Glossary
Search engine optimization and marketing glossary
With so many definitions and growing, FindMaster is creating your definitive glossary for all search engine optimization (SEO) terms.
A/B Testing
A process which shows the user one web page (A) to compare with another page (B) for the purposes of tracking behavior based on which version the user has seen. Traditionally, the A page is the landing page that is currently in use and the B page is an entirely new page.
Algorithm
A specific set of rules or standards that a search engine uses in order to rank listings in response to a query. Search engines typically protect their algorithms since they are unique formulas that are used to determine relevancy in search engine results.
Bot
Alternative name for a robot.
Backlinks
All the links pointing at a particular web page. Also called inbound links.
Broken Link
A hyperlink that is no longer functioning, or linking to the correct, intended web page. Links can become broken for several reasons, including a deletion or relocation of a web page or a website going offline.
Buying Funnel
The multi-step path or process that a consumer takes in order to purchase a product or service. This is also known as a sales funnel. The funnel can start with completing a lead form or accepting a sales offer and end at a finished contract or a deal transaction.
Cascading Style Sheet
A website language that enables website designers to attach style (fonts, spacing and aural cues) to structure that include HTML and XML applications.
Can be used in search engine optimization to remove design elements from a page's main file. As a result, the file is smaller, and the content aspect of the file makes up a larger percentage of the whole. Often abbreviated as CSS.
Click Through Rate
The number of website visitors to a website divided by the number of potential visitors, expressed as a percentage. Generally calculated in connection to a particular advertisement or keyword. For instance, if 10,352 people view an advertisement, and 268 click on it, the click through rate is 2.59%.
Often abbreviated as CTR.
Content Network
Group of websites that a search engine has partnerships with to display paid search ads. Examples include the Google content network and Yahoo! contextual search.
These paid search ads are displayed based on the content of each specific site.
This is also referred to as a Contextual Network.
Cost Per Acquisition
The cost of a marketing method divided by the number of customers it generated.
Often abbreviated as CPA.
CPA
An abbreviation for either Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Action.
CPC
An abbreviation for Cost Per Click.
CPL
An abbreviation for Cost Per Lead.
CPM
An abbreviation for Cost Per Thousand.
CPS
An abbreviation for Cost Per Sale.
Crawler
Alternative name for a web crawler.
CTR
An abbreviation for Click Through Rate.
Doorway Page
A web page created expressly in hopes of ranking well for a term in a search engine's non-paid listings and which itself does not deliver much information to those viewing
it. Instead, visitors will often see only some enticement on the doorway page leading them to other pages (i.e., "Click Here To Enter), or they may be automatically propelled quickly past the doorway page. With cloaking, they may never see the doorway page at all. Several search engines have guidelines against doorway pages, though they are more commonly allowed in through paid inclusion programs. Also referred to as bridge pages, gateway pages and jump pages, are the other names.
HTTPS
Stands for "Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure."
Title Tag
A HTML tag that defines the text along the top of a web browser. The TITLE tag is also the single most important factor in on page optimization in Google and Yahoo.
SERM – Acronym. Search Engine Results Management or Search Engine Reputation Management.
SEM - Abbreviation for Search Engine Marketing. SEM encompasses SEO and search engine paid advertising options (banners, PPC, etc.)
SEO - Abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine
Any service generally designed to allow users to search the web or a specialized database of information. Web search engines generally have paid listings and organic listings. Organic listings typically come from crawling the web, though often human-powered directory listings are also optionally offered.
Search Engine Marketing
The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities.
Search Engine Optimization
The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this. Also called SEO.
Search Terms
The words or word or key phrase a searcher enters into a search engine's search box. Also used to refer to the terms a search engine marketer hopes a particular page will be found for. Also called keywords, query terms or query.
Shopping Search Engine
Shopping search engines allow shoppers to look for products and prices in a search environment. Premium placement can be purchased on some shopping search indices.
Spam
Any search engine marketing method that a search engine deems to be detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant, quality search results. Some search engines have written guidelines about what they consider to be spamming, but ultimately any activity a particular search engine deems harmful may be considered spam, whether or not there are published guidelines against it. Example of spam include the creation of nonsensical doorway pages designed to please search engine algorithms rather than human visitors or heavy repetition of search terms on a page this means the search terms are used tens or hundreds of times in a row. These are only two of many examples. Determining what is spam is complicated by the fact that different search engines have different standards. A particular search engine may even have different standards of what's allowed, depending on whether content is gathered through organic methods versus paid inclusion. Also referred to as spamdexing.
Submission
The act to submitting a URL for inclusion into a search engine's index. Unless done through paid inclusion, submission generally does not guarantee listing. In addition, submission does not help with rank improvement on crawler-based search engines unless search engine optimization efforts have been taken. Submission can be done manually this is done by filling online form and then submitting it or automated, where a software program or online service may process the forms behind the scenes.
XML Feeds
A form of paid inclusion where a search engine is "fed" information about pages via XML, rather than gathering that information through crawling actual pages. Marketers can pay to have their pages included in a spider based search index either annually per URL or on a CPC basis based on an XML document representing each page on the client site. New media types are being introduced into paid inclusion, including graphics, video, audio, and rich media.
A process which shows the user one web page (A) to compare with another page (B) for the purposes of tracking behavior based on which version the user has seen. Traditionally, the A page is the landing page that is currently in use and the B page is an entirely new page.
Algorithm
A specific set of rules or standards that a search engine uses in order to rank listings in response to a query. Search engines typically protect their algorithms since they are unique formulas that are used to determine relevancy in search engine results.
Bot
Alternative name for a robot.
Backlinks
All the links pointing at a particular web page. Also called inbound links.
Broken Link
A hyperlink that is no longer functioning, or linking to the correct, intended web page. Links can become broken for several reasons, including a deletion or relocation of a web page or a website going offline.
Buying Funnel
The multi-step path or process that a consumer takes in order to purchase a product or service. This is also known as a sales funnel. The funnel can start with completing a lead form or accepting a sales offer and end at a finished contract or a deal transaction.
Cascading Style Sheet
A website language that enables website designers to attach style (fonts, spacing and aural cues) to structure that include HTML and XML applications.
Can be used in search engine optimization to remove design elements from a page's main file. As a result, the file is smaller, and the content aspect of the file makes up a larger percentage of the whole. Often abbreviated as CSS.
Click Through Rate
The number of website visitors to a website divided by the number of potential visitors, expressed as a percentage. Generally calculated in connection to a particular advertisement or keyword. For instance, if 10,352 people view an advertisement, and 268 click on it, the click through rate is 2.59%.
Often abbreviated as CTR.
Content Network
Group of websites that a search engine has partnerships with to display paid search ads. Examples include the Google content network and Yahoo! contextual search.
These paid search ads are displayed based on the content of each specific site.
This is also referred to as a Contextual Network.
Cost Per Acquisition
The cost of a marketing method divided by the number of customers it generated.
Often abbreviated as CPA.
CPA
An abbreviation for either Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Action.
CPC
An abbreviation for Cost Per Click.
CPL
An abbreviation for Cost Per Lead.
CPM
An abbreviation for Cost Per Thousand.
CPS
An abbreviation for Cost Per Sale.
Crawler
Alternative name for a web crawler.
CTR
An abbreviation for Click Through Rate.
Doorway Page
A web page created expressly in hopes of ranking well for a term in a search engine's non-paid listings and which itself does not deliver much information to those viewing
it. Instead, visitors will often see only some enticement on the doorway page leading them to other pages (i.e., "Click Here To Enter), or they may be automatically propelled quickly past the doorway page. With cloaking, they may never see the doorway page at all. Several search engines have guidelines against doorway pages, though they are more commonly allowed in through paid inclusion programs. Also referred to as bridge pages, gateway pages and jump pages, are the other names.
HTTPS
Stands for "Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure."
Title Tag
A HTML tag that defines the text along the top of a web browser. The TITLE tag is also the single most important factor in on page optimization in Google and Yahoo.
SERM – Acronym. Search Engine Results Management or Search Engine Reputation Management.
SEM - Abbreviation for Search Engine Marketing. SEM encompasses SEO and search engine paid advertising options (banners, PPC, etc.)
SEO - Abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine
Any service generally designed to allow users to search the web or a specialized database of information. Web search engines generally have paid listings and organic listings. Organic listings typically come from crawling the web, though often human-powered directory listings are also optionally offered.
Search Engine Marketing
The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities.
Search Engine Optimization
The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this. Also called SEO.
Search Terms
The words or word or key phrase a searcher enters into a search engine's search box. Also used to refer to the terms a search engine marketer hopes a particular page will be found for. Also called keywords, query terms or query.
Shopping Search Engine
Shopping search engines allow shoppers to look for products and prices in a search environment. Premium placement can be purchased on some shopping search indices.
Spam
Any search engine marketing method that a search engine deems to be detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant, quality search results. Some search engines have written guidelines about what they consider to be spamming, but ultimately any activity a particular search engine deems harmful may be considered spam, whether or not there are published guidelines against it. Example of spam include the creation of nonsensical doorway pages designed to please search engine algorithms rather than human visitors or heavy repetition of search terms on a page this means the search terms are used tens or hundreds of times in a row. These are only two of many examples. Determining what is spam is complicated by the fact that different search engines have different standards. A particular search engine may even have different standards of what's allowed, depending on whether content is gathered through organic methods versus paid inclusion. Also referred to as spamdexing.
Submission
The act to submitting a URL for inclusion into a search engine's index. Unless done through paid inclusion, submission generally does not guarantee listing. In addition, submission does not help with rank improvement on crawler-based search engines unless search engine optimization efforts have been taken. Submission can be done manually this is done by filling online form and then submitting it or automated, where a software program or online service may process the forms behind the scenes.
XML Feeds
A form of paid inclusion where a search engine is "fed" information about pages via XML, rather than gathering that information through crawling actual pages. Marketers can pay to have their pages included in a spider based search index either annually per URL or on a CPC basis based on an XML document representing each page on the client site. New media types are being introduced into paid inclusion, including graphics, video, audio, and rich media.