatting in the HTML, CSS allows you to link to an external (or internal) style sheet. This allows multiple page layouts to be changed simply by editing a single CSS document.
Click-Through-Rate (or CTR)
The click through rate is how many times a link is clicked on by unique users.
Content
Content refers to any written, audio or video material contained within a webpage or website. Given that the internet is fundamentally a way to share information, the phrase “content is king” has become a cliché with a lot of truth behind it. Good content attracts users, links and high search rankings.
Content Management System (CMS)
Content Management Systems (or CMS) make it easier for a user to upload and manage content. They're popular with larger sites, news sites and blog sites because they enable quick and easy adding of content (as opposed to asking webmasters or needing basic HTML knowledge). However, CMS do sometimes open up websites to errors such as canonical URL issues and duplicate content.
Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising systems display ads relevant to the surrounding content on a web page. Google's AdSense is the most notable example.
Contextual Link
A contextual link is a hyperlink that directs users (or search spiders) to content on a new webpage that is relevant to the content on the current page.
Conversion (and Conversion Rate)
Conversion (or conversion rate) is generally easier to measure online than offline – due to powerful analytics tools and exhaustive data. A conversion is simply when a user performs the desired task when visiting your website – whether the goal is to buy a product, leave an email address, complete a form or call a number.
Copyright issues
Copyright is a complicated issue online, but one that frequently lands companies in legal trouble. Images, written content, logos, icons, design and coding – all of these are subject to copyright.
It's worth reading up on your rights online, as well as familiarising yourself with basic laws. For example, a common misconception is that copyright transfers to the client when purchasing a design from a third party or agency. However, this is only the case if stated in writing.
Cookie
A cookie (sometimes known as a tracking cookie) is a file written onto a user's computer in order to track activity and offer customised features.
CPA
CPA stands for Cost Per Action (sometimes called CPS, or Cost Per Sale).
CPC
CPA stands for Cost Per Click (usually applied in paid search and PPC campaigns). It is usually worked out as the cost of a particular campaign divided by the number of clicks generated (from unique visitors).
CPM
The M in CPM is the Roman numeral for one thousand. Therefore CPM equals cost per thousand ad impressions. This is a measurement commonly used in banner advertising.
Crawl and crawl frequency
Search engine spiders and robots crawl sites to index content and follow associated links. It's generally accepted that crawl frequency is affected by the reputation of the site, the amount of unique content it contains and how regularly the content is updated.
Customer Reviews
Online customer reviews have been proven time and again to increase sales and improve operational efficiency. Prominent examples of companies that use customer feedback to great effect are Amazon and eBay.
D
Dead Links
A link which no longer functions is known as a dead link.
Deep links / Deep Linking
A link that points to the internal or non-high level pages in a website is known as a deep link. Internal pages may cover more specific topics, allowing more relevant linking.
Delisting or De-listing
Delisting is the removal of a website from a search engine index. This can be for a number of reasons, including accidental over submission.
However, some sites may be delisted because they have triggered a spam filter (sometimes innocently), or been deemed as spam by a human editor.
Description and Description Tag
A description HTML tag is a summary of the contents of a web page. However, many search engines, particularly Google, use the description to offer a short summary for the user in the SERPs. However, it's worth noting that it has little SEO benefit and some search engines disregard it completely.
Del.icio.us
A social bookmarking website, very popular with blogs and feeds.
Digg
Social media and blogging aggregator site where the site users vote on different stories to make the front page. Having an article featured on the Digg homepage can boost traffic by hundreds of thousands of hits.
Directory (or Online Directories)
A directory is an indexed list of websites, either automatically generated or controlled by an editor. Many are organised by topics or geographic region. A select few are seen as quality links by the search engines, though thousands of useless directories have sprung up in recent years. The Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ are probably the two most respected and useful directories.
DMOZ or dmoz.org
DMOZ (www.dmoz.org) is a very large, human-edited website directory. Owned by AOL, DMOZ is seen by the search engines as linking to quality sites – mainly because all sites listed have been appraised and vetted by human editors.
Doorway Pages
Doorway pages are webpages that rank for niche search terms. When a user clicks on the search result, the page redirects to another related page. It's a technique that can be seen as spamming and may lead to delisting if not carefully handled.
Duplicate Content
Duplicated content (i.e. written content which is the same as other web pages) is often penalised by search engines.
E
EPC and EPV
EPC means Earnings Per Click. This differs from cost per click in that the total sales are divided by the number of page clicks. EPV stands for Earnings Per Visitor.
EPC
EPC means Earnings Per Click. This differs from cost per click in that the total sales are divided by the number of page visits/clicks.
Entry Page
The entry page is the web page that a user arrives at to enter your site. This is particularly important when combined with a PPC campaign. Often, these are known as landing pages.
External Link
An external link points to another website and domain to the site it's on. It's a good way to demonstrate authority and confidence to users. It also offers some SEO benefits if the link points to a relevant and quality site.
F
Facebook is a popular social networking site originally devised to keep college students in touch after graduation. Users accounts are only viewable by accepted “friends”.
Feed
Many blogs and news sites offer subscription to their content via RSS or XML feeds.
Feed Reader or Feed Agreggator
A feed reader is a way of subscribing to and reading RSS and XML feeds. Popular readers include Google Reader, FeedDemon, Bloglines and Rojo.
Firefox
Firefox is a free web browser developed by Mozilla. It's currently the second most popular browser on the internet, after Internet Explorer.
Fresh Content
Google has made it clear via its historical patent data and from its webmaster information that fresh content is important for good search rankings. Generally, fresh content means creating new, useful and relevant content. Not only will this naturally attract links and visitors, it will encourage more regular crawling of your site by search spiders.
Fuzzy Search
Fuzzy search produces search results for misspelled or inaccurate words.
G
Google is the most commonly used search engine in the world. It began life as a research project in 1996 conducted by Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Google's new way of ranking search results was to consider the amount and quality of links to a given website.
Google Bomb / Google Bombing
Google bombing involves making a page rank for a particular term by creating thousands of links to that page with the words in the anchor text. A famous example of this is when typing “miserable failure” into Google returned George Bush's biography as the first result (this is no longer the case).
Googlebot
A Googlebot is the search spider used by Google to crawl and appraise a website.
Googlebowling
Googlebowling is the unethical practice of directing thousands of poor and irrelevant links to a competitor site in an effort to lower their search rankings.
Google Dance
The Google Dance used to refer to the monthly update of Google's index (which could lead to sites shifting rankings erratically, hence the “dance”). However, over the past few years Google has moved to a more continuous update system, so this is no longer the case.
Google Keyword Tool
The Google Keyword Tool is an online tool that enables users to research and analyse keywords – including their search frequency and estimated competition.
Google Trends
Google Trends is a tool which allows the user to see how search volumes for a chose keyword or key phrase change over a period of time.
H
Headings
Headings are HTML tags that denote headlines and subheadings. Headings go in order of importance (and default size) from H1 through to H6. H1 is generally used for the headline that summarises the content of a page. Consequently, it is on this that search engines tend to place most weight. There should only be one H1 tag on each web page.
Headings can be styled using CSS.
Hidden Text
Using hidden text is considered a black hat SEO technique. Hidden text usually has a font colour matching the background – so that a human eye can't see it, but a search engine spider can.
Homepage
A website's homepage is the main page. It usually acts as a summary of the company and site, as well as a central starting point from which to navigate the site.
HTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It's the fundamental language for web pages on the world wide web. HTML works through a series of tags, elements and symbols. W3C recommends that XHTML is used where possible, and in conjunction with CSS.
HTTP
HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. This is the means of communication between browsers and servers across the web.
Hyperlink
A hyperlink, when clicked, transfers the user to another webpage, or to a related location on the same page. It's a dynamic way of organising information. Hyperlinks make use of anchor text to signify where the link will lead.
I
Image Map
An image map is an image with different sections that can be clicked on to reach different pages.
Inbound Link
Inbound links are links from other websites which point to a particular site. It's generally accepted that with modern search engines (particularly Google) quality links are one of the most important ways to improve rankings.
Index
Search engines do not literally search through the entire world wide web every time someone makes a query. Instead they use indexes – vast data banks that they can sort through in milliseconds.
Information Architecture
Information architecture refers to the way that data and information is structured in a website. The principles of IA revolve around making the user experience as effective and easy as possible, with clear navigation and logically organised topics of information. Use of helpful navigation cues such as anchor text, breadcrumbs, headings and good descriptions.
In general, considering how to structure information for users leads to well organised data for search engines (for example, relevant, targeted content all located on the same page, etc.)
Internal Link
An internal link is a link between webpages within the same site. These are useful from a navigation point of view, and do offer SEO benefits. This is particularly true if anchor text is descriptive and uses relevant keywords.
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is Microsoft's web browser, and still the most commonly used browser online. Despite challenges from such applications as Firefox and more recently Google Chrome, IE remains dominant, despite accusations of poor usability and innovation.
Invisible Text
Invisible Text is another name for hidden text – a technique often associated with black hat SEO. Generally, invisible text will be stuffed with keywords and the font will be coloured the same as the background – making it invisible to readers. Search engines are getting better at detecting this practice and penalising sites that employ it.
IP Address
IP stands for Internet Protocol Address. Each computer that connects with the internet is given an IP address.
ISP
ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. An ISP effectively sells the ability to use the world wide web.
J
JavaScript
JavaScript (or simply Java) is a type of dynamic script language that can be used on websites (often for animated or interactive features). From an SEO perspective, it's recommended that JavaScript is combined with other indexable content as JavaScript itself is generally not indexed by search engines.
K
Keywords
Keywords are the building blocks of search. These are the words that people enter as a search query, and consequently the words which websites and companies look to target, where relevant to their business.
Keyword Density
Keyword density is a measurement of the amount of keywords on a web page compared to the overall number of words on that page. While it used to be held that a certain percentage (around 10%) was the ideal target density, this is much less significant now. More important for SEO is the placing and scope of the keywords. Repeating keywords too much is known as keyword stuffing.
Keyword Research
Keyword Research is using various tools and practices to determine useful keywords relevant to a website or business. The data can then be used in SEO and PPC campaigns to target traffic.
Methods of Keyword Research include using free tools such as Google's AdWords, paid tools such as Wordtracker, examining competitor sites, checking analytics data and simply brainstorming ideas.
Keyword phrase (or keyphrase)
Keywords generally refer to the words or combination of words in a search term. However, you may also see reference to keyphrases – which are several words in a more elaborate string.
Keyword Stuffing
Overusing keywords on a web page in an effort to top the rankings. This technique is now questionable at best. If your copy doesn't read well then it won't convert even if you do get high rankings. It is often associated with black hat SEO and hidden text.
Keywords Tag
The keywords tag is part of the meta data of a web page. It lists all of the main keywords relevant to the page – but has very little SEO benefit.
L
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
Latent Semantic Indexing is a way of retrieving information which allows for results not based on keywords entered – but based around semantics. Google and other major search engines have been bringing more of this concept into their algorithms.
Landing Page
A landing page is the web page that a searcher arrives at after clicking a link or ad. Landing pages are utilised heavily in PPC campaigns, or in very targeted SEO strategies.
Link
See: hyperlink
Link Bait / Link Baiting
As links are such valuable currency in SEO, link baiting refers to content which is specifically designed to attract as many links as possible. Although the term may sound negative, link bait can mean any informative, provocative or particularly useful pieces of content. In the blogging world it has also become synonymous with inflammatory or controversial posts.
Link Building
SEO companies may offer link building strategies. This can involve creating sites full of useful content, marketing that content via social media, using targeted anchor text, registering with key online directories and building solid reciprocal links. Effective link building campaigns will generate quality, relevant links and not rely on link farms.
Link Farm
Link farms are indexes of low quality, low relevance links that anyone can add their site to. The SEO benefits are minimal and overuse can lead to penalties from search engines.
Link Juice
Link juice is a term sometimes used to describe the various inbound links for a page, or the effect links can have on the rankings of a page.
Link Hoarding
Link hoarding is ensuring that all of your site links are internal links and offer no external linking. However, external links are often seen as a sign of authority and confidence by users, plus links to relevant sites can be taken into account by search engines.
Link Rot
Many broken links on a site may lead to “link rot”. If there are a large number of dead links then it may harm a website's credibility, and suggest to the search engines that the content is obsolete.
Long Tail
Phrase derived from 2004 Wired article in which Chris Anderson describes how targeting lots of low volume transactions can be more production than focusing on a few high volume competitive areas.
In terms of keywords, this means that the very specific niche terms can account for the bulk of your traffic. In many cases, the top ten most popular search terms for a site will only account for around 15-20% of the traffic.
There are many ways to target long tail keywords, from regular content generation and blogging, to in-depth keyword research.
Lycos
Lycos originally began life as a search engine, but has evolved into more of a general web portal along the line of Yahoo!
M
Manual Submission
Manually submitting a site to search engines or directories means not relying on submission services or chance.
Meta Description
The meta description tag (found in the HTML code) describes the content of a page. Many search engines, but not all, use this as the short description underneath a search result.
Meta Tags
Meta tags usually refers to the meta-data found in the HTML of each webpage. Of all of the meta tags, the page title is deemed most important for SEO.
Modifiers (or Keyword Modifiers)
When targeting keywords it's often advisable to include various modifiers. For example, modifiers for the term ÒHotels in LondonÓ may be ÒcheapÓ, ÒluxuryÓ or ÒromanticÓ placed in front of the phrase.
Modifiers tend to represent phrase variations commonly searched by internet users, as well as ways to target a larger variety of keywords.
Mirroring (or Mirror Site)
Mirroring means creating multiple copies of pages or sites with the same content, but with different domain names. It's often seen as a spamming technique, and it is known that Google penalises duplicate content.
Mozilla
Creators of the popular open-source browser, Firefox.
MySpace
One of the first and one of the largest social networking sites. It has since evolved into a very popular platform for musicians to broadcast their music and communicate with fans.
N
Natural Link
A Natural link is a link to an article or piece of content that hasn't been solicited or artificially created. Sometimes known as editorial links, these are often some of the most useful links to generate from an SEO point of view.
Navigation
Navigation is the way a website is structured to help a user access new pages and understand where they are in relation to the rest of the site. Navigation cues include links, buttons and breadcrumbs. The study and refinement of user navigation is known as information architecture.
Netscape
Netscape Navigator used to be one of the most popular browsers on the web. However, it has since been eclipsed by IE and Firefox. Netscape now refers to a social news and blog aggregate site.
Nofollow
Placing a nofollow tag in your hyperlink means that you don't want a Google spider (or Googlebot) to follow the link to next page.
Niche
A niche is the specific, targeted topic that a website or company is focused on. As search has become more competitive, the targeting of niche keywords and keyphrases has become more popular. Particularly when applied to the long tail theory.
Nominet
Nominet is the registry for .uk domain names in the United Kingdom. Unlike similar services in other countries, registrations are made to Nominet via a third party registrar (usually a hosting company).
O
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO (or off the page SEO) is the group of factors that affect your search rankings that aren't visible on the web page itself, or the code. Examples of this are inbound links and social media management.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO (or on the page SEO) covers all of the search engine optimisation techniques and factors that can be seen directly on the webpage or its coding. For example, this could include keywords in body content, keywords in page title and headers, hyperlinks and content quality.
Open Directory Project (ODP)
See DMOZ.org
Operators
Operators are used in Boolean search. They are “AND”, “NOT” and “OR”.
Optimisation
An optimised site has been deliberately constructed to rank in search engines for specific search terms. Optimisation refers to the processes used to achieve this. It's generally accepted that there are two types of SEO – black hat SEO and white hat SEO. Reputable companies will focus on the latter, but may have a deep understanding of the former.
Organic SEO or Organic Search
Organic search (or natural search) refers to the non-paid results that a search query returns. It's generally accepted that organic search results attract up to 80% more clicks than the paid search ads alongside them.
Outbound Link
Any link within a website that points to another website or domain entirely. Having quality outbound links can be useful for SEO. Users may see it as a sign of trust and confidence, while links that point to relevant content are often considered by search engines to be good indicators of a site's subject matter.
Overture
Originally, Overture were one of the first companies to sell targeted search terms to customers (pay-per-click). They have since been purchased by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing.
Overture Keyword Selector
Overture's keyword selector is a keyword research tool that bases its results on data from the Yahoo! search engine.
P
PageRank
Google PageRank is the system which Google developed to rank webpages – based on the number of incoming links. However, over the past few years their algorithms have become more complex, giving weight to the relevancy and quality of links, not just the quantity (see TrustRank).
Paid Listing
Paid results that appear on SERPs alongside organic results are known as paid listings. Each paid listing is the result of outbidding competitors, with the highest positions usually reserved for the highest bidders.
Penalty
Websites which use aggressive spamming, black hat SEO or unethical techniques may be given a penalty by Google or other search engines. These range from being bumped down the SERPs to outright delisting from the index. In some cases the search engine may need to be contacted for a site to be reinstated.
Poison Words
Poison words is the phrase used to describe words that may trigger spam filters, or at least be associated with poor content. The list is far from concrete and is ever-changing, but over use of terms such as “free” or product names such as “Viagra” can cause issues.
Pop-under
Similar to a pop-up except that the new window opens beneath the current browser window.
Pop-up
A pop-up is a browser window that opens automatically upon visiting a site or clicking a link. Although still common, they are less popular due to being perceived as an annoyance by a large percentage of web users.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Pay-per-click is a search engine advertising system which allows users to bid on keywords to have their text ads placed in the paid listings. These appear alongside or in some cases above organic search results. The user only pays a fee if the ad is clicked on.
Q
Quality Link
Links are the currency of search – every link is a tick against your website's name. However, although early versions of the Google algorithm didn't differentiate too much between links, the quality of a link has become much more important.
Quality links are relevant to the site or page they link to and come from a trusted source.
Query
A query is a the keyword or words that a user enters into a search engine to request results.
Quotes or quotation marks
Placing quotation marks around the search phrase (“like so”) means that the entire phrase should be searched for, and not just the individual words in any order. The majority of searches do not use quotes.
R
Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal linking is the swapping of a link to a site in exchange for a link back. Although this can be a useful tactic when requesting relevant, quality sites link to your own, poor quality link exchanges have little SEO or user value.
Redirect
Redirects point browsers and search engines to new pages after a page location has moved. There are two main types: 301 for permanent location changes and 302 redirects for temporarily moved content.
Referrer
The referrer is the location from which a visitors arrives at your site from (for example, from an ad, search engine result or link).
Relevancy
Relevancy refers to the match between the searcher's query to the content offers in the SERPs. Google became the major player in the search world when they discovered a new way to deliver relevant results.
Reputation Management
Reputation management is the monitoring of a brand or company reputation online – whether through forums and social media sites, or general search queries. In particular, it helps ensure that negative terms don't bring up the company site, or that negative news stories are not high in SERPs when the company name is searched for.
Robot
Robots are a group of programmes that enable search engines to index information. Spiders are the types of robot that index page content. Google's robots are known as Googlebots. There are some malicious types of robot programme, for example email harvesters which try to gather addresses for spamming.
Robots.txt / robots text file
It's possible to instruct robots not to index web pages by including a robots.txt text file in the root folder of a website.
ROI (Return on Investment)
ROI stands for Return On Investment. This is a common term in business and marketing, but in relation to SEO it refers to the amount of profit or revenue created as a result of an SEO or PPC campaign. Analytics software makes this more measurable than many other marketing initiatives.
RSS (Real Simple Syndication)
RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication, or in some cases Real Site Summary. RSS allows a user to syndicate information from a number of sites for aggregation on a feed reader.
S
Sandbox
Though never confirmed by Google, this is believed to be a state where a new site is placed on temporary probation. During this period outbound links and Pagerank are affected. It's believed to combat dummy sites being created to send links to exisiting domains, though these practices are largely becoming less effective.
Search History
Several search engines store a history of searches, either through a user account or automatically. Search history is then used to provide more accurate results, or targeted ads.
Search Engine
A search engine is a way of retrieving information from the world wide web. Search engine algorithms endeavour to find relevant information based on the search query entered.
Search Marketing (or SEM)
Search marketing (or SEM or search engine marketing) is the use of search engine results and user behaviour to promote business or products online.
Semantic Search
Semantics is the structure and relationship of information and how that relates to communication. The concept of Semantic Search is that search engines will be able to deliver what a user wants by understanding the complex relationships between words, ideas and context.
Much has been made of Google and Yahoo's development of Semantic Search techniques, and it is believed by some that the future of search lies in this field.
SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. This is the complicated area of understanding how to structure and present content in such a way as to appear high in relevant search engine results pages.
SEO is based around several core areas, including SEO copywriting, keyword research, link building, reputation management, social media, brand development, information architecture, usability and online marketing.
It's generally accepted that there are ethical white hat SEO practices designed to work alongside search engines, and unethical black hat SEO techniques that manipulate the search engines.
SEO copywriting
Copywriting is the art and science of persuasion in print. SEO copywriting combines the skill of copywriting with an understanding of keywords, information architecture and how users read online.
SERP or SERPs
A SERP is a Search Engine Results Page. This is the list of sites that appear after a user has entered a search query.
Silo (or Siloing)
Siloing is a method of organising information on a website by grouping related topics or themes together. Each silo contains categories relevant to the main focus of your site, as well as the major keywords that a site aims to target.
Social Media
Social media (often referred to in relation to Web 2.0) is a range of sites that allow users to create their own content and interact with each other via the site. This can range from video sharing sites such as YouTube, to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
Spam or Spamming
Spam refers to the various unethical ways that companies use to get to the top of search results, or promote products via email or online ads. Spamming is usually punished by the search engines. Spamming search engines (or spamdexing) usually refers to the submission of huge amounts of web pages.
Spider or Search Spider
Spiders are forms of search robots which crawl web pages to index content for a search engine.
Splash Page
A splash page is a web page which, while attractive and appealing, has little indexable content and offers limited usability for visitors.
Splog
As blogs have gained currency as promotional tools, they have become more open to abuse by over-enthusiastic marketers. Splog refers to spam blogs Ð any posts that contain poor quality content, rehashed ideas, a series of links or stolen text.Spyware
Software programmes that are installed on a user's computer. The programmes then collect data about web usage and brand data. Some are malicious and can cause serious problems with computer performance. Others are less serious, but not necessarily desirable.
Static Content
Static content is web content that is rarely changed or doesn't offer any dynamic functionality – such as comments or other social media functions. It's generally accepted that while static content has a place in SEO, fresh content is a good way to build links, cover keywords and generate brand awareness.
Stemming
The stem of a word is the original unit that the word is created from. For example, ÒeatingÓ stems from the word ÒeatÓ. Many search engines are able to decipher the stems of words successfully in an effort to deliver relevant results.
Stop Words
Stop words refer to many different words which aren't considered as relevant in search queries. Words such as a, is, it, to etc. will not influence search results, though of course that's no reason to remove them from page content.
Submission
submission refers to submitting a site for including in a search engine index. Although this used to be an important step in getting your website listed, it's usually fine to simply get someone to link to your site through a forum, blog or other site and wait for the robots to discover it.
Supplemental Results
Supplemental results are the search results that are deemed low quality or untrustworthy, therefore tend to appear at the end of the SERPs, and may even be hidden until clicked.
T
Taxonomy
In terms of SEO, taxonomy refers to ways of categorising and labelling information and language into related topics Ð then further organising categories into a hierarchy of importance.
Technorati
Technorati is a popular search engine for blogs which lists popular stories.
Term Frequency
Term frequency is how often a keyword term is used on a web page or set of documents. Instead of keyword density, term frequency is often a more reliable measure of how well a specific page targets a keyword.
Title or Page Title
The page title is the tag that describes the content of a web page – for both search engine and user. It's a very important aspect of SEO best practice. Titles should refer to page content with unique, descriptive keywords without sounding like spam. Page titles are frequently used for anchor text in links, so it's useful to have a short, compelling description.
Toolbar
A toolbar is a software add-on for a web browser. Many search engines have created their own toolbars which offer various types of functionality – from embedded search boxes to ad-blocking devices. Toolbars often track a user's internet browsing data for market research, relevant results and targeted ads.
Trackback
A trackback is a notification that your site has been mentioned in another blog.
TrustRank
TrustRank is a way of analysis links to separate useful webpages from spam sites. This involves human appraisal of a set of “seed documents”. Automatic detection software then uses the results of these appraisals applied to similar documents.
The most popular service for Òmicro-bloggingÓ. Twitter allows users to answer the question Òwhat are you doing?Ó in 140 characters or less. It's one of the most popular social media applications of recent years. Individuals have their own profiles, and each post is known as a ÒtweetÓ.
U
Unique visitor
The term unique visitor refers to one single person visiting a site. It's used to differentiate between hits or pageviews.
Universal Search
In 2007 Google released Universal Search. This means that news, blogs, videos, images and maps can often be included in the SERPs. For an SEO practitioner it means that optimising content such as videos and images can be a productive strategy. It can also mean that sites are pushed further down the page by the Universal Search results.
URL
URL stands for uniform Resource Locator. Every web page has a unique URL.
Usability
Usability refers to the practice of researching and understanding how users relate to websites and how best to present information. It's closely related to information architecture. Two of the most prominent figures in the field are Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug.
Usage Data
Usage data is a set of usage parameters that many search engines may take into account when judging the quality and relevancy of a site. For example, regular site visits, high traffic, large average time spent on site, frequent searches for site brand and regular click throughs to related content may all have an influence.
V
Vertical Search
Vertical search is a search service based around a particular niche or format. Examples of this could be search engines that focus on medical terms, or search engines that focus on UK restaurants.
Viral marketing
Viral marketing is a form of web marketing that relies on the word-of-mouth channels of the internet to gain exposure. For example, a short video may appear on YouTube, be forwarded via email and be linked to via blogs.
W
Web copywriting
Web copywriting combines the fundamentals of persuasion and marketing with an understanding of how to write for the web. Web users read and react differently to written content online than they do to print or TV media. Web copywriters should have an understanding of SEO and SEO copywriting.
White Hat SEO
White Hat SEO refers to techniques deemed as ethical or acceptable by search engines and the SEO community at large. It's worth remembering that what's deemed manipulative or unethical is not fixed and can change over time.
Whois
Whois records the registration and ownership data of a domain. Most respected domains show contact details and names of registrars, but many spam sites hide their information.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia with submissions entirely created from volunteers. The emphasis is on collaboration to create accurate entries.
Wordpress
One of the most popular blogging platforms. Wordpress is available for download and integration into an existing site, or as a hosted application. The hosted option usually results in a domain name with Wordpress in the URL.Wordpress is open source software, so it has numerous add-ons and is frequently used as a content management system.
Wordtracker
Wordtracker is a keyword research tool. A paid service, Wordtracker collates data from several meta search engines.
X
XHTML
XHTML stands for Extensible HyperText Markup Language. Seen a more advanced and ordered version of HTML, XTMHL uses some of the principles of XML.
XML
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. This is a format designed for use in dynamic content, or for use in RSS or similar.
Y
Yahoo!
One of the most popular search engines and web portals.
Yahoo! Answers
Q&A sites have become increasingly popular, with Yahoo! Answers one of the leading examples. Users can both ask and answer questions, with the most useful answer rated and chosen by the asker. This creates a huge pool of free user-generated content, attractive to search engines.
Yahoo! Directory
One of the most trusted and useful online directories. The directory is not free, however it does offer a quality link to any accepted website.
YouTube
YouTube is an online video sharing site with content uploaded by users. The site was bought by Google.
Z
0-9
301 Redirect
A 301 redirect is an instruction to the browser and search engine that a page has been permanently moved to a new URL.
302 Redirect
A 302 redirect indicates to the search engine that a page location has moved, but only temporarily. In general it's more advisable to use a 301 redirect.
404
404 is the error code for a page that cannot be found at the location entered.
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