Basic Terms related to Internet, Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.

Algorithm
Operational programming rules that determine how search engine indexes content and display results to users.

Alt Tag

The alternate text associated with a web page graphic that gets displayed when the Internet user hovers the mouse over the graphic. Alt tags should convey what the graphic is for or about and contain good relevant keywords. 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. Note that the values of Alt tags for SEO have been discounted over time by the search engines to the point that now it is of minimal value.

Anchor text

This is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined) used by search engines as an important 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.

B2B

B2B -- Business to business.

B2C

B2C -- Business to consumer.

Back Link

Any link on another page that points to subject page. Also known as inbound links or IBLs.

Banned

When a search engine blocks your site from appearing it in search results pages.

Blacklist

Lists that either search engines or vigilante users compile of search engine spammers, which may be used to ban those spammers from search engines or to boycott them.

Blog

Blog are also known as weblog. An online diary with entries made on a regular if not daily basis. Some blogs are maintained by an anonymous author who uses a nickname or handle instead of his or her real name.

Click-through Rate

Rate at which people click on a link such as a search engine listing or banner ads. Studies show that click-through rates are six times higher for search engine listings than banner ads.

CPC

Abbreviation for Cost Per Click. It is the base unit of cost for a PPC campaign.

Description Tags

A Meta tag that allows the author to control the text of the summary displayed when the page appears in search engine results. Some search engines respond to this information, others ignore it.

Directory

A type of search engine where listings are gathered through human efforts, rather than by automated crawling of the web. In directories, web sites are often reviewed, summarized in about 25 words and placed in a specific category.

Error page

A web page stating an error message such as "File Not Found"

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Google Dance

Google Dance refers to when Google indexes are updated. This period of time often results in fluctuations in the index size and some noticeable changes in search engine result positions. The term Google Dance was adopted as while an update is being processed the position of a website in Google seems to "dance" as it fluctuates. The fluctuation is due to each of Google's nine datacenters being updated out of sync - meaning that a time has come to see different search results.

Heading Tag

An HTML tag that is often used to indicate 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.

Hidden keywords

Keywords that are placed in the HTML source in such a way that these words are not viewable by human visitors looking at the rendered web page.  The keywords are placed in same color as background color.

HTM

Three letter file extension for Hypertext Markup Language (file.htm)

HTML

HTML Stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. The programming language used to mark up web content and display it in a formatted manner. It's up to the web browser software, e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape, to render HTML source.

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

HTTPS

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure

Inbound links

Link that point to your website from other websites. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's PageRank.

Index

A search engine's database in which it stores text based content from every web page that its spider visits.

IP

Internet Protocol

Key phrase or keyword phrase

A search phrase made up of keywords. See "keyword."

Keyword

A word that search engine user might use to find relevant web page(s). If a keyword doesn't appear anywhere in the text of your web page, it's highly unlikely your page will appear in the search results.

Link Building

Link building is a search engine optimization technique to increases the number and quality of incoming links from external sources with the intention of increasing web page's link popularity; to increase web page's position in the search engines.

Link popularity

When other web sites link to your site, your site will rank better in certain search engines. The more web pages that link to you, better your link popularity.

Links

Text or graphics that, when clicked on, take the Internet user to another web page location. Links are expressed as URLs.

Listings

The information that appears on a search engine's results page in response to a search.

Meta Tags

Information placed in a web page not intended for users to see but instead which typically passes information to search engine crawlers, browser software and some other applications.

Meta Description Tag

Allows page authors to say how they would like their pages described when listed by search engines. Not all search engines use the tag.

Meta Keywords Tag

Allows page authors to add text (words) in webpage to helps the search engine ranking process.

Meta Robots Tag

Allows page authors to keep their web pages from being indexed by search engines, especially helpful for those who cannot create robots.txt files. The Robots Exclusion page provides official details.

Outbound Links

Links on a particular webpage leading to other web pages, whether they are within the same website or other website.

Portal

Designation for websites that are either authoritative hubs for a given subject or popular content driven sites (like Yahoo) that people use as their homepage. Most portals offer significant content and offer advertising opportunities for relevant sites

PPC

Pay Per Click, An advertising model where advertisers pay only for the traffic generated by their ads.

PR

Google PageRank

Query

A keyword, or phrase inquiry entered into a search engine.

Reciprocal linking

The practice of trading links between websites.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a file which well behaved spiders read to determine which parts of a website they may visit.

ROI

Return On Investment. Refers to the percentage of profit or revenue generated from a specific activity.

Search engine

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. Search engines periodically explore all the pages of a website and add the text on those pages into a large database that users can then search. With a search engine, publishing web pages that incorporate relevant key phrases, prominently positioned in particular ways, is critical.

Search engine marketing (SEM)

Strategies and tactics undertaken to increase the amount and quality of leads generated by search engines.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Strategies and tactics undertaken to influence the rankings of web pages in search engines.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

A page of search results delivered by search engine.

Search term

A keyword or phrase used to conduct a search engine query

SPAM

In the SEO language, this refers to manipulation techniques that violate search engines Terms of Service and are designed to achieve higher rankings for a web page. Obviously, spam could be grounds for banning.

Spider

Spider is also known as a bot (or robot). Spiders are software programs that scan the web. They vary in purpose from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.

Static

Static means that the web page was not created dynamically from a database, but instead previously created and saved as a HTML file.

Title tag

The text displayed in the blue bar at the very top of the browser window, above "Back," "Forward," "Refresh," "Print," etc. The title tag is the most important part 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.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator. Used interchangeably with web address. URLs can specify the location of a web page, an email address, or a file on an FTP server, among other things.

W3

World Wide Web

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium

Web Standards

Widely adopted guidelines for CSS, XHTML etc that help to ensure that websites are accessible on a wide variety of platforms and to wide range of users.