| Above the fold | Content on a web page that is visible by a browser without having to scroll down the page. |
| Adwords | Google's Cost Per Click (CPC) based advertising system. |
Algorithm
aka algo | In SEO, the formula or logic used by a Search Engine to rank their searchresults. |
Anchor Text
aka: link text | The text of a hyperlink that you can click on. |
Alt image attribute
(Alt Tag) | Alternate text - This text is displayed when the user hovers the mouse over an image. Their main use is to describe the graphic, making websites more accessible to the disabled. |
Backlink
aka: inbound link | A link to a page received from another web page. |
Banned
aka de-listing | An action taken by a Search Engine to remove a site from appearing in its search listings. |
| Below the fold | Web page content that is not seen by a web user unless they scroll down the page. |
Blog
aka Weblog | An online diary made on a regular basis. |
| Cache | A copy of a web pages stored within a search engine's database. The cache also refers to the copy of a web page stored on the user's local hard drive, which speeds up the display of pages that you have already seen. F5 will return a new copy of a page. |
Click Through Rate
aka CTR | A ratio of the number of impressions shown to the number of clicks. |
| Cloaking | Refers to showing alternate content to search engine spiders than you show to human visitors. |
| Conversion Ratio | Of the visitors that visit a site or page, a ratio of the number of visitorsthat perform a desired action. The action could be defined as making a purchase, requesting additional information, registering for a newsletter... |
| Cookie | Information stored on a user's computer by a website. |
| Clustering | The process of listing only 1 or 2 pages from a website within the search engine results. |
Cost per Acquisition
aka CPA
aka Cost Per Sale | A calculation of the average dollar amount to the total cost it takes to convert to a sale. The average cost of a campaign. |
Cost per Click
aka CPC | The cost for each click through to your site. An advertising cost of placing your ad on someone's website. |
| Cost per Thousand | The cost for each thousand impressions of your ad. |
| Cross Linking | Having multiple websites linking to each other. |
| Deep Crawl | The action of a spider following links from the domain's home page deeper into the site until it finds much of the site's content. |
| Deep link | A link to a page deep within a site rather than a link to the home page. |
| Directory | A site that lists other websites, grouped into categories. In a directory, listings are gathered using human efforts, rather than by the use of an automated spider. |
Doorway Page
aka bridge page | A web page who's purpose is to attract internet traffic from search engines and then direct the traffic to another website. |
| SERPs | The search engine results pages. The pages you see (excluding the paid ads) when you do a search in Google, MSN, Yahoo... |
| Dynamic | Web page content that is generated "on the fly", from a database |
| Frames | A technique that combines multiple HTML documents into a single web page. |
Inbound Link
aka IBL | A link from another website to your site. |
| Heading Tag | Tag that designates headlines in the text of a site.
Examples: H1, H2, H3 |
| Link Farms | Websites that have a primary goal of creating links between member sites. A violation of search engines' rules. |
| IP Address | A numeric identifier given to each internet connection. Allows data to find its way to your computer. |
| IP Spoofing | A method of reporting an IP address other than your own when connecting to the internet. |
Keyword or
Keyword Phrase | A word or phrase used in a performing a search. |
| Keyword Density | A ratio of the number of occurrences of a keyword or "keyword phrase" to the total number of words on a page. |
| Keyword Stuffing | Using a keyword or "keyword phrase" excessively in a web page, perhaps in the text content or meta tags. |
| Meta Tags | Header tags that provide information about the content of a site.
Examples: Title, description, keyword |
| Mirror sites | Duplicate copies of a website, usually on a different server. |
ODP
aka DMOZ | Open Directory Project. A huge human edited directory. |
| Organic Listings | Search engine listings based on merit as opposed to paid listings. |
| PageViews | The number of times a web page was viewed. This count will include any duplicate views by the same visitor. |
| Robot | See Spider. |
| Robots.txt | A file that can be used to instruct robots that visit your site. The file can be used keep certain pages from being scanned by one or all search engines. |
| ROI | Return on Investment. |
| Search advertising | The act of buying listings (paid search) on the search engines. |
| Search Marketing | The act of generating traffic from search engines. Promoting a web site in the search engines using various methods including organic and paid listings. Search marketing consists of search advertising and search engine optimization (SEO). |
| Search Engine Optimization | The act of altering a web site so that it ranks well in the organic listings (free listings) of the various search engines. |
| SEM | Acronym for Search Engine Marketing |
| SEO | Acronym for Search for Engine Optimization |
| SERPs | Search Engine Result Pages. Refers to the search engines' natural search results or the free search results. |
| SPAM / Spamming | Unscrupulous or unethical methods of inflating results. The term used by search engines to describe methods for increasing rankings, that they consider unacceptable. For email, it is the sending of unsolicited bulk email. |
| Splash Page | A page displayed for viewing before reaching the main page. |
Spider
aka robot, bot | A web program that explores a website. Search engines use spiders to scan your site and store relevant details in its database. |
| Stemming | The inclusion of word variations and plurals of a term. A search can include all words that come from the same "stem" word.
Examples: act acts, acting, actor |
Stop Word
aka filter words | A stop word is a "common word" which is ignored in a query because the word makes no contribution to the relevancy of the query.
Examples: I, the, you. |
| Unique Visitors | A count of the number of unique visitors to a site or a web page. |
