SEO Glossary, Search Marketing Glossary, Search Engine Glossary, SEO Terms, Search Marketing Term

200

Status OK - The file request was successful. For example, a page or image was found and loaded properly in a browser.

301

Moved Permanently - The file has been moved permanently to a new location. This is the preferred method of redirecting for most pages or websites.

302

Found - The file has been found, but is temporarily located at another URL.

404

Not Found - The server was unable to locate the URL.

AdSense

Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site, you'll have a way to both monetize and enhance your content pages.

It's also a way for website publishers to provide Google web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages.

AdWords

Google's CPC (Cost Per Click) based text advertising. AdWords takes clickthrough rate into consideration in addition to advertiser’s bid to determine the ads relative position within the paid search results. Google applies such a weighting factor in order to feature those paid search results that more popular and thus presumably more relevant and useful. Google has also started taking into account the quality of the landing page and applying a quality score to the landing pages.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing programs allows merchants to expand their market reach and mindshare by paying independent agents on a cost per action (CPA) basis. Affiliates only get paid if visitors complete an action.

Agent Name

Name of the Crawler/spider that is currently visiting a page. Spider is a robot sent out by search engines to catalogue websites on the Internet. When a spider indexes a particular website, this is known as 'being spidered'.

Algorithm

An algorithm is an operational programming rule that determines how a search engine indexes content and displays the results to its users.

Alexa

Amazon.com owned search service which measures website traffic. "Alexa" is heavily biased toward sites that focus on marketing and Webmaster communities. While not being highly accurate it is free.

AllTheWeb

“AllTheWeb” is a search engine owned by Yahoo and using its database.

Alt Attribute

The ALT attribute is designed to be an alternative text description (provide a text equivalent) for images.

Alt Tags

Alt tags 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. (For those familiar with HTML, "alt" isn't actually a tag by itself but an attribute to the "img" tag.). Note that the value of Alt tags for SEO have been discounted over time by the search engines to the point that now it is of minimal value.

Analytics

Software that allows you to track your page views, user paths, and conversion statistics based upon interpreting your log files or through including a JavaScript tracking code on your site. Examples are Google Analytics, ClickTracks etc.

Anchor Text

Anchor text 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. Also see "Google bombing."

Animated Ad

An ad with movement, often an interactive Java applet or Shockwave or GIF89a file.

ASP

An acronym for Active Server Pages, a Microsoft-invented, proprietary programming language for building dynamic web sites. ASP is also an acronym for Application Service Provider, a hosted service available via the Internet.

Automated Bid Management Software

Software that makes it easier to control your ad spend. Some of the more advanced tools can integrate with your analytics programs and help you focus on conversion, ROI, and earnings elasticity instead of just looking at cost per click.

Automated Submitting

Automated Submitting is using automated software such as WebPosition Gold or an Application Service Provider (ASP) such as Microsoft b-central's Submit-It service to submit your web pages to the search engines.

The search engines frown upon this tactic. Indeed, some search engines such as AltaVista have completely automated submissions by requiring the user to re-key in a one-time use submission code that is displayed on the submission page as a graphic.

Back Links

Back links are inbound links pointing to a web page or links that point to your site from sites other than your own. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's PageRank (PR).

Banned

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

Banner Ad

A graphic image, usually a GIF or JPEG, that can be placed anywhere on a web page, most frequently centered across the top. The tile ad is a smaller counterpart, typically grouped with other tile ads along a side margin. The Interactive Advertising Bureau regulates guidelines and standards for display advertising sizes.

Bid Management Tool

Software or an ASP service used to manage bids on pay-per-click search engines such as Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) and Google AdWords.

Bidding

Bidding means placing a bid price that you are willing to pay as an advertiser on a pay-per-click search engine. The highest bid for a given keyword achieves the top spot in the PPC search results.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is sometimes called spamdexing (the opposite of White Hat SEO). Black Hat SEO can be any optimization tactics that cause a site to rank more highly than its content would otherwise justify or any changes made specifically for search engines that don’t improve the user’s experience of the site. In other words, Black Hat SEO is optimizations that are against search engine guidelines. If you step too far over the mark, your site may be penalized or even removed from the index.

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

Also known as a "weblog". An online diary with entries made on a regular if not daily basis, typically formatted in reverse chronological order. Some blogs are maintained by an anonymous author who uses a nickname or handle instead of his or her real name. Many blogs not only archive and categorize information, but also provide a feed and allow simple user interaction like leaving comments on the posts.

Bookmarking

Most browsers come with the ability to bookmark your favorite pages. Many web-based services have also been created to allow you to bookmark and share your favorite resources. Some search engines may eventually use bookmarks to help aid their search relevancy.

Social bookmarking sites are often called tagging sites. Del.icio.us is the most popular social bookmarking site. Yahoo! MyWeb also allows you to tag results. Google allows you to share feeds and / or tag pages.

Bot

Short for robot. See "spider"

Brand

The emotional response associated with your company and/or products.

A brand is built through controlling customer expectations and the social interactions between customers. Building a brand is what allows you to move away from commodity based pricing and move toward higher margin value based pricing.

Branded Keywords

Keywords or keyword phrases associated with a brand. Typically branded keywords occur late in the buying cycle, and are some of the highest value and highest converting keywords.

Brin, Sergey

Brin is the co-founder of Google and currently holds the position of President of Technology at Google.

Browser

Client used to view the World Wide Web. The most popular browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

Broad Match

Broad Match is a form of "keyword matching" and refers to the matching of a search listing or advertisement to selected keywords in any order. Broad match terms are less targeted than exact or phrase matches.

Bulk Submission Services

An ASP that submits many URLs to the search engines on your behalf. For example: SubmitWolf. Search engines don't like these. (see "automated submitting")

Cache

Copy of a web page stored by a search engine. When you search the web you are not actively searching the whole web, but are searching files in the search engine index.

Some search engines provide links to cached versions of pages in their search results, and allow you to strip some of the formatting from cached copies of pages.

Call To Action

A call to action is copy used in advertising to encourage a person to complete an action as defined by the advertiser.

Call to action words are "doing words" such as "Click here", "Buy Now", "Enter Now" or "Click to download".

Cloaking

Serving different content to search engine spiders than to human visitors. Cloaking is basically a "bait and switch" tactic, where the web server feeds visiting spiders content that are keyword-rich, thus fooling the search engine into placing that page higher in the search results. Yet when the visitor clicks on the link they are given different content, which may be totally unrelated.

Search engines frown upon this practice and some will penalize or ban sites that they catch doing it.

CMS

Content Management System. Tool used to help make it easy to update and add information to a website. Blog software programs are some of the most popular content management systems currently used on the web.

Cold Fusion

A web scripting language with limited capabilities, mostly centered around database access. ColdFusion program files are saved on the web server with a .CFM file extension.
Content Integration

Advertising woven into editorial content or placed in a special context on the page, typically appearing on portals and large destination sites. Also known as web advertorial or sponsored content.

Conversion

The act of converting a web site visitor into a customer or at least taking that visitor a step closer to customer acquisition (such as convincing them to sign up for your e-mail newsletter)

Conversion rate

The rate at which visitors get converted to customers or are moved a step closer to customer acquisition.

Cost Per Action (CPA)

The cost incurred or price paid for a specific action, such as signing up for an email newsletter, entering a contest, registering on the site, completing a survey, downloading trial software, printing a coupon, etc.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

The cost incurred or price paid for a clickthrough to your landing page.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Pricing based on the number of new leads generated.

For example, people who click from an ad and then complete an inquiry form is considered to be a lead. The advertiser would pay based on the number leads received.

Cost Per Order (CPO)

Pricing based on the number of orders received as a result of your ad placement. Also known as cost-per-transaction.

Cost Per Sale (CPS)

Pricing based on the number of sales transactions your ad generates. Since users may visit your site several times before making a purchase, you can use cookies to track their visits from your landing page to the actual online sale. Also known as cost-per-acquisition or pay-per-sale.

Cost Per Thousand (CPM)

The cost incurred or price paid for a thousand impressions.

Counter

A simple program, which tracks the total number of webpage impressions.

Crawler

See "spider".

CSS

Cascading Style Sheet - used to control the design of website.

CTR - Click Through Rate

Click Through Rate is a measure of the number of clicks received from the number of ad impressions delivered. The formula to calculate CTR is:

“number of clicks” / “number of ad impressions” x 100

Custom error page

You can customize the content and the look-and-feel of the default page that is displayed on your web server when a 404 File Not Found error occurs. A good 404 error page has a friendly message explaining that the page they requested doesn't exist at the location.

Creating a custom 404-error page not only helps keep visitors in your site, it is also an important part of the search engine optimization process.

Cutts, Matt

Matt Cutts heads the Search Quality team of Google and specializes in search engine optimization issues. He is well known in the SEO community for enforcing the Google Webmaster Guidelines and cracking down on link spam.

Cutts also advised the public on how to get better website visibility in Google.