Search Engine Optimization Glossary of Terms

Search engine optimization has a language all of its own. Below is an A - Z of some of the most common search engine optimization words and phrases.

Algorithm

A complex equation that a search engine uses to rank the sites in its index. This algorithm will be made up of on-page and off-page factors. The search engine companies constantly change and develop this algorithm.

Anchor text

Also called link text. Anchor text is the text that appears in links, and more importantly for search engine optimization, in back links. If you want to rank highly for the keywords 'Gold Watches' you would want your backlinks to include the anchor text of 'Gold Watches'.

The HTML would therefore be :-

<a href="http:/www.yourwebsite"> Gold watches for Sale</a>

Backlinks

Sometimes called incoming links. All links coming into a website.

Banned Site

Web pages ( or even whole sites ) can be removed from a search engines index if they violate the search engine's rules.

Crawler

See Spider.

Cloaking

Where a webmaster designs two versions of the same page. One is designed and optimized for the search engine spiders ( search-engine friendly ) and one is designed for the normal visitor ( human friendly ).

The webmaster creates a script that holds all the IP addresses of the search engine spiders. When one of these spiders visits, the script will 'feed' the search engine friendly page tailored to that particular search engine.

When a normal person visits they will see a completely different 'customer-orientated' page.

Directories

A search engine where the listings are created by humans not automatically by spiders. To be included you usually have to submit your site manually.

Doorway page

Also called 'Pointer', 'Hallway' and information pages. It is where a page is optimized to score highly on certain keywords and is linked to a page on your website. This page doesn't contain any real value it is created just to score highly with search engines and pass the visitor onto the main page.

Index

The database of information ( web pages ) that searchers can put a keyword query against.

Keywords

The words an internet user enters into a search engine's search box. The search engine will then return the most relative ( in its opinion ) results from its index.

Link text

See Anchor text.

Listings

The web pages that appear on a search engine's results page in response to a keyword search.

Meta Tag

HTML code placed in web page but not seen by visitors to the site. Contains information for the spiders and web browsers.

Meta Description Tag

Contains description of web page as shown in a search engines result page.

Meta Keywords Tag

Contains list of keywords relative to the web page. It is now mostly ignored by search engines.

Meta Robots Tag

Tells search engine spiders which pages of a website not to index.

On-page Optimization

Methods of improving search engine rank that are in the HTML document itself. Things such as headings content, image titles, file titles, keyword density etc.

Off-page Optimization

These methods of improving search engine rank are down to quantity and quality of incoming links.

Pagerank

How Google rates the importance of a web page. Each page is ranked from 0 - 10. Although it's not a definitive measure, in general the higher the pagerank the higher it will appear in Google's result page.

Rank

How high on a search engine's results page a web page is listed. If it's ranked 'one' it will be the first to be listed for a certain keyword or keywords.

Reciprocal Link

An exchange of links between two sites.

Results Page

The page of web pages returned after a searcher enters a keyword or keywords into a search engines.

Robot

See 'Spider''

Robot.txt

A file that contains a list of pages that the webmaster doesn't want indexed by a search engine spider.

Search Engine

A tool that allows internet users to search an index of web pages.

Search Engine Optimization

The tailoring of web pages and link strategies to rank web pages high in a search engine's results page for specific keywords.

SEO

Acronym for search engine optimization.

SERPS

Acronym for search engine results page.

Spam

Any search engine optimization method that is considered by the search engine as 'cheating'. Basically anything that is deemed to try and trick the search engine into thinking a page is more important on a subject than it is. This may lead to websites being 'banned' and dropped entirely from its index.

Spider

A search engine tool that trawls the internet finding web pages to place in its index. Also called a 'Crawler' or 'Robot'.