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The linked pages give fuller definitions.
Terms that are grayed out are terms that are still being researched.
30 Penalty - A penalty of precisely 30 positions in search engine results for a given keyword that is
reputedly given by Google for
Black Hat (unfair) SEO practices. 302 Google Jacking - A technique for falsely showing a high
Google PageRankä
by redirection. 950 Penalty
- A penalty of precisely 950 positions in search engine
results for a given keyword that is reputedly given by
Google for
Black Hat (unfair) SEO practices.
Absolute Link - An absolute path or full path link.
It specifies the entire URL address.
Absolute Path
- A path that specifies the full URL of a file rather than its location relative to the current page or domain
(Relative
Path) . For example: - http://seo.yu.hu.com/seo_glossary.htm
as
opposed to:
seo_glossary.htm. AdSense is an advertising service run by Google
for Web publishers. It places
advertisements at Web sites. The principle of the service is that Google software can sense what a Web page is
about and can then place advertisements there that are relevant to page content. There are a number of similar services
offered by other advertising companies. Web site owners get only a portion of the income - about 30% - from Google
advertisements, but in return, Google or another advertising company recruits advertisers, tabulates visitor clicks and
provides extensive statistics about what pages and types of advertisements are effective.
AdWords - Adwords is an advertisement service of Google for advertisers. It allows them to place
advertisements in search engine results pages or Web sites on a Pay Per Click (PPC) basis or Cost Per thousand
exposures (CPM).. Affiliate - A Website that gets a commission on sales that originate when a visitor clicks a
link on that site to arrive at the merchant's site. Aggregator
- A Website that gathers feeds from RSS
syndication. It may display them to subscribers in a Desktop popup device or popularize them in other ways. Examples
include Technorati.com, Weblog.com, RSS Userland...
Allegra Update
- Google Update of February 2005. alt tag
- The alt tag is a tag in images that provides text information about the image that is useful for
search engines. For example <img alt= "Atomic bomb explosion over Hiroshima" src = "http://myhistorysite.info/hiroshima.jpg">.
Anchor Text - The text of a link that is visible to the visitor or user, also called
"hyperlink text." It is important in determining the search engine of the linked page for a given keyword.
If at word or phrase is used often in the links, then the page or site will get a higher position for it in search
engine results.
Authority - The degree to which a Web site or page is trusted by a search engine. This
determines the importance of a link on that page for influencing the authority of the target page of that link, and it
also influences the placement rank or position of the page for a keyword.
Backlinks
- the links from other websites to a website that is to be optimized.
Black Hat SEO - Search engine optimization practices that are forbidden by search engines and
that are considered unethical. The general purpose of these practices is to fool search engines into giving the pages a
high placement or position for a keyword that they do not deserve based on actual content and backlinks.
Body - the section of a Web page that is enclosed between the <BODY> and
</BODY> commands or directives.
The text contained in this area is visible to visitors.
Bourbon Update -
Google Update of May - June 2005.
Browser - Software that allows viewing of pages in the World Wide Web.
Click Popularity - The number of times that a particular page listed for a keyword is clicked.
Click popularity is supposedly used by at least some search engines to determine page position for a given keyword.
Cloaking - Hiding the real content of a visitor destination page reached from a search engine, using redirection or other
techniques. The real page is not visible to the search engine spider.
Cookie - A file that may be deposited by software on a Web page in the visitor's computer to record the
time and date when the visitor accessed a page and other information.
Cookie Stuffing - Redirecting visitors, without their knowledge, to other pages. Cookie stuffing is a Black Hat SEO technique, often used to get visitors to pages where they will supposedly buy merchandise through "affiliate
links."
CMS - Acronym for Content Management System. Content Management System (CMS) - a software program that allows semi-automatic generation of
standard Web pages according to a specified template or set of templates, so that content authors do not have to deal
with coding of Web pages. Content Management Systems usually have a simple human interface for editors - a browser
operated GUI, and usually produce dynamic pages rather than actual HTML files. Deep link -
An inbound link to a page other than the main page (domain page) of a Web site.
Description Meta tag - (or Meta Description Tag) A
directive in the head (header) section of the Web page that describes the content of the Web page.
Directory- A Web directory can be 1. A hand edited listing of links and descriptions of Web sites or Web pages like Dmoz,
usually divided into categories and subcategories. 2. Any listing of links of Web sites
compiled from submissions, which may be a legitimate listing or a device to increase search engine visibility.
Directories are usually searchable, but they do not have to have a search function.
Doorway Page - A page that is made to be attractive to search engines, sometimes by artificial
and unethical means. Dynamic Web Pages - Web pages that do not exist as actual files, but are rather composed of
content stored in a database and generated "on the fly" when the page is called by a visitor or Search Engine
spider. Embedded Link - A link from a word in the text of a Web page rather than a link link in the
sidebar or other areas external to the main text of a page. It may be used to provide a definition of a term or further
information. For example: The Quran
is the holy book of the Muslim faith.
EverFlux -
Google's name for their system of continuously
synchronizing the information in different parts of their massive multi-processing database system. It replaces the
"Google Dance" which used to be performed only at certain times. During those times, search results from different
servers might be very different.
Filter - A software device that may be used by search engines to remove or penalize undesirable pages or Web
sites from listings even though they may score highly according to the usual algorithm.
Florida Update -
Google update of November 2003. See Google Updates Frames - A system of Web page display that shows the visitor a single page that is made up of two or more html
page files. One page is the master and it may call up one or more subsidiary pages. Clicking a link in a master page of
a frame may leave that page in the display, but show a different subsidiary page. Frames are useful, for example,
for displaying contents of a small dictionary - the index remains on display, while clicking a link displays a
definition next to the index. Frames pages are also useful for showing pages from other Web sites while ensuring that
visitors do no leave your Web site. Frames used to be difficult for search engines to follow and were supposedly
disliked by visitors.
Full path Link - (fullpath) A
link
that uses the absolute URL of the target page ( eg
http://seo.yu-hu.com/hubs.html ) rather than a relative link (eg hubs.html).
See also Absolute Link.
Google - 1. Noun - the Google search engine. 2. Verb - to search for a word or phrase in Google, as in "Google
"Complete Failure" and display "George Bush."
Google Bombing - The technique of gaining a high position in Google for a particular key word phrase by
generating thousands of links to a page that all use the same phrase in their anchor text. For example, a page is
created with a picture or name of a politician, and thousands of other pages link to it with the phrase "Complete
Failure" in the anchor text. Typing "Complete Failure in Google and clicking "I'm feeling lucky will then display the
first page retrieved by Google, which is the one showing the picture or name of the politician. Google reputedly uses
specific filters to block some of the most common Google bombs.
Google Dance - Discrepancies in search engine results that used to occur due to periodic updating of Google's
distributed server system. Supposedly, this is now avoided by continuous updates, a system called "everflux.".
Google Local Business Results -
Special
Onebox search engine results for local businesses displayed for some queries.
Google Onebox -
A concept that attempts to implement universal search. The idea being that users will be able to get all types of
content from one search "box" (data entry field).
Google PageRank
- a numerical measure of the Authority
of a Web page used to determine the
importance of links from that page or site and the Authority of the page. PageRank
may be influenced by the number of links to that page, the age of the page (older pages are better) the authority (PageRank) of the site at which the page
is located, and other factors. The authority conferred by a link from a page A to a page B is a function of the
PageRank
of page A, divided by the number of links on that page. Supposedly, Google maintains an internal
PageRank
on a
scale of 0 to 1, but reports PageRank as an integer number from 0 to 10, and supposedly, the reported numbers are not an
updated reflection of the internal values used by Google.
Google Sandbox - The Google Sandbox is a probationary period for positioning of
pages from new Web sites or subdomains.
Google Toolbar - A free toolbar downloadable from Google that shows Google PageRank, checks spelling,
eliminates popup advertisements and performs other services. It also records information about what sites you visit in
order to improve the Google search algorithm by following intentional surfing.
Google Updates - Changes to the Google algorithm that affect positions of pages
in Search Engine Results. Googlebot - Google’s search spider program
Gray Hat Search Engine Optimization - Optimization of a page or Web site using techniques that are not clearly
deception (Black Hat), but are not best practice (White Hat).
GYM - Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, the three most popular search engines.
Header - The header or Head section of an HTML Web page is the section enclosed in code between the HTML commands
<HEAD> and </HEAD>. The code in that section should not be visible to visitors. It
can contain the Title tag, description and Keyword metatags, language directives, robots directive, style sheet links
and similar information. The Title and metatags should appear first.
Heading - Any of several HTML code attributes such as <H1>,
<H2>, <H3>, <H4> that can be used to designate
important text in HTML code. Search engines may use this information in determining the positioning of a page for words
contained in those tags.
Hilltop search algorithm - A search algorithm that gives
preferential positioning to Web pages in search engine results based on links from "expert" pages that are not
are not on the same Web server as determined by Web domain or similar IP address.
HITS search algorithm - Acronym for Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search.
Algorithm for finding pages that rank highly for a particular broad search topic.
Hit - A statistical count that usually increments each time the server meets a request for a single file of
any type (such as a graphic file). Each Web page is made up of many files. Therefore the "Hit" is the most inflated
measure of Web site activity.
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) directives or “markup.” These form the code used to format Web pages and
allow them to link to each other using hypertext.
Hub - 1. A set of authoritative Web pages that link to each other directly or each link to the main page of
the sites of the other pages. 2. "a trusted page with high quality content that links out to related pages." A
Hub may be boosted in search engine results due to use of the Hilltop algorithm or the HITS algorithm.
Hyperlink - A synonym for
link - short for Hypertext
link.
IFRAME - An inline frame. A frame "page" that has code embedded in the code of of the main page.
Inbound Link (Incoming Link) - a link from an external Web site to a site that is being studied or optimized.
See backlinks.
Intentional Surfer - As opposed to the random surfer, the real or hypothetical intentional surfer doesn't
follow links from a page at random, but according to a pattern based on content preference, authority, place of the link
on the page or some other factors. Supposedly, intentional surfing, which is determined by sampling surfer behavior (for
example, with the Google Toolbar) is a better approximation of the behavior of actual surfers.
Internal Link - A link from one page within a Web site to another page within that site.
Internal PageRank - The
Google PageRank
of internal pages in a Web site.
IP Address - The numerical address of a Web site or other entity based on the international standard that
specifies four fields of 3 digits each. For example 104.292.331.448. The IP address is coded by country and region. A
single IP Address may be used to service multiple Web sites by mapping that address separately to each alphabetic domain
name and resolving the destination according to the domain name.
Jagger Update - Google algorithm update of September - November 2005. See Google Updates.
KEI - Keyword Effectiveness Index - A measure of competitive desirability of keywords.
Keyword - A word or phrase that is entered by visitors in search engine queries. Note that a phrase is treated
more or less as separate words unless it is put in quotes.
Keyword Density - The frequency with which a keyword appears in the body text of a Web page or in another
section of the page.
Keywords metatag - The header metatag that is supposed to contain keywords useful for finding a page in search
engines and useful to search engines in classifying that page. For example
<META name="keywords" content="SEO Glossary, Search Engine Optimization, SEO
definitions, SEO dictionary, Web, Web sites, Internet, Google">.
Landing Page - a Web page that is the destination page of a paid advertising campaign.
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) - Search Engine indexing of commonly
associated groups of words in a document. SEOs refer to these same groups of words as “Long Tail”. The majority of
searches consist of three or more words strung together and are "long tail searches."
Link - 1. Any Web software command that a visitor can activate by clicking, that will cause the display of
another page. 2. For purposes of SEO, any Link that can be followed and tabulated by a search engine for purposes of
indexing the Web site or determining Google pagerank or authority. Advertising links from Google or other advertisers
are generally set up so that search engines ignore them in calculating the authority of a page.
Link Bait - A Web page constructed especially to attract links from other sites.
Link Exchange - 1. Exchange of links between two Web sites. 2. A Web site or program that is devoted
to exchanging links between sites or a directory that allows listing only in return for a reciprocal link.
Link Farm - 1. As used by Google and most people, Link Farm refers to a Web page or Web site that is primarily
a listing of random links for the purpose of increasing search engine visibility of target pages. Search engines
consider these to be spam. A notable exception is made for the eigenstart pages used in the Netherlands. 2. According to
seomoz.org/blog/smwc-and-other-essential-seo-jargon "a group of sites which all link to each other." This sounds like a
Hub. The basis and meaning of this definition is unclear, since it could imply that Wikipedia and other trusted
sites that link to each other are a "link farm." As far as is known, search engines do not penalize such groupings.
Link juice - (or link moxie) - the amount of authority conferred by the page originating the link on
the page that is the target of the link. This is generally dependent on the authority or pagerank of the originating
page and inversely related to the number of links on that page. The link juice of a page is supposedly divided among the
pages to which it links. While this is true insofar as conferring pagerank on another page is concerned, it may not be
as great a factor in determining the positioning of that target page for a keyword. The origin page may have a hundred
links, but only a few of them are links to pages using the specific keyword.
Link partner - Two sites involved in a link exchange. It is
claimed that search engines downgrade the value of such mutual links relative .
Link popularity - A measure of the authority a site or page based upon the number and
authority of pages that link to it ("Backlinks"). Link popularity is a major determinant of authority and Google
Pagerank.
Link spam (Comment spam) Unwanted links such as those "posted" - often by automated scripts -
in user generated content like blog comments or forums.
Link text - see Anchor text.
Local Business Results -
Special
Onebox search engine results for local businesses displayed for some queries.
Localization - Search localization refers to retrieval of different search results depending on the location
of the visitor accessing the search, which is determined from their IP address. The methods used to implement
localization are proprietary. The rankings of different Web pages in different locales may be influenced by the IP
address of the server for the sites, the origin of links to that site or page and local information such as place names
in the text.
Long tail - Search queries that are
less common and not targeted by your Web page. These make up the bulk of search engine queries and often make up the
bulk of your traffic.
LSI - Latent Semantic Indexing.
Mashup A Web page made up mostly of of single purpose software and other small programs or
links to such programs.
META tags - HTML standard code statements within the HEAD section of an HTML page including <Title>
<Description> and <Keyword> which are supposed to furnish information about the page when the page is properly
optimized. The <Title> is generally important for determining the positioning of a page in search results for a keyword.
Google uses the description in the page listing. Both title and description are usually displayed in the search engine
results.
Meta Description tag - (or Description
Meta Tag) A
directive in the head (header) section of the Web page that describes the content of the Web page.
Niche
- An optimum choice of keyword or keywords for a particular subject.
Nofollow tag - A tag in a link that tells the Google spider not to follow a link and therefore not to count it
in the
Google PageRank
of the target page. for example <a rel = "nofollow" href="http://spammer.com">My spam site</a>. The tag was added to
allow Web log owners and forums to frustrate comment spammers who leave comments with links to their Web sites, only for
the purpose of increasing the popularity of the site.
Off Page Optimization - Usually refers to links (backlinks)
from external Web sites. See also
Website SEO design.
On Page Optimization -
Changes in a Web page made in order to improve the
positioning of that page in search engine results. This is distinguished from optimization that is achieved by getting
links to a page or Web site.
Onebox - A concept that attempts to implement
universal search. The idea being that users will be able to get all types of content from one search "box" (data
entry field).
Overoptimization - Optimization of a Web page or Web site to the point where search engine filters may
consider it to be spamming.
Organic Search Engine Optimization - 1. Optimization of a page or site that does not rely on Black Hat SEO. 2.
Optimization of a page or site that doesn't rely on paid links or advertising.
Outgoing Link - a link from a Web site that is being studied or optimized to any other Web site.
Pageview - A Web site statistic that increments every time a visitor has a page open for up to half an hour.
One Pageview usually is equal to many "hits." Pageviews are useful for measuring visits to a particular page, but they
are an inflated statistic because they increment each half hour and because servers seem to record more pageviews than
occur in reality.
PageRank - Google's measure of Authority.
See
Google PageRank.
Pay Per Click - A business model in which advertisers pay a fixed amount for every click on an advertisement,
regardless of whether or not it results in a sale - as opposed to Affiliate
programs, that work on sales commissions.
Position -The order in which a page is displayed by Google or other search
engines in a set of results for a given keyword search.
PPC - Acronym for Pay per click (Web advertisement business model).
Random Surfer - Hypothetical Web visitor who visits links at random from a Web page (random surfing). The
Google PageRank algorithm is based on this model of Web visitor behavior.
Rank - 1. The Google Pagerank of a Web page or Web site - a measure of the Authority of that page or site. 2.
The order in which a page is displayed by Google or other search engines in a set of results for a given keyword search.
Relative
Link- A relative path link as opposed to an
Absolute Link
Relative Path- A path that is relative to the current location
as opposed to an Absolute Path.
Robots.txt - A file used to direct or exclude search engine and other spiders.
RSS - Acronym for Really Simple Syndication and Rich Site Summary. A standard form of
syndication used by Web logs and pages to broadcast content to other sites and to aggregators.
Sandbox - The Google Sandbox is a probationary period for positioning of
pages from new Web sites or subdomains.
Scumware - One of several names for rogue software that can infest websites (also adware, Trojan horses...).
Scrape - To automatically copy content from another site to your site, in order to generate more pages. Google
Quality monitors are generally alert for such duplicate content, which seems to have lost the prominence it once had in
search results.
Search Engine - A software program that allows visitors to search for Web pages by queries using Keywords or
Key phrases. The engine indexes the content of Web pages that are usually found automatically or obtained from other
sources such as directories of other search engines. It may also list submitted sites and Web pages. In essence it is an
automated search directory.
Search Engine Friendly - Refers to path or file names produced by Content Management Systems that look like
meaningful HTML file names rather that dynamic file queries or path names.
Search Engine Marketing - Promoting a Web site through search engines using paid advertisements. Contrary to some
popular beliefs, there is generally no relation between Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Paying
for advertisements will supposedly not improve Web page positioning. .
Search Engine Optimization- Process of
designing or adapting a Web
page or website to obtain maximum visibility and visitors in search engines.
Search Engine Results Page - A page that the search engine displays in response to a visitor query.
SEM - Acronym for Search Engine Marketing
SEO - Acronym for Search Engine Optimization
SERP - Acronym for Search Engine Results Page.
Session - A Web site statistic that increments whenever a visitor or software arrives at the site or has
maintained a connection for over half an hour since the last session.
Shadow Domain - A tool in Black Hat SEO. A Website is set up for search engine spiders rather than humans. The
search engine spider "sees" very favorable content heavy in popular keywords, the content may be repetition of these
keywords and other words that have no significance for humans. Humans never see these "phantom pages," which are cloaked
by redirection, moving the visitor to another page in another domain immediately. "Shadow" may be a trademark of fantomaster.com GmbH (fantomaster.com). This tool can generate self-contained Web sites with large numbers of gibberish
pages that all redirect back to the customer's real domain. Redirection is undetectable by the search engine, because it
is accomplished by a server command rather than by Javascript or redirection code in the html.
Sidebar - The column at the side of a Web page or Web log, used for navigation links, external links and
advertisements.
Sidebar Link - A link placed in a sidebar. These are often repeating links that appear on every page of a Web log
or Web site. Technorati seems to discount these links for its measure of Web log authority and relies on new links in
blog text (less than 6 months old.
Sitemap (or Site Map) - 1. An HTML page or pages that show(s) all important links for a Web site, facilitating "crawling" of the
site by the search engine spider. 2. An XML page in standard format that serves the same purpose, and may be submitted
to Google and other search engines.
SPAM - Any content or action not helpful to visitors or search engines that is created solely in order to improve
the positioning of a Web page in search engines. This may include Link Spam, endless repetition of keywords in a page
and other devices.
Spamdexing - Packing a Web page with an irrelevant keyword to get it indexed for that keyword, or creating a lot
of links with an irrelevant keyword phrase. These are Black Hat or Gray hat SEO techniques.
Spider - A software program that can follow links between Web pages, and in this way get to every Web page that
is linked to any other Web page on the World Wide Web, except those from which it has been excluded, if it follows
exclusion directives. Search engines use
spiders for gathering page content and indexing pages and follow exclusion directives. Spammers use spiders for
gathering email addresses and other information they should not be getting and usually ignore exclusion directives.
Static HTML - Physical files of html code that reside on the Web host server, as opposed to Dynamic pages created
on demand from a database.
Stop Word - A word that may not be counted by search engines in calculating keyword density because it is so
common. For example, "a," "and" "for."
Supplementary listings - pages that are
considered by the search engine to be duplicate content and therefore are filed in a separate database that may or may
not be shown.
Tiny Text - Text in 8 point font (Font size = "1") that is supposedly discounted by search engines because it is
thought to be spam content.
Title - 1. The title tag in the header of the HTML file, that should contain the keyword of the Web page. For
example <TITLE>SEO Glossary</TITLE>.
2. the "title" attribute or tag in link code. For example <A title = "Search
Engine Optimization" href="http://seo.yu-hu.com">SEO</a>,
which makes it possible to display additional information about the link that is useful
in defining the keyword content of the target page.
toolbar PageRank (PR) a value between 0 and 10 assigned by the Google algorithm, supposedly multiplying
the internal Google PageRank by 10. Supposedly the internal PageRank changes more frequently than toolbar PageRank. The
value shown in the Google Toolbar is also the value returned by various tools that get the PageRank from the Google API.
Topic Distillation - A search algorithm based on connectivity and comparable to the Hilltop Search Algorithm
and
Google PageRank.
URL- Universal Resource Locator - the text address of a Web page or Web site. The URL of a site is mapped to an
IP address by the Domain Name Server (DNS).
Vertical Search - A search within a specialized
topic.
Visitor - 1. A person who has come to a Web site. 2. The operational definition of a visitor count for
statistical purposes. Different statistical programs list different numbers of visitors depending on the time
period required before a new visitor is measured, which may range from half an hour to 24 hours, screening of duplicates
and spiders, and other differences in implementation of the counting algorithm.
Web Browser (Browser) - Software that allows viewing of pages in the World Wide Web
Web Spider (Spider or Robot) - a software agent that crawls the Web web by finding new URL addresses at each page and
following them. Spiders can be used by search engines to collect information for display or for various malicious
purposes such as collecting email addresses for spamming.
Website SEO design - Factors in Web design that relate to the link structure of the site and not necessarily
related to
On Page Optimization or so called
Off Page Optimization.
White Hat SEO or White Hat Search Engine Optimization- Optimization of a page or site by legitimate techniques. The opposite of
Black Hat SEO.
Wikipedia - Online encyclopedia built by volunteer editors.
Wordtracker - an online service for determining popularity of different
keywords
Xenu
- A free tool for checking broken links (Download information in the full article)
XML - eXtensible Markup Language - a markup language that allows creation of other markup languages and can be
used to specify formats and to generate pages such as RSS syndication feeds.
Yahoo! - A search engine and directory which has branched out to become the world's
number 1 Web site. .
Zeal - A directory of Web sites edited by humans, that featured ratings of
the Web sites and pages.
Note - Definitions of Search Engine Optimization terms are based on inferences
from common usage and definitions given by other sources. Conclusions about search engine behavior are based on
understanding of the behavior of the most popular search engines. Both are subject to error or may change. Search engine
company management may define or use a term or set or change any policy in any way they see fit, and may make these
definitions and specifications public or not. These decisions and definitions are beyond our control.
Notice: Copyright
All materials are copyright 2008 by Ami Isseroff. All rights reserved. These pages may not be reproduced in any
form in electronic or printed media without express written permission from the author. | 
