Chapter 3
GLOSSARY
Algorithm
An algorithm is a program used by search engines to determine how a search engine indexes web page content and displays results to its users.
Back link
One-way permanent inbound link pointing to a web page from another web page.
Crawler
see “spider”
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offering detailed visitor statistics. The tool tracks all the usual site activities: visits, page views, pages per visit, bounce rates and average time on site, etc. We find it too Google inspired, although it is free and a good place for the novice to start analysis.
Hits
Hits are a download of a file from a web server. Hits are not the same thing as web page visits. Graphics themselves on a page constitute hits. So if a person accesses a web page with 10 graphics it will register as 11 hits – 1 for the web page and 10 for the graphics.
Hyperlinks
see “links”
Inbound links (IBL)
Inbound links are ones that point to your website from other sites. They are important assets that improve your site’s PageRank (PR).
Internal Links
An internal link is one that points to another page within the same website. They are used to assist visitors navigate from page to page within a site and there importance is often ignored.
Search engines use these links to crawl pages within the website. The way these internal links are structured will influence the way a search engines spider fetch information and index pages.
Key phrase (or keyword phrase)
A key phrase is a search phrase or term made up of keywords used by clients of the search engines to find information.
Keyword
A keyword is a word that a search engine user might use to find relevant web page(s).
Keyword density
Keyword density is the number of times a particular keyword appears on a web page, the more times a given word appears on your web page (within reason) the more weight that word given by a search engine when that word matches a search term.
Link building
Link building involves requesting back links and reciprocal links from other websites to increase market awareness, increase a website’s popularity and and/or PageRank. Considerations for link building can include directory submissions, press release and article syndication, topical profiles on websites, blogs, and social networking.
Links
Links are text or graphics that direct internet users to another website or web page.
Outbound links
Outbound links are ones that direct users to another website.
PageRank (PR)
Google uses a weighted form of assessing a webpage by link popularity, called PageRank™. It is important to note that not all links are equal in value. Back links from popular websites with a high PageRank are better than links from lesser-ranked or popular websites.
PageRank scores range from zero to ten, with ten being the highest.
Reciprocal linking
Reciprocal linking is the practice of trading links between websites. (I will give you a link to your site if you give me one).
Robot
see “spider”
Search engine
Search engines are websites that offer its visitors the ability to search the content of web pages published to the Internet and indexed by the search engine. Search engines periodically crawl the individual pages of websites to fetch and index pages.
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing involves the strategies and tactics used to increase the amount and quality of leads generated by the search engines.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization involves the strategies and tactics used to build web page ranking.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
A search engine results page is a page of search results delivered by a search engine.
SEM
SEM is the acronym for Search Engine Marketing
SEO
SEO is the acronym for “search engine optimization” and/or “search engine optimizer.”
SERP
SERP is the acronym for Search Engine Results Page.
Spider
A spider, also known as a bot, robot, or crawler, is a program used by a search engine to explore websites and to download and store HTML content from websites in a database (its index).
Spiders mainly fetch a copy of visited pages for processing by a search engine. The search engine then indexes those downloaded pages to provide fast and meaningful search results for users.
URL
The term URL is an acronym, which stands for Uniform Resource Locator. URLs can specify the location of a web page, an email address, or a file on an FTP server, etc.
Visibility
A websites visibility refers to how successful webmasters are in achieving good search engine rankings for relevant keyword searches to reach clients.
Web Crawler
A web crawler, also known as a ‘web robot’ or ‘web spider’, it is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner.