An SEO Glossary – Common SEO Terms Defined
February 6th, 2010Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a necessary weapon within the arsenal of every on-line business. Sadly, for many business homeowners and selling managers (and even many webmasters), it is also somewhat of an enigma. This is often partly due to the fact that it’s such a brand new and rapidly changing field, and partly due to the very fact that SEO practitioners tend to speak in a language all of their own which, while not translation, is nearly impenetrable to the layperson. This glossary seeks to remedy that scenario, explaining specialist SEO terms in plain English…
AdWords
See ‘Sponsored Links’.
algorithm
A complex mathematical formula utilized by search engines to assess the relevance and importance of websites and rank them accordingly in their search results. These algorithms are kept tightly below wraps as they’re the key to the objectivity of search engines (i.e. the algorithm ensures relevant results, and relevant results bring a lot of users, which in flip brings additional advertising revenue).
article PR
The submitting of free reprint articles to many article submission sites and article distribution lists so as to extend your website’s search engine ranking and Google PageRank. (In this sense, the “PR” stands for PageRank.) Like ancient public relations, article PR conjointly conveys a way of authority as a result of your articles are widely published. And because you’re proving your expertise and freely dispensing information, your readers will trust you and can be additional likely to remain loyal to you. (In this sense, the “PR” stands for Public Relations.)
article distribution lists
User groups (e.g. Yahoo, MSN, Google, Smartgroups, and Topica groups) which accept email submissions of articles in text format, and then distribute these articles via email to all of the members of the group. See additionally ‘article PR’.
article submission sites
Websites that act as repositories of free reprint articles. Authors visit these sites to submit their articles freed from charge, and webmasters visit to search out articles to use on their websites freed from charge. Article submission sites generate revenue by selling advertising space on their websites. See conjointly ‘article PR’.
backlink
A text link to your website from another website. See also ‘link’.
copy
The words used on your website.
copywriter
A professional writer who focuses on the writing of advertising copy (compelling, partaking words promoting a particular product or service). See also ‘SEO copywriter’ and ‘web copywriter’.
crawl
Google finds pages on the World Wide Internet and records their details in its index by sending out ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’. These spiders create their method from page to page and website to website by following text links. To a spider, a text link is sort of a door.
domain name
The virtual address of your web site (normally in the form www.yourbusinessname.com). This is what people will type after they want to visit your site. It’s also what you’ll use as the address in any text links back to your site.
ezine
An electronic magazine. Most publishers of ezines are desperate for content and gladly publish well written, useful articles and provide you full credit as author, as well as a link to your website.
Flash
A technology used to form animated internet pages (and page elements).
free reprint article
A piece written by you and made freely obtainable to alternative webmasters to publish on their websites. See conjointly ‘article PR’.
The search engine with the greatest coverage of the World Wide Web, and which is accountable for most search engine-referred traffic. Of roughly 11.five billion pages on the World Wide Web, it’s estimated that Google has indexed around 8.eight billion. This is often one reason why it takes therefore long to extend your ranking!
Google AdWords
See ‘Sponsored Links’.
Google PageRank
How Google scores a website’s importance. It provides all sites a mark out of 10. By downloading the Google Toolbar (from http://toolbar.google.com), you can read the PR of any web site you visit.
Google Toolbar
A free tool you can download. It becomes half of your browser toolbar. It’s most helpful features are it’s PageRank display (which allows you to read the PR of any site you visit) and it’s AutoFill perform (once you’re filling out an on-line form, you can click AutoFill, and it enters all the quality info automatically, including Name, Address, Zip code/Postcode, Phone Range, Email Address, Business Name, Credit Card Number (password protected), etc.) Once you’ve downloaded and put in the toolbar, you may want to set up how you’d prefer it to appear and work by clicking Options (setup is very simple). NOTE: Google does record some data (principally regarding sites visited).
HTML
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is that the coding language used to form a lot of of the information on the World Wide Web. Net browsers scan the HTML code and show the page that code describes.
Internet
An interconnected network of computers round the world.
JavaScript
A programming language used to create dynamic web site pages (e.g. interactivity).
keyword
A word that your customers rummage around for and which you employ frequently on your web site so as to be relevant to those searches. This use known as targeting a keyword. Most websites truly target ‘keyword phrases’ as a result of single keywords are too generic and it’s terribly tough to rank highly for them.
keyword density
A live of the frequency of your keyword in relation to the whole wordcount of the page. Therefore if your page has two hundred words, and your keyword phrase appears 10 times, its density is five%.
keyword phrase
A phrase that your customers rummage around for and that you utilize frequently on your web site so as to be relevant to those searches.
link
A word or image on a net page which the reader can click to visit another page. There are normally visual cues to point to the reader {that the} word or image could be a link.
link path
Using text links to attach a series of page (i.e. page one connects to page 2, page a pair of connects to page three, page 3 connects to page 4, and thus on). Search engine ‘spiders’ and ‘robots’ use text links to jump from page to page as they gather data regarding it, so it’s a good idea to permit them traverse your entire web site via text links. (See ‘Link ways’ on p.21. for further information.)
link partner
A webmaster who is willing to place a link to your website on their website. Quite often link partners have interaction in reciprocal linking.
link popularity
The quantity of links to your website. Link popularity is the one most vital factor during a high search engine ranking. Webmasters use a range of ways to increase their site’s link popularity together with article PR, link exchange (link partners / reciprocal linking), link buying, and link directories.
link text
The half of a text link that’s visible to the reader. When generating links to your own site, they are simplest (in terms of ranking) if they embrace your keyword.
meta tag
A short note at intervals the header of the HTML of your net page which describes some facet of that page. These meta tags are browse by the search engines and used to assist assess the relevance of a web site to a explicit search.
natural search results
The ‘real’ search results. The results that almost all users are trying for and that take up most of the window. For many searches, the search engine displays a long list of links to sites with content that is related to the word you searched for. These results are ranked in line with how relevant and necessary they are.
organic search results
See ‘natural search results’.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click advertising)
See ‘Sponsored Links’.
PageRank
See ‘Google PageRank’.
rank
Your position within the search results that show when somebody searches for a particular word at a groundwork engine.
reciprocal link
A mutual agreement between two webmasters to exchange links (i.e. they each add a link to the other’s web site on their own web site). Most search engines (certainly Google) are sophisticated enough to detect reciprocal linking and they don’t view it terribly favorably because it is clearly a manufactured method of generating links. Websites with reciprocal links risk being penalized.
robot
See ‘Spider’.
robots.txt file
A file which is used to tell the search engine spider that pages on a website should not be indexed. This file sits in your website’s root directory on the internet server. (Alternatively, you can do an identical thing by placing tags within the header section of your HTML for search engine robots/spiders to read. See ‘Optimizing your web ’ on p.22. for more information.)
Sandbox
Many SEO experts believe that Google ‘sandboxes’ new websites. Whenever it detects a brand new web site, it withholds its rightful ranking for a amount whereas it determines whether your website could be a genuine, credible, future site. It will this to discourage the creation of SPAM websites (sites that serve no helpful purpose other than to boost the ranking of another web site). Likewise, if Google detects a increase (i.e. several lots or thousands) in the quantity of links back to your web site, it may sandbox them for a amount (or of course penalize you by lowering your ranking or blacklisting your web site altogether).
SEO
Search Engine Optimization. The art of constructing your website relevant and important therefore that it ranks high within the search results for a explicit word.
SEO copywriter
A ‘copywriter’ who is not solely proficient at net copy, however additionally experienced in writing copy which is optimized for search engines (and will thus help you achieve a better search engine ranking for your web site).
search engine
A groundwork engine is an online tool that permits you to search for websites which contain a particular word or phrase. The most well-known search engines are Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
website map
A single page which contains a listing of text links to each page in the location (and every page contains a text link back to the location map). Assume of your site map as being at the center of a spider-web.
SPAM
Generally refers to unwanted and unrequested email sent en-masse to non-public email addresses. Also used to discuss with websites which appear high in search results without having any useful content. The creators of those sites set them up merely to cash in on their high ranking by selling advertising area, links to other sites, or by linking to different sites of their own and thereby increasing the ranking of these sites. The search engines are becoming increasingly subtle, and have already got very efficient ways to detect SPAM websites and penalize them.
spider
Google finds pages on the World Wide Net and records their details in its index by sending out ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’. These spiders create their method from page to page and site to website by following text links.
Sponsored Links
Paid advertising that displays next to the natural search results. Customers can click on the ad to go to the advertiser’s website. This is often how the search engines build their money. Advertisers set their ads up to display whenever somebody searches for a word that is connected to their product or service. These ads look just like the natural search results, however are normally labeled “Sponsored Links”, and normally take up a smaller portion of the window. These ads work on a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) basis (i.e. the advertiser solely pays when someone clicks on their ad).
submit
You can submit your domain name to the search engines thus that their ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’ can crawl your site. You’ll be able to additionally submit articles to ‘article submission sites’ in order to have them printed on the Internet.
text link
A word on a net page that the reader can click to visit another page. Text links are normally blue and underlined. Text links are what ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’ use to jump from page to page and website to website.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a explicit page revealed on the Internet. Normally in the form http://www.yourbusinessname.com/AWebPage.htm.
internet copy
See ‘copy’.
internet copywriter
A ‘copywriter’ who understands the unique necessities of writing for an online medium.
webmaster
A person responsible for the management of a particular website.
wordcount
The quantity of words on a explicit web page.
World Wide Web (WWW)
The vast array of documents revealed on the Internet. It’s estimated {that the} World Wide Web currently consists of roughly 11.five billion pages.
To dominate 1st spot on every search engine, visit this site: find backlinks. Do you want to find backlinks to generate traffic and high ranking for your websites? You can find backlinks buy it at our site to increase your website’s rank on search engines and boost your business as well.


