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Search and Search Engine Related Terms
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Word or
Phrase |
Definition: |
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Algorithm |
Algorithms
are computer programs that search engines use to rank
the pages in their index based on the search terms that
a visitor entered. Rankings are displayed to the
visitor with the highest rankings listed first. Google’s
ranking algorithm is said to include over 100 individual
ranking criteria. |
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Applet |
Applets are
programming objects that are inserted into the HTML code
of web pages and can act as mini applications (for the
most part) within that site. Most applets are Java
applets and are programmed using Sun's Java programming.
often used for scrolling text. Applets are not be seen
by search engines. |
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Auction
Engines |
Auction
engines such as Google AdWords, Overture and eSpotting
are also known as Pay Per Click (PPC) engines. These
engines allow sites to bid for positions in search
results displayed when a user searches on a keyword.
Auction results are normally displayed to the right or
above the Natural, or organic search results.
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Boolean
Search |
A search
allowing the inclusion or exclusion of documents
containing certain words through the use of operators
such as AND, NOT and OR. |
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Click
Through |
The process
of clicking on a link in a search engine output page to
visit an indexed site. An important link in the
process of receiving visitors to a site via search
engines, good click through results are achieved by
providing accurate, relevant titles and interesting
content in the description. High ranking results
are useless unless visitors click on the link which
leads to the indexed site. |
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Cloaking |
Cloaking is
a technique of delivering different content than real
visitors expect to see when they visit a site. This is a
well-known Spam technique that is recognized and checked
for by search engines. Cloaking is a very bad
practice and will result in your site being banned by
the search engines, once discovered. |
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Cross-linking |
Cross-linking is the practice of developing a network of
interlinked sites and/or domains which then link back to
a main web site. This is another recognized Spam
technique used to distort link popularity. |
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Doorway
Pages |
Doorway
pages are a method of providing content-rich web pages
that are highly targeted toward popular keyword
searches. This helps to offer searches more relevant
pages, and increase the relevancy of the web site.
Doorway pages are not necessarily home pages, but could
be. |
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Dedicated
Hosting |
Dedicated
hosting is a type of hosting where a website is stored
on its own server and that server is not sharing with
any other web sites. This form of hosting is not
affected by the actions of other web sites. |
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Description
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Descriptive
text is text associated with a web page and displayed
(usually with the page title and URL) when the page
appears in a list of pages generated by a search engine
as a result of a query. Some search engines take this
description from the DESCRIPTION Meta tag - others
generate their own from the text in the page.
Directories often use text provided at the time of
registration. |
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Directory |
A directory
is a listing of sites, usually in a categorical format.
The largest directories on the web are the
Open Directory Project (DMOZ) and the
Yahoo Directory. Directories (also known as
Indexes) are normally compiled manually from information
submitted by users (such as at
whatsnew.com). Directories often involve an
editorial selection or categorization process (such as
at
LookSmart and
Yahoo). Directories are not "spidered" by robots. |
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Domain Name |
A domain
name is a website address, e.g. www.mybusiness.com is a
domain name. A domain name is also called a URL (Uniform
Resource Locator). Extensions of domain name are
commonly .com,.org,.biz, etc. |
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Dynamic
Content |
Information
on web pages which changes or is changed automatically
changed based on database content or user information.
Although it is possible to serve dynamic content using
static pages such as .htm, or .html, dynamic content can
often be identified by a web page result returned that
ends in .asp, .cfm, .cgi or .shtml. Search engines index
dynamic content in a similar fashion to static content,
although they will not usually index URLs which contain
the ? character. |
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Flash |
Flash is an
dynamic technology developed by
Macromedia to enhance web pages with rich content.
Flash is often used to deliver impact, highlight special
offers, or to deliver presentations. Flash is embedded
into HTML pages using an *.swf file, which is in turn
published from a *.fla file. Flash in not easily
recognized by search engines, and can interfere with top
rankings. Complete Flash sites are not indexed at
all by search engines. |
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Fuzzy Search |
A search
that produces matches even when words are partially
spelled or misspelled. |
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Frames |
An HTML
technique for combining two or more separate HTML
documents within a single web browser screen.
Interacting documents can be created to make a more
effective web page presented in multiple windows or
sub-windows.
A framed web site often causes great problems for search
engines, and may not be indexed correctly. Search
engines will often index only the part of a framed site
within the <NOFRAMES> section, so developers must make
sure that the <NOFRAMES> section includes relevant text
which can be indexed by the spiders. If a site uses
frames, gateway pages (doorway pages) or navigational
links can be added within the framed pages. Developers
should submit the main page (the one containing the
<FRAMESET> tag) and the gateway page separately to the
search engines. |
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Gateway Page
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A web page
submitted to a search engine to provide the
relevance-algorithm of that particular search engine
spider the data it needs to place a site at the proper
level of relevance for the topic (keyword) entered by
the searcher. The end result of executing
the algorithm and the result determined is called
"placement".
Gateway
pages sometimes have presented information to the
spider, but obscured it from a casual human viewer. The
gateway page existed so as to allow a web-site to
present one face to the spider, and another to human
viewers. There were several reasons why this was done.
One was that the author may not have wanted to publicly
disclose placement tactics. A second was that the format
easiest for a given spider to understand was not be the
format that the author wanted to present to his viewers.
A third was that the format that was best for one spider
was different from that which was best for another
Gateway pages used in this manner in today's search
engine world are also consider Spamming and will result
in sites being banned if discovered.
Today's Gateway pages, properly developed, are content
rich pages fully visible to search engines and fully
linked to other pages within the site.
Gateway pages are also known as bridge pages, doorway
pages, entry pages, portals or portal pages. |
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Heading |
Headings are
stronger or bolded text preceding content. Some search
engines give extra weight and importance to the text
found inside HTML heading sections. It is good
practice to use headings when designing web pages and to
place keywords inside headings. |
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Hit |
A hit (or
site hit) is a single access request made to the server
for either a text file or a graphic. If a web page
contains twelve buttons constructed from separate
images, a single visit from someone using a web browser
with graphics switched on (a "page view") will involve
thirteen hits on the server. (Accesses will not get as
far as your server because the page will have been
cached, or stored by a local internet service provider).
A hit is a measure of the number of web pages matching a
query returned by a search engine or directory. |
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HTML |
Hypertext
Markup Language - the (main) language of the web.
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HTTP |
Hypertext
Transfer Protocol - the (main) protocol, or set of
rules, used to communicate between web servers and
web browsers (clients). |
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Inbound Link |
A hypertext
link to a particular page from somewhere else which
brings traffic to that page. Inbound links are counted
by some search engines to produce a measure of the page
popularity. Searches for inbound links to a page can be
made on
AltaVista,
Infoseek and
Hotbot. |
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Indices /
Index |
An index is
the database of sites built up by search engine spiders.
Search engines combine indexes with their ranking
algorithms to deliver search results to visitors based
on the keyword's) entered. |
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Indexing |
Indexing is
the process search engines use to index a site.
Indexing and ranking are two different things. A spider
robot looks at web pages for keys to their content and
then indexes them according to the keywords that it
deems most important. A web page's ranking
for these keywords will be determined by many factors,
but two in particular: (1) the clarity of focus of your
web page (and strategic placement of the important
keywords) and (2) the number and quality of links to
your website. |
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JavaScript |
JavaScript
is a programming language that allows site owners to
enhance web pages with dynamic content.
Large portions of web pages are often created using
JavaScript and many sites use JavaScript in hyperlinks.
Search engines cannot process JavaScript and
consequently ignore it. The use of JavaScript may
impede the process of obtaining a high ranking if the
JavaScript precedes the relevant textual content.
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Keyword |
A keyword is
any word that could be used by someone looking for
something on the web. Keywords are entered by
visitors to the search engines and are used to help them
find what they are looking for. Multiple keywords make
up keyword phrases which are used in search queries. |
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Keyword
Density |
Keyword
density is the measure of the number of occurrences of a
specific keyword, or keyword phrase, on a web page.
Keyword density is important to some search engines in
determining ranking. The repetition of keywords
without meaningful sentence structure is considered
Spamming. |
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Keyword
Phrase |
A keyword
phrase is a combination of a number of individual
keywords, which together make the search more specific. |
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Keyword
Stuffing |
Keyword
stuffing is the practice of placing many keywords and
keyword phrases into a single page. Methods of
carrying out this technique include using multiple
titles, multiple meta tags, and repetition of keywords
without sentence structure. Keyword stuffing is a
Spam technique and using it will lead to penalties from
search engines. |
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Link
Building |
Link
building is a process of seeking out and building up the
link popularity of a site from relevant (related) sites.
Relevant site links are offered to visitors at your
site. This process can be reciprocal in that the related
site will link back to your site. Although time
consuming to develop, most reliable SEM/SEO firms offer
link building programs. Of the major search
engines, Google places the most emphasis on link
popularity in ranking sites. |
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Link Farm |
Link farms
are a Spam technique designed to inflate link popularity
by providing many, many reciprocal links. Clusters of
interlinking sites, often with completely irrelevant
content, are established in an effort to trick search
engines. Search engines are, however, smart enough
to determine these clusters and once discovered, will
penalize your site if used. |
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Link
Popularity |
Link
popularity is a measure of the number of incoming links
to a site. Since not all search engines will index the
same pages, link popularity will vary from search engine
to search engine. Link popularity is one of the
many factors search engines will take into account when
ranking pages. Some search engines place higher
emphasis on it than others, but it should be a vital
component of every optimization program. |
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Log Files |
When a
visitor visits your home page, your server creates a
line in the log file with information about that visitor
and the name of the page that they visited. The server
will also do the same for any images that are on that
page, and many external files such as style sheet files.
The records of these visits are called Log files.
Log files
are used by site owners and developers for measurement
and analysis, to gather statistics on site usage, and to
detect errors that occur on a site. The
evaluation of log files against business measurements is
called web analytics. |
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Meta Refresh |
A meta
refresh is a method of redirecting visitors when they
arrive at a page. The meta tag tells the browser
which page to redirect to. Search engines do not like
the use of meta refreshes and their use is to be
discouraged. |
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Meta Search |
A meta
search is a search performed on a meta search engine. |
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Meta Search
Engine |
A meta
search engine is a search engine that searches and
incorporates results of many search engines at the same
time. |
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Meta Tags |
Meta tags
are portions of HTML code that can be added to a web
page but are not displayed to the visitor when viewing
the site. Meta tags offer additional information
about the page. The most common meta tags (and
those most relevant to search engines) are KEYWORDS and
DESCRIPTION.
The
KEYWORDS tag allows the author to emphasize the
importance of certain words and phrases used within the
page. Some search engines will respond to this
information - others will not. Quotes around the
keywords or keyphrases are not to be used.
The
DESCRIPTION tag allows the author to control the text of
the summary displayed when the page appears in the
results of a search. This is very important to some
search engines, and again, ignored by others.
The
HTTP-EQUIV meta tag is used to issue HTTP commands, and
is frequently used with the REFRESH tag to refresh page
content after a given number of seconds. Gateway pages
have used this technique to force browsers to a
different page or site. However, search engines are
smart enough to see this practice as Spam, and will
index the final page or reduce the ranking.
Other
common meta tags are GENERATOR (usually advertising the
software used to generate the page) and AUTHOR (used to
credit the author of the page, and often containing
e-mail address, homepage URL, and so on). |
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Mirror-Site |
A mirror
site is a copy of another site, usually on a server in
another location around the world. Mirror-sites are used
to help serve international visitors and to increase
visibility in local searches. |
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Off-Page
Optimization |
Optimizing a
website through the environment around it is called
Off-Page Optimization. Factors such as server
location are important. |
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On-Page
Optimization |
On-page
Optimization is considers all factors of a web page,
such as titles, keyword, meta-tags, headings,
description, and code structure. |
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Open
Directory Project |
A directory
project run by thousands of volunteer editors. In
principal, this is a very exciting and powerful way to
organize the web. In practice, there have been some
problems with the behavior of some of the editors, which
has caused some initial difficulty for the organizers.
Initially known as NewHoo, the project is now part of
Netscape (and therefore of AOL). See
http://directory.mozilla.org. |
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Optimization |
Optimization
is the practice of analyzing and changing elements of a
website to increase the sites relevance to certain
keywords and keyphrases. |
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Organic
Search Listings |
Organic
search listings are those listings that appear on a
search results pages (SERPs) that have not been paid for
as part of a auction campaign. The listings are
normally displayed from the left margin to the near
right margin of a search results page. Organic
listings are based on the relevancy of the page as
determined by page content, and are listed in order with
highest relevancy first. |
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Page Optimization |
Same as
On-Page Optimization. |
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Page
Popularity |
Same as link
popularity. |
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Page Views |
Page views
is the number of times a site's web pages have been
viewed over a specified period of time. |
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Paid
Inclusion / Pay For Inclusion |
Paid
inclusion or Pay For Inclusion is the model of paying to
ensure a web site is listed in a search index.
There is no guarantee as to placement, only inclusion.
This is often used by companies with large sites to
enhance indexing of many pages. |
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Paid Search
Listings |
Paid search
listings are those listings that have been included on
the search engine results pages (SERPs) as part of a
auction campaign. The listings are advertisements paid
for by the site owner that are tailored to the popular
keywords related to the pages. Position of the
listing is determined by the cost of the keyword, and
the site owner is charged a small fee when a visitor
clicks on the listing.
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Pay Per
Click / Pay For Position |
Pay Per
Click (PPC) is an auction campaign. PPC is the
process of obtaining a Paid Search Listing. The
PPC procedure is to determine a budget, select
appropriate keywords, write the creative ads which
appear in the listing, and then manage the results.
Your ad is then displayed in the right or top portions
of a search results page each time someone enters one of
the selected keywords as a search term in a search
engine listing your ads. Pay per click advertising
involves a great deal of research and can be costly.
However, the ROI from the campaign is easily calculated
if tracking methods are employed. Traffic can be
generated in a matter of hours. |
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PFI |
This is an
acronym for Pay For Inclusion. |
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Phrase
Search |
A search for
documents containing a exact sentence or phrase
specified by a user. |
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Portal Page |
A portal
page is a page specifically designed to drive relevancy
for certain keyword phrases. Portal pages focus on
several related search phrases to provide highly
relevant content to people searching for those keyword
phrases. |
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Portal Site |
A portal
site is a site that acts as a gateway to the internet.
Portals are often provided by ISPs and offer many
services in one place such as search, shopping and
communications.
Yahoo
is a very well known portal site. |
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Query |
A query is a
combination of words and numbers that make up a search
phrase. |
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Query-by-Example |
A search
where a user instructs a search engine to find more
documents that are similar to a particular document.
Also called "find similar", or "find more results like
these". |
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Referrer |
A term used
in web analytics, the referrer is the web site from
which a visitor came to arrive at your web site. When
there is no referrer, the visitor typed the web site
address in or used a bookmark to get to a site. In
web analytics, the referrer is used to determine
visitor’s paths through the site. |
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Relevancy |
Relevancy is
determined by search algorithms, and is the measure of a
site’s relevance to search terms. Relevancy determines
the contents of the search engine results pages (SERPs). |
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Registration |
The process
of informing a search engine or directory that a new web
page or URL should be indexed. A web developer usually
makes this request of a search engine.
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Re-submission
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Repeating
the search engine registration process one or more times
for the same page or site. Under certain circumstances,
this is regarded with suspicion by the search engines,
as it could indicate that someone is experimenting with
spamming techniques. In the past Infoseek and
AltaVista were particularly vulnerable to spamming
because they listed sites quickly. Both engines
de-listed sites for repeated re-submission.
Occasional re-submission of changed pages is not a
problem, and is the medium by which site listings are
improved. |
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Robot |
A computer
program that visits web pages looking to analyze textual
content. Robots are created by the search indexes
and help to build and maintain those indexes. |
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Robots.txt |
Robots.txt
is a file which can be inserted in the HTML code of a
site telling search robots not to visit certain pages.
The robots.txt file allows you to tell the robots to
ignore individual pages or entire directories, or even
the entire site. |
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Search
Engine |
The software
that searches an index and returns matches. Search
engine is often used synonymously with spider and index,
although these are separate components that work with
the engine. Search engines sometimes incorrectly
include directories (such as Yahoo Directory). |
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Search
Engine Placement |
Another
phrase used interchangeably with search engine ranking. |
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Search
Engine Position |
Same as
Search Engine Placement. |
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Search
Engine Ranking |
The position
of a web site's listing in the search engine results
pages (SERPs) for certain keyword phrases. Search
Engine Ranking applies to natural (organic) listings
only. In an auction listing, ranking is not used,
but placement or position may be used just to define the
order of appearance.
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Search
Results |
Search
results are produced as a result of a visitor entering a
search phrase into a search engine thereby processing
the search algorithm. Search results are displayed
in the search engine results pages (SERPs). |
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Search
Phrase |
A
combination of a number of keywords used to query a
search engine. |
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SEM |
Acronym for
Search Engine Marketing. |
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SEO |
Acronym for
Search Engine Optimization. The art of gaining top
rankings in search results for search terms likely to be
used by audiences the site marketer is interested in
reaching. No money is paid for to search engines
for placement. |
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SERPs
(Search Engine Results Pages) |
Search
engine results pages are the listings of relevant site
pages produced by the search engine after it has been
queried using a search phrase. |
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Server |
A server is
a computer on which a website is stored. Servers can
contain more than one web site and are usually provided
by hosting companies. Some larger institutions may
have their own servers. |
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Scripts |
Scripts are
small applications, usually written in a programming
languages called JavaScript or Visual Basic scripting
that enables web site owners to enhance pages with
dynamic content. Search engines ignore JavaScript
so it is important that web pages do not rely on
JavaScript to determine placement. Scripts run on
the client's browser - as opposed to being executed on
the host server. |
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Shared
Hosting |
Shared
hosting is hosting on a server along with other
non-related web sites using the same hosting provider.
Shared hosting is usually the least expensive hosting. |
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Spamming |
Spamming is
a general word for many techniques that are used to
attempt to artificially increase the relevancy of a web
site, which will result in higher rankings. Modern
search engines are very smart about spamming techniques,
and the penalties for spamming can be severe. |
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Spider |
Another term
for robot. |
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Spidering |
Also known
as crawling, spidering is a common name for the process
that a search engine robot goes through when it visits
sites around the Internet. |
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Splash Page |
A splash
page is the term for a page that acts as an introduction
to a site. Splash pages often include an enhanced
graphic appeal, animation, a flash movie
introduction, or a multi-language selection screen. |
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SSI |
SSI is an
acronym for Server-Side Includes. Server-side includes
are files that are dynamically added to a page when it
is visited. Large sites sometimes employ SSI for
dynamic menus and site content repeated on multiple
pages. |
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Stemming |
Stemming is
a feature of some search engines which will include
variants of a keyword in the search, or offer to search
for those variants. For example, searching for golf on a
search engine that includes stemming might produce
golfers and golf clubs as additional keywords. |
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Stop Word |
Stop words
are words like ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘and’ and ‘of’ and also
‘where’ and ‘how’. Stop words are conjunctions,
prepositions and articles and other words that appear
often in documents yet alone may contain little meaning. |
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Submission |
Submission
is the process of submitting a site to be included in
search engine indices. |
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Submission
Service
|
Any agent
which submits your site to many search engines and
directories. Many of these services are automatic and
run from web sites. Submission services may be
useful when listing with many of the minor search
engines. For major search engines, manual
submission is preferred. Since no more than 10
search engines control the vast majority of search
traffic, submission services to hundreds of search
engines does not seem worth the effort. The use of
submission services can lead to unsolicited Spam if your
email address is provided.
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Title Tag |
The title
tag is an HTML tag in the HEAD section of the code that
defines the text appearing at the top of the browser
window when a page is displayed. The contents of
the title tag also appears as the link to the page in
search results. |
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Thesaurus |
A list of
synonyms a search engine can use to find matches for
particular words if the words themselves don't appear in
documents. |
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Traffic |
The stream
of visitors who view a web site. |
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Trusted Feed |
A trusted
feed is an XML-based method of ensuring up-to-date
inclusion in search indices. An XML file is used to hold
information about pages on a site which is referred to
by the search index to keep the index up-to-date. |
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Unique Visitors |
Unique
visitors is the number of individual people who visit a
site in a specified period of time. Unique visitors are
obtaining by analyzing server logs, and the process of
analysis is called web analytics.
Unique
Visitor is a real visitor to a web site. Servers
record the IP addresses of each visitor. If a
visitor views twenty pages within a web site, the server
will count only one unique visitor because the page
accesses are associated with the same IP address. |
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URL |
Stands for
Uniform Resource Locator. A URL is the ‘official’ name
for a web address. Yahoo's URL is
www.yahoo.com.
URL's are resolved to IP addresses using a process
called Domain Name Servers. This process resolves
the URL to a numeric IP address like 64.108.202.103, for
example only. |
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Web
Analytics |
Web
analytics is the process of analyzing visitor activity
on a web site through the use of server logs. Web
analytics also includes the measurement of metrics to
determine site effectiveness. The
presentation of these reports can be done by reporting
systems like Urchin, LiveStats, and others.
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Web
Copywriting |
The writing
of text for a web page. Similar to the writing of copy
for any other type of publication, good web copywriting
can have a dramatic effect on search engine positioning.
Web copywriting is a major portion of site optimization.
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Web Logs |
The same as
log files.
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Web Page |
A web page
is a single file made up of HTML markup tags. Web
pages begin with <html> and end with </html>.
Multiple web pages linked together make up a web site. |
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Web Site |
A web site
is a collection of web pages most often related to one
(or similar) subjects. |
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XML Feed |
Also known
as a Trusted Feed. |
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XML |
Extensible
Markup Language. A new language which promises more
efficient data delivery over the web. XML does nothing
itself - it must be implemented using 'parser' software
or
XSL.
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XSL |
Extensible
Scripting Language - an
XML
style sheet language supported by the newer web
browsers Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 5. |
