Glossary

Anchor text – Anchor text is also known as link text. Anchor text is the visible, clickable text between the HTML anchor and tags. Clicking on anchor text activates a Hyperlink to another web site.

Alt Tag/Alt Text - used to display a short text description of an image when the pointer is hovered over it. Using keywords in ALT tags increases keyword density as seen by robots. Alt text is useful in Search Engine Optimization because it can include keywords that a search engine looks for in response to a query.

Broken link – Also known as Dead link. The target page of the link has been deleted or moved; disliked by search engines, always check any link from your pages is and remains live.

Cloaking - serving one version of a page to a human visitor and a different version to the search engines. cloaking is considered to be Black Hat SEO and the offending URL could be Blacklisted.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC) - Also known as pay-per-click or pay-for-performance, cost-per-click is an advertising revenue system used by search engines and ad networks in which advertising companies pay an agreed amount for each click of their ads.

Doorway Page - Also known as a gateway page or jump page, a doorway page is a URL with minimal content designed to rank highly for a specific keyword and redirect visitors to a homepage or designated Landing Page.

Hidden text (and hidden links) - Used to increase artificially a web page’s keyword density for a given word or phrase. For example, white text on white background, or very very small print. Search engines can detect and may penalize.

Index - An index is a Search Engine’s database. It contains all of the information that a Crawler has identified, particularly copies of World Wide Web pages. When a user performs a Query, the search engine uses its indexed pages and Algorithm set to provide a ranked list of the most relevant pages. In the case of a Directory, the index consists of titles and summaries of registered sites that have been categorized by the directory’s editors.

Landing Page- The landing page is the page on which a visitor “lands” after clicking a search engine listing, email link, Banner Ad, Cost-Per-Click ad, or other ad/link.

Link Baiting - Link baiting is the creation of content that incites users to link to your page from another website. Link baiting is a White Hat SEO technique used to help a site improve its Link Popularity and Page Rank.

Link Farm - A site created solely a for search engine ranking purpose that consists almost entirely of a long list of unrelated links. These types of pages are penalized by almost all search engines.

Link Popularity - Link popularity is the measure of how popular a webpage is by the number of Backlinks it has. Most search engines use link popularity as a factor in their Algorithmic Results.

Outbound Links - Outbound links are all links from a particular webpage that lead to other pages, including pages in the same domain. An excessive number of outbound links can damage a site’s Search Engine Positioning because a Spider may perceive it as a Link Farm.

PageRank (PR) - a score out of ten assigned by Google to each indexed web page. PageRank is not the same thing as Rank.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) - A search engine or directory places your link in their database and charges you a fee every time your URL comes up in a search and is clicked on. The size of the fee is usually determined by bidding on keywords. The two largest PPC schemes are Overture and Google AdWords.

Rank - Also known as position, rank is the place a website occupies relative to the first listing on an Algorithmic Results page in response to a Keyword query. The first page displays Listings in the one through ten positions, the second page eleven through twenty, etc.

Reciprocal link - A reciprocal link exchange is a quid pro quo arrangement or link exchange between two sites. Reciprocal links usually lead to the home page of the associate site.

Robots.txt - Also known as robots exclusion protocol, Robots.txt is a text file stored in a site’s root directory that tells a search engine Crawler which site pages and sub-folders should not be included in the search engine Index. However, there is no guarantee that a Crawler will comply with this request. Robots.txt is an alternative to a Meta Robots Tag or password protection.

Sandbox - Allegedly used by one large search engine as a probation period for new sites. Gaining a high PR is inhibited during this period.

Search engine - Strictly, the programme(s) used to provide internet users with a search facility. Nowadays, the megacorporation that owns same.

SEO - Search engine optimization is the modification of a website for the purpose of improving its natural Rank on Search Engine Results Pages. This is done through a combination of SEO strategies such as directory and search engine Submission, website optimization, content writing and improved Link quality. Please see our SEO services for details.

SEM - Search engine marketing is an inclusive term for all techniques used to market a website via search engines, including Pay-Per-Click advertising and Natural Search Engine Optimization.

SERPS - Search Engine Results Pages.

Spider - Also known as Crawler or Robot, a spider is a search engine program that “crawls” the web, collecting data, following links, making copies of new and updated sites, and storing URLs in the search engine’s Index. This allows search engines to provide faster and more up-to-date listings.

Unique Visitor – Unique visitor is a web traffic measuring term which means the registering of at least one hit on one page of a web site from a unique IP address during a specified report period (typically anywhere from twenty-four hours to a month).

Website Optimization – Also known as search engine optimization, website optimization is the modification of a website for the purpose of improving its natural Rank on Search Engine Results Pages. This is done through a combination of optimization strategies such as directory and search engine Submission, Keyword Marketing and improved Link quality.

White Hat SEO – Also known as natural search engine optimization or organic search engine optimization, white hat SEO is the legitimate use of keyword-focused copy and tags, Crawler-friendly site architecture, Search Engine Submissions and a quality Backlinks network to improve a site’s Position, Page Rank and Click-Through Rate.

XML - XML is an acronym for Extensible Markup Language, a simple and flexible text-based programming language used in conjunction with HTML. XML is useful for data exchange and the creation of customized tags.