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301 Redirect (permanent
redirect)
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Interpreted by search engine robot that the
current domain is no longer valid. All links to the domain (and pagerank) are
typically assigned to the site which is pointed to by the redirect. Used to amalgamate
pagerank and give a single URL for a company or group of products. This
redirect is implemented on the server (server-side).
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302 Redirect (temporary
redirect)
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Interpreted by search engine robot that both
the target domain and the current domain are temporarily valid. Use for
geolocation to point country specific domains (ccTLDs) as separate listings.
But note this is used for domain hijacking and as a consequence can result in
sites getting penalised. This redirect is implemented on the server (server-side).
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Accessibility
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An approach to site design intended to
accommodate site usage using different browsers and settings particularly
required by the visually impaired.
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‘Alt’ image tags
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Graphical images that form each page can have
‘hidden text’ associated with them that is not seen by the user, but will be
indexed by the search engine. This is required for accessibility compliance
(screen-readers used by the blind and visually impaired, read-out the ‘alt’
tags), but is also used by the search engines to determine relevance.
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Affiliate marketing
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Typically, a commission-based arrangement
where referring sites (publishers) receive a commission on sales or leads by
merchants (retailers). A lead may be based on data captured during an
enquiry, or it could be simply a visitor to the site (a click), in which case
it overlaps with paid-search marketing.
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Backlinks
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Hyperlinks which link to a particular web page
(or website). Also known as inbound-links. Google PageRank and Yahoo! WebRank
are methods of enumerating this. Outbound links are the origination point of
backlinks.
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Black-hat SEO
|
An approach to SEO that pushes the boundaries
of ethical practice. Potentially contravenes the search engine’s terms of
service. High risk, high-reward approach. May gain more visitors if
techniques are more effective than those of companies following an ethical,
white-hat SEO approach. However, may be subject to algorithm changes.
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Blog
|
A commentary on particular topics which is
updated daily, weekly or monthly by an individual or a group of people.
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Brand mis-spellings
|
A user mistypes a brand into the search box or
into the URL address box. Best practice is to ensure the brand is visible.
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Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
|
Web page content (text body copy) is separated
from code used for presentation (layout and formatting), which is stored in a
separate Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file (.css).
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Cloaking
|
Showing a different version from of search
engines to search robots and human visitors according to the user agent of
the site visitor. Generally consider as spamming except when used to improve
index inclusion, e.g. through permitting Session ids.
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Content management system (CMS)
|
Software to manage the addition, review and
modification of web pages on a server. Includes tools for editing and
workflow.
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Deep linking
|
The search engines (or another site) take a
visitor straight through to page within the site rather than the homepage.
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Domain
|
A label indicated by the domain naming system
(DNS) to denote the Internet address (IP address) of a server. Global
Top-level domains (gTLDs) include countries such as .co.uk, .fr, .de as well
as .com etc
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Domain popularity
|
The number of different domains that link to
you. Term not as widely used as link popularity, but useful since indicates
the number of unique domains (many links from the same domain may be counted
together).
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Domain hijacking
|
Potential search visitors are directed
elsewhere. The most common situation is where web domains that have expired
are claimed by another owner and then used for some other purpose. It also
means where the search traffic for a site is hijacked using a 302 redirect.
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Doorway or bridge pages
|
An approach to SEO no longer widely used and
no longer recommended due to search engine penalties. Doorway pages not connected
to the remainder of the site and are optimized for a particular key phrase to
entice site visitors and sometimes a specific search engine. Often used
cloaking and redirected to other content.
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Duplicate content penalty
|
Search engines make an assessment of duplicate
content within a site or on different domains and may penalise for this if
they judge duplication. Alternatively, they may simply give a higher
relevance and ranking to the page with the highest link equity. Limited
duplication such as print and screen versions of content should not cause a
problem. You should check for duplication of your site.
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Generic search phrase
|
A simple keyphrase without any qualifiers such
as ‘car insurance’
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Google Bombing.
|
The practice of denigrating someone or an
organization by creating many pages which link to a site based on a theme
(high link context). The best known is the ‘miserable failure’ example. The
site does not contain this phrase, but contain links into the site with pages
or links referencing this phrase.
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Sites which are added to the index do not peform well in terms of
ranking for a period of several months. Although the existence of this effect
is debated, it is evident in many cases and is clearly intended to prevent
unscrupulous sites gaming the index by frequently creating new sites in order
to game the index.
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Google quality score
|
An assessment of the quality of a Google Adwords ad based on its
historical clickthrough rates and from late 2005, the conversion on the ,
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Google sitemaps
|
A facility to submit an index of a site’s
pages to Google to assist its robots with spidering the site. Also contains
reporting tools.
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Inbound links
|
See backlinks.
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Index
|
A database created by search engine robots which contains information
on the URL of each page crawled, the keyphrases it contains together with
other information which determines weighting in SERPs such as keyword
density, formatting and PageRank.
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Index coverage
|
The number and proportion of all the pages on
a domain which are included within the index of each search engine.
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Index inclusion
|
Ensuring that as many of the relevant pages
from your domain(s) are included within the search engine indexes you are
targeting to be listed in. See search engine submission.
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Information architecture
|
The combination of organisation, labelling,
and navigation schemes comprising an information system.
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IP address
|
The unique numerical address of a computer.
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Keywords
|
The keyphrase or search query which is typed into the search engine.
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Keyword density
|
The proportion of a page taken by a keyword or
keyphrase. Usually expressed as a percentage.
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Keyword stuffing
|
The repeated use of a keyphrase within a page or within a meta keyword
tag. Penalties may be applied for keyword stuffing.
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Keyphrase (keyword phrase)
|
The combination of words users of search
engines type into a search box which form a search query.
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A structured approach to identification of key
phrases used to attract visitors to your site through search marketing
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Keyphrase qualifiers
|
These are added to the generic keyphrase (e.g. car insurance) to
narrow the search, e.g. ‘car insurance
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Keyphrase variants
|
Different forms of a given keyphrase, i.e.
plurals and different word sequence. Careful analysis of these can give
better results.
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Link anchor text
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Link-building
|
A structured activity to include good quality
hyperlinks to your site from relevant sites with a good PageRank and Link
context.
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Link context
|
The relevance of a link for a particular
keyphrase based on different aspects of the page where the link originates. Context
includes link anchor text, keywords adjacent to the link, keyword density and
markup in other tags such as title tag.
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Link equity
|
A page that is rated by the search engine as
having higher relevance based on its link popularity and link content.
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Link farm
|
A network of sites that link to other sites
for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity. Tend to contain links to
totally unrelated sites. Search engines can identify and penalise most forms
of link farms.
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Link popularity
|
An assessment of page quality based on the
number of inbound or backlinks
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Link quality
|
An assessment of the importance of a link in indicating relevance for
a particular keyphrase based on the link context, the PageRank of the page
and the dilution effect of outbound links. Alternatively, an assessment of
the link popularity for a range of backlinks for a page or site.
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Long-tail concept
|
A frequency distribution showing the typical
decline in popularity of items within a sector when a consumer has a choice
in selecting these items. In search, the most common search terms for a site
or market sector have much higher volumes than the less common phrases, which
together are important in generating qualified visitors.
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Mesh structure
|
An approach to SEO where a group of pages link to each other to
distribute PageRank more evenly.
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A meta tag which summarises the content of the
page in a short paragraph
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A meta tag which used to list keywords
relevant to the page.
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Meta-tags
|
Markup which is part of the HTML file, typed
in by web page creators, which are read and displayed by the browser.
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Natural or organic listings
|
The pages listing results from a search engine
query which are displayed in a sequence according to relevance of match
between the keyword phrase typed into a search engine and a web page
according to a ranking algorithm used by the search engine.
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On-page optimisation
|
Devising page content, structure and HTML
markup to prove relevance of a search keyphrase to the search engines.
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Outbound links
|
Links from a page to another page. The
origination point of backlinks or inbound links.
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PageRank
|
Google’s trademarked approach to assess the
value of a web page based on the number of inbound links or backlinks.
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Ranking factors
|
The criteria used by the search engine in their algorithms to
determine how high a website / page is displayed in the natural listings for
a particular phrase.
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Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
|
An XML-based content
distribution format commonly used for accessing blog information and other
feeds of information that are regularly updated. Accessed by different forms
of RSS reader.
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Reciprocal linking
|
Links are exchanged between sites. The effectiveness of this will
depend on the link quality and whether links are direct or not.
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Robots
|
Automated software agents located on a search engine server that
collect page data from different sites by following links between pages and
sites. Robots follow policies which determine how often they visit a site.
Search engine robots collect data about each page which is added into the
search engine index.
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Search engine filters
|
Elements of the algorithm which may penalize pages or sites for search
engine spamming.
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Search engine ranking algorithm
|
The search engine users a complex evaluation of different ranking
factors occurs to assess the order of relevance of results returned on the
SERPs for a given search phrase.
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Search engine index
|
A database containing details of pages crawled by search engine
robots. Includes assessments of keyphrases and information need to determine
ranking factors.
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Search engine marketing (SEM)
|
Promoting an organisation through search engines to meet its
objectives by delivering relevant content in the search listings when they
search and encouraging them to click through to a destination site. The two
key techniques of SEM are Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to improve results
from the natural listings and Paid-search marketing to deliver results from
the sponsored listings within the search engines through Pay Per Click (PPC)
paid-search engine marketing and through Content-network paid-search
marketing (which may be on a PPC basis or on a CPM basis).
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Search Engine
Optimisation/Optimisation (SEO)
|
A structured approach used to increase the
position of a company or its products in search engine natural or organic
results listings for selected keyphrases.
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Search journey
|
The sequence of searches a user will type in
and the different types of sites they will visit from when they start
searching until they find what they are looking for
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Search engine results page
(SERP)
|
The page(s) containing the results after a
user types in a keyphrase into a search engine. SERPS contain both natural or
organic listings and paid or sponsored listings.
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Search engine submission
(registration)
|
A search engine is notified of a URL (usually
the homepage) for indexing either directly or indirectly.
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Session IDs
|
Included as part of the URL as a parameter for
tracking visitors between different pages. May cause difficulty in the robot
indexing the site.
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Strategic keyphrases
|
Important target keyphrases that are targeted
for SEO since they combine high volume and intent to purchase or other
required site outcome, consistent with usage by the site’s target audience.
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Target keyphrases
|
The phrase(s) that a particular page is being
optimized for or that a landing page has Google Adwords or other paid-search
as the destination URL.
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<TITLE> tag
|
Part of the markup in the <HEAD> section
of an HTML document which is used as the hyperlink in the SERPs and appears
at the top of browser window. It is also important since phrases within it
are a major factor in determining the relevance of a page by the search
engine.
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Usability
|
An approach to website design intended to
enable the completion of user tasks and to improve the user experience.
Typically measured by increasing task completion rates and decreasing
completion time (or number of clicks).
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URL (uniform or universal
resource locator)
|
A web address used to locate a web page on a
web server.
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User agent
|
The client application or software service
which initiates a request for a web page. Examples include web browsers and
spiders.
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Viral marketing
|
Online viral marketing involves generating
word-of-mouth – sometimes called ‘word of mouse’ – using e-mail to circulate
links through to a website which includes a viral agent such as a video clip,
game, competition or other content. Traditional word-of-mouth too helps
spread the news about the content.
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Web analytics
|
Techniques used to assess and improve the
contribution of E-marketing to a business including reviewing traffic volume,
referrals, clickstreams, online reach data, customer satisfaction surveys,
leads and sales. Web analytics tools used in SEM include browser-based using
Javascript and image tags and server-based transaction file log
methodologies.
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White-hat SEO
|
An approach to SEO which follows an ethical
approach of what is generally agreed as acceptable best-practice within the
industry. of Black-hat SEO.
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WHOIS record.
|
A record of the geolocation and owner of a
domain. The WHOIS server (www.whois.sc) can be queried manually and is also
queried by search engines to determine the country where a server is
registered.
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