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Seo glossary

Seo glossary What is it? What does it mean? We will try to unravel the meaning of most terms used in SEO:

Algorithm – It is a complex formula used by search engines to return the most relevant websites related to the key words to the users during a search. This formula also establishes the importance and rank of a website.

ALT Tags – It is the text behind images or pictures. They appear when the mouse is held over the pictures (if they are included). They are useful for search engines or for the users in case the picture would not load, being replaced by the text in this tag.

Anchor Text – It is the visible text in a hyperlink. Website Design – this is an anchor text to our site’s home page. The html text will read: <a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/”>Anchor Text</a>

Back Links – See IBL

Bot – is a robot or a spider, see crawler.

Black Hat – this is the name given to people using incorrect techniques to artificially raise the rank of a website in search engines. All black hat techniques violate the regulations of search engines and, sooner or later, lead to banning the websites involved from search engine indexes.

Broken link – a link from a site that cannot no longer be accessed, usually returning the error message: 404 not found.

Click Through – it is the action of clicking a link to visit a new website.

Cloaking – it is a “Black Hat” technique where the contents presented to search engines is different from the one presented to visitors.

CPA – cost per action

CPC – cost per click, it is the amount paid by the individual launching the advertisement for each click received on the banner or link to his website.

CTR – Click Trough Ratio, it is the ratio between the number of displays of an advertisement and the number of clicks on that specific advertisement

Crawler – It is a programme created by the owners of search engines (also known as robot or spider), scanning the websites and making copies of every page it encounters.

Description Tag – It is a Meta tag from the Header of each site containing the description of the site. This description can be seen by users in list of sites returned after the search, under the title of each site found.

Doorway page – These are pages created only for search engines. Any user who wants to access this page is immediately redirected towards another website. This is a “Black Hat” technique and it usually leads to permanent exclusion from search engines index.

Duplicate content – sometimes webmasters simply copy pages from other sites or accidentally make copies of pages inside the site, so the same content appears in two different places. Generally, these practices are penalised by search engines because they try to offer a unique content to the users.

EPV – Earnings per visitor

FFA – free for all link pages

Filter words – Words such as: and, as, I, at… are considered irrelevant by the search engines, for indexing reasons.

Googlebot – it is the robot (spider) of the Google search engine and it is used for scanning websites and collecting data to create the search index.

Google Bomb – It can also be called ‘link bomb’ since it is the method to influence the ranking of a Google page on certain specific words. The most famous incidence of this method was when 32 webmasters placed the text ‘miserable failure’ on their sites with a link to George Bush’s autobiography page. These links raised George Bush’s site on the top position in Google when searching by ‘miserable failure’.

Google Sandbox – It is a theory about a filter that Google applies, according to which the new domains are filtered to prevent them from reaching top positions by key words. But it is only a theory.

Hit – it is considered as the single access a user performs to a server when wanting to open a web page

IBL – Inbound Links represent all links on other sites to your site, the same as ‘back link’.

Keyword Density – it is the number of repetitions of a keyword within one page, and it is expressed in the form of a percentage related to all words on that specific page.

Keywords Tag – it is a Meta Tag in the Header of the site. This tag is filled in with all keywords describing that page.

Link Farms – these are websites only existing to operate exchange of links, with the purpose of artificially increasing the popularity of other websites. It is considered as a ‘Black Hat’ technique and it is penalized by the search engines.

Link Popularity – the same as IBL, this popularity increases with the number of sites which make reference to your site.

ODP – Open Directory Project (Dmoz) is the largest web directory on the internet, being updated by over 75,000 volunteers.

Outbound Link – a link on your site, sending the user to another website.

Page Rank – or Popularity Rank (PR) is a formula created by Google to determine the popularity of a website. It uses a 0 to 10 scale. There are various add-ons for Firefox or websites where the PR of a website can be verified.

PPC – Pay per click, it is a promotion method – a link to your site is posted on various other websites on agreement. A certain cost per click (CPC) is paid. Google Adwords is an example of such types of advertising.

Query – the action of writing a keyword in a search engine to find the sites including the desired information.

Robots.txt – it is a file from the website root where various instructions regarding your site can be introduced for the search engines.

SE – Search Engine. :)

SEM – Search Engine Marketing, a series of terms referring to most types of website promotion, including the SEO and PPC campaigns.

SEO Search engine optimization, is the action of setting a web page by using various key words or phrases so that the website can be found on search engines more easily by users. At the moment, the term covers a wider range of activities in the promotion of a website.

SERP – Search Engine Result Page.

Spider – see crawler, a robot used by search engines for scanning the websites.

Stop Word – the words ignored during searches because they are too common to be useful in determining the result of a search. For example: and, as, at, he.

Title Tag – a Meta Tag in the Header of any website. It is the most important of all titles and tags. This title is displayed for all sites returned after a search.

URL – Universal Resource Locator, a site’s address on the internet is unique.

Web Directorya collection of websites grouped by categories. Usually each site is verified by an editor prior to approval. The most well-known web directory is Dmoz, but there are thousands of such websites on the internet.

List of words discussed above:

Algorithm, ALT Tags, Anchor Text, Back links, Bot, Black Hat, Broken Link, Click Through, Cloaking, CPA, CPC, CTR, Crawler, Description Tag, Doorway Page, Duplicate Content, EPV, Filter Words, Googlebot, Google Bomb, Google Sandbox, Hit, IBL, Keyword Density, Keywords Tag, Link Farms, Link Popularity, ODP, Outbound Link, Page Rank, PPC, Query, Robots.txt, SE, SEM, SEO, SERP, Spider, Stop Word, TITLE Tag, URL, Web Directory, Director web.

If you want to know more about other terms in the field which are not featured here, you can post a message here.

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