Term Definition

Indicates a permanent server redirect or an address change for a

webpage's htaccess file on apache servers. Generally considered the
optimal manner in which to move web pages while still maintaining page
301 rankings.
A "found" requested resource under a temporarily differerent URL. This
redirect may be altered from time to time, so the client should continuing
302 the Request-URL for future requests.
A "not found" result for a requested URL on the server, generally
404 meaning the page requested does not exist.
A link that includes the full URL rather than just the page name: e.g.
Absolute Link http://www.mysite.com/thispage.html vs just /thispage.html)
Using coding techniques to make a web page or website more easily
used by people with disabilities, such as the blind. Accessiblity is also
often referenced in regards to search engine spider accessibility (see
indexability) - meaning the spiders ability to crawl the pages on your
Accessibility website.
A client-side web application used inside a browser to create a more user-
friendly webpage by increasing page responsiveness without changing
the XML)
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And behavior of the existing page
A formula that determines how a search engine indexes and ranks
Algorithm website pages and content.
Used when coding images to specify an alternative text description for
images that do not render correctly or, with some browsers, as a pop up
Alt tags or alt text when mousing over images.

Clickable text in a website link. Search engines include anchor text as

part of their algorithms. Example <a
href="http://www.sempo.org">Search Marketing Organization</a> - in
anchor text this example "search marketing organization" represents the anchor text.
A site that is trusted with a particular search query. "Authority" is
determined by other trust factors including the quality and quantity of
Authority site incoming links from other websites.
Back links Incoming (aka inbound) links to a page or site from another site.
A webpage that's been penalized by a search engine for shady SEO
tactics. Websites should be careful not to link to--or receive inbound
Bad Neighborhood links from these websites.
Banned A website that has been blocked from search engine results.

Optimization techniques and strategies that are deemed inappropriate

and unfair by the search engines. These mostly include things that will
Black Hat SEO unnaturally cause a boosted search engine ranking.
A list of search engine spammers that are considered banned from the
Blacklist SEO community.
The text content of a webpage that is visible to users. This does not
Body copy include graphics, navigation or hidden source code.
Bot See Robot
The percentage of users who land on a site and leave immediately,
Bounce rate without viewing other pages.
 The navigation above the main content that helps a user see where they
are on the site and the "trail" from which they came, leading back up to
Bread crumbs the front page of the website.

A link that does not take the user to the page originally intended. This
Broken Link may be because the page has been renamed or deleted entirely.
A "black hat" tactic that delivers content to the search engine spider not
Cloak seen by human users.

Code swapping Altering a page's content after it achieves high rank in a search engine.
In a web page's HTML source code, this tag is used to indicate specific
information about a section of code on the page. This may be important
because some search engines will include comment tags for keyword
Comment Tags density purposes (Google does not).
The information on a page. This includes text, images or any other type
Content of medium that conveys information on a page.
The action of a webpage visitor becoming a customer or taking a step(s)
Conversion towards customer acquisition.
A data file that is placed on a visitor's computer by a web server. When
the website is accessed, data can be stored or retreived from the cookie
Cookie file.
The rate that a Pay-Per-Click Company charges advertisers per click-
CPC (Cost Per Click) through to their page.
Crawler See Robot
When two or more websites with the same owner "interlink" the sites to
boost search engine rankings. A penalty by the search engine is
Cross Linking enforced if this is discovered.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) A method of layout used to control the design of a website.
Refers to a "database-driven web site", a website that is connected to a
database and page content that is based, in part on, information taken
Database-driven from that database.
A link to a page one or more levels removed from the home directory.
Deep Linking This is desirable to build Page Rank to a specific page on a website.
(See also link anchor text) A short description about a webpage's
Description content, usually a part of a link describing the page it's linking to.
Describes the content of the webpage it is found on. Used by certain
search engines for keyword density purposes. Some SE's use this in the
description of your page in a search results page. It is recommended that
Meta Description Tag you use targeted keywords.
Human editors that group websites into categories. Directories provide or
Directory edit site descriptions.
A human friendly address or URL of a website. When a URL is entered
in a browser, a dedicated computer known as a Domain Name Server
(DNS) translates the URL into a discrete IP address which is used to find
Domain the actual website.
A special computer used to translate human friendly URLs into computer
Domain Name Servers (DNS) friendlt IP addresses.

A page that is full of keyword-rich copy that doesn't have any useful
Doorway page information to visitors. (Also known as "bridge page" or "gateway page")
Content similar or identical to another website. While a site is not
penalized for this, it will receive little if any Trust from search engines
Duplicate content compared to the preceived original source.
Dynamic Content (dynamic Webpages that are generated from information on a database. Dynamic
pages) pages often include a "?" character in the URL.
Dynamic IP Address IP addresses that change everytime a computer logs onto the internet.
Error page A webpage that states an error message like "File Not Found".
Software that detects spam while a search engine's crawler indexes
Filters pages. Spam content results in a ranking penalty.
Findability The relative ease of finding your website using a search engine.
Developed by MacroMedia Corp., this technology allows web designers
Flash to embed interactive media into their pages.
A method of webpage design where two or more documents are on the
Frames same screen, each with it's own individual frame.

Small applications with special functions (i.e. hit count, IP address

Gizmo (gadget, widget) display, etc) that are used on webpages. These make excellent link bait.

Google The world's number one search engine site with a 50.8% market share.
Google Analytics A free web analytics tool by Google that details visitor statistics.
A secondary database that contains result pages deemed less important
Google Supplemental Index by Google's algorithm or less trusted.
Tool offered by Google Labs. It allows you to monitor search volume for
Google Trends a particular keyword over a period of time.
Google XML Sitemap XML files that list URLs available on a site.
A search bot used by Google. Googlebot grabs documents from the
Googlebot internet to build Google's searchable index.
Keywords that are in the HTML source code. This is invisible to the
human user accessing a webpage. Keywords inside header tags give a
Header Tags rankings boost to the page.
A black hat tactic hiding contextual html text from human users but
Hidden Text visible to search engines to boost keywords and page ranking.
One count of a file being accessed on your website. A hit happens
Hits whenever the server sends an object (i.e. documents, graphics, etc).
The main page of a website. Its main function is to welcome and inform
Homepage visitors to the overall purpose of the site.
The mother language of search engines, and therefore the general
HTML (Hyper Text Markup language of webpages. HTML is used to add formatting and web
Language) functionality.
HTTP (Hypertext Markup Main markup language for webpage creation. It dictates how data is
Language) structured and how a web browser displays the page.
Multiple hyperlinks on the same image in different areas. Clicking on
Image Map different parts of the image will take the user to different pages.
Impression How many times your search ad is served by the search engine.
Links from other sites pointing to yours. These links are important to
Inbound links (IBL) improving page rank on search engine results.
After a search engine has crawled the web, it places the URLs into the
Index database, or index.
A hypertext link that sends the user to another page within the same
Internal Links website.

An Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) is a unique key assigned to

every computer that connects onto the internet. IP Addresses are either
IP Address static (never changing) or dynamic (changes with every connection).
A programming language that runs on the viewer's computer and not off
JavaScript the web server.

A spam page with no real value to a visitor. This page is usually stuffed
Junk pages with keywords in hopes that a visitor will click on one of its Adsense ads.
 A word or phrase that is typed into a search engine to find results with
Keyword (Key Phrase) that word or phrase.
The excessive use of the same keyword on too many web pages within
the same website. This makes it difficult for the search engine to
Keyword cannibalization determine which page is most relevant to a visitor.
The ratio of a particular keyword to the total words on a page. If this ratio
is unnaturally high, then the page may be penalized by the search
Keyword density engine.
Keyword local set The top 1000 webpage results for a given search engine query.
Researching what words or phrases people use to find something and
Keyword research compiling them into a list to use on a webpage or website.
When a webpage or website has an inappropriately high density of
Keyword spam (keyword stuffing) keywords.
"Stuffing" excessive amounts of keywords into a page or HTML where it
detracts from the readability and usability of a page in hopes of ranking
Keyword stuffing higher in a search engine.
When a page or a piece of text is filled with good keywords rather than
Keyword-rich meaningless or irrelevant words.
An HTML meta tag that contains the main keywords on the webpage.
Keywords Meta Tag Some search engines use the meta tag to rank pages.
The page visitors first see when they click on an ad or natural search
Landing Page listing.
A group of associated words that a search engine lists together. SEOs
call this string of words "Long Tail Searches". LSI usually consist of three
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) or more words strung together.

An element, both text and graphical, on a page that, when clicked on,
Link will bring the user to another page of another part of the current page.
Link Anchor Text The words on a page that represents part of the link structure.
Compelling or useful content on a webpage that compels visitors to link
Link bait to it.
Link building Actively building a website's incoming links from other pages.
The value and authority of your webpage/site based on the quality and quantity
Link equity of your inbound links.
Link juice see link equity
Two websites that exchange links to each other's pages. Search engines
Link partner (link exchange, do not rank these types of links highly, because of the nature of the
reciprocal linking) exchange.
Link Popularity The quantity or quality of the links pointing back to a website.
Links that are set up to take advantage of link-based search engines
Link spam such as Google's PageRank.
Longer, specialized search queries that appeal to a smaller number of
long tail searchers.
Meta description The HTML tag that contains information about a webpage.
Meta keywords A HTML tag that lists the keywords relevant to the page.
Meta tag stuffing Overuse of a keyword in the meta tag or using unrelated keywords.
Information about information on a webpage that is in the HTML but not
Meta tags visible to the user.
Mirror Sites An identical website on a different domain.
A module or plug-in that allows users to rewrite requested URLs on
Mod_rewrite Apache web servers.
When hovering the mouse over text or graphics that displays an
Mouseover alternative text.
 Search engine results that are organically ranked and not paid for in any
Natural search results way.
A command in the link that tells search engine spiders not to follow the
Nofollow link to the other page.
Non-framed HTML used for web browsers and search engine spiders
Noframes tag that cannot handle frames on a webpage.
A command in the link or webpage that tells a search engine robot not to
Noindex index page or the link.
When one website that links to another website does not get a link back.
Search engines usually value non-reciprocal links higher than reciprocal
Non reciprocal link links.

Organic link Links that are added to a website only because it adds value to visitors.
Outbound Links Links from your website to outside websites.

Page Views Every time a webpage is viewed by a visitor, it counts as a page view.
A value between 0 and 1 assigned to pages based on their link
Pagerank (PR) popularity, authority, and other factors.
Paying to have a search engine include your website in their search
Paid inclusion results.
Paying a search engine to have your website shown prominently on a
Paid placement search results page.
A trusted authority hub or website that includes and points to useful
Portal information on the web about a particular subject.
An advertisement model where advertisers pay the search engine (like
PPC (Pay Per Click) Google) every time their ad is clicked on.
Query A keyword or phrase entered into a search engine.
The order that pages are displayed on a results page for a given search
Rankings query.
Reciprocal Links Links from from two websites, each linking back to the other.
A piece of code that automatically links a web visitor to another page
Redirect without the user clicking on a link.
Referrer or Referring URL The URL of the page from which a visitor previously came.
The degree to which the content on a given web page matches a user's
search for that particular phrase. Relevancy is mostly used with regards
Relevancy to evaluating search engine ranking criteria.
The manner in which a web browser displays or formats the code on a
Render web page. For example, text inside a <i> tag will appear in italics.
A software program used to "crawl" pages on the web to determine
Robot ranking and indexing. Also referred to as a 'bot.
A file set up to restrict search spider (or 'bot) access to various files and
robots.txt directories.
Run of Site (ROS) An ad or a link that exist on every page of a website.
Websites whose sole purpose is to automatically "scrape" other websites
Scraper sites for content in order to create their own website.
A website that has been designed to be highly optimized for high search
Search Engine Friendly engine rankings.
Search Engine Optimization The process of optimizing a particular web page or website to rank high
(SEO) in the search engines for specific keywords or keyphrases.
Search Engine Results Page The page from a search engine after a visitor makes a keyword or
(SERP) keyphrase search
The employees responsible for creating and adjusting the search engine
Search Quality Engineer algorithms
Search Query or Search Term The keyword or keyphrase submitted to a search engine.
Server The computer that houses (or hosts) websites.
Site map (HTML) A page on a website that lists all the other pages on a website.
A file, usually kept on the root of a server, that tells a search engine how
Site map (XML) the website is structured
Also known as a "search spider." Spiders are another name for a robot
Spiders (or 'bot) that crawls the Internet looking to index content.
A web page that is not using dynamic content or variables either inside
Static page the page itself or through the URL.
A non-graphic, plain HTML link to another website, web page, or content
Text link within the same page.
The amount of time a user spends on a particular web page. There is a
general belief that time on page is used in determining page rank in
Time on page search engines.
A web page that can be found in the first 10 spots of a search
Top-10 Ranking query…thusly found on page one of search results.
Traffic The amount of site visitors a particular website receives.
The number of visitors from a unique IP address who visit a website over
Unique Visitors a given period of time.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) The location address of a web page: e.g. http://www.bing.com
The level of user-friendliness of a given web site. Good site usability is
Usability generally discussed in opposition to optimizing for search engines.
The amount that a particular site shows up in the search engines. The
Visibility greater the presence, the higher the visibility.
Visitor A person who visits a website. Also refered to as a "user."
A theory of web design that encourages more sparce designs and
Web 2.0 increased user activity.
Web Crawler Another name for a "robot, 'bot, or web spider.
Optimization guidelines, techniques, and best practices that are deemed
White hat SEO appropriate and fair by the search engines.