Useful Guides Algorithm The complex mathematical formulae that Search Engines use to determine the rank of a particular website for specific keyword. The algorithms evolve constantly to keep ahead of unfair practices and provide more accurate and relevant search results for user queries.
Alt Text The text that is displayed when the mouse cursor is held static on an image. It is primarily used as a place holder in case the image on the web browser is unable to load.
Anchor Text The text/copy written on the web page that works as a link. Example Click here
ASP Active Server Pages Server Side Technology by Microsoft, used to create dynamic pages on the internet. Pages implementing asp end with a .asp or .aspx file extension.
Back Link A link from another page which links to your page. It is also called an inbound link.
Below The Fold Part of the web page that cannot be seen without scrolling
the page.
BLOG Web LOG is a journal kept on the internet. This journal is often updated daily and contains all information that the person maintaining the BLOG (Blogger) wishes to share with the world. Also applies to websites dedicated to a particular topic and being updated with the latest news, views and trends.
BMP (.bmp) Bitmap image A standard image format used primarily on the Windows Platform. The image data is stored without applying any compression.
Broken Link A link that no longer points to an active destination. It is also called a dead link.
Cloaking A web optimisation technique used to serve a different version of the same page to Search Engine spiders and a different version to users. Sometimes separate versions of the page are created for different Search Engine spiders to promote rankings.
Crawlers Programs created by Search Engines that go around the internet collecting information about the websites. The process of visiting a website and recording information is known as indexing. The information collected by these spiders is then used to rank the websites. Crawlers are also known as spiders.
Cross Linking A simple process where two websites provide links to
each other.
CSS Cascading Style Sheet Used in conjunction with HTML to provide formatting information to the web page.
Dead Link See Broken Link
Deep Linking Process of linking pages embedded in the directories of your website from your home page or other pages, to facilitate indexing of the page by the Search Engine spiders.
Description Tag A Meta tag that provides certain Search Engines spiders/ crawlers with a description of the web page. This description is often displayed along the search result for your website.
DHTML Dynamic HTML Programming constructs used in an HTML page using JavaScript, VBScript etc, to make the page more dynamic to user responses.
Directory A directory or a Web Directory is a website that arranges the web pages in categories, much like Yellow Pages, for user searches. Unlike a search engine, it does not crawl the internet gathering information and instead relies on the information you provide it when requesting to be included in the Directory. Inclusion into these directories can be free or paid.
DMOZ Web Directory edited by human editors. Also known as ODP (Open Directory Project). Provides directory results to Google and other search engines. It is considered very important from the Search Engine Optimisation view and it is also the most tedious and difficult to get in.
Domain Name A unique name assigned to an IP Address that identifies an internet website.
Doorway Page Search Engine Friendly web page created and integrated into a website to enhance rankings and promote hits to a website.
Download Time Time taken by a website to download to a web browser. The download time depends on a number of factors including the speed of the internet connection.
Duplicate Content It is a strategy by which varying domains use the same or near same website to serve the user. Also if contents of one page on the internet are same or similar to another, it is considered duplicate content. Duplicate content is considered spamming by Search Engines and therefore should be avoided.
Dynamic Content Content that is generated on the web pages on the fly. Information gathered from databases or other sources depending on user request, when displayed on the web page makes the content dynamic. Pages that are created in Flash or use other animation technique are also sometimes referred to as dynamic.
Exit Page The page of your website on which the user closed your website. Effectively the last page of your website that a particular user saw in his one visit.
FAQs Frequently Asked Questions.
Flash A software package used to create animated and highly dynamic websites. Part of the Macromedia Products range.
FTP File Transfer Protocol This protocol is used to upload and download files to your web space or server. Essentially one needs an FTP User Name or ID, FTP Password and FTP URL to be able to log on to the website server and upload or download files.
Gateway Page Same as Doorway Page.
Google Search Engine, inclusion in which is free.
Google AdWords A Pay Per Click (PPC) program of advertising on Google. The ads appear on the right hand side of the Google Search page on keywords / key phrases that you choose.
Google Dance An informal term created to explain the phenomenon of frequent shifts in rankings while Google updates its database.
Header Tag The tag that defines the Title, Description and other Meta information of the web page.
Hidden Text The text on the webpage that is difficult to see because it is the same colour as the background. This technique is considered spamming and should be avoided.
HTML Hyper Text Markup Language This is the language used to create web pages.
HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol The protocol used to serve web pages to the Web Browser.
Inbound Link A link from another page that links to your page.
Inclusion The process of having your web page included in a Search Engine or Web Directory for searches.
Indexing The process by which a Search Engine spider visits your web page and collects information about it.
.JS An external JavaScript file. One of the methods of implementing JavaScript on to a page is to write an independent file containing all methods and variables and store it as a .js file. This file is then imported into an HTML or other type of web page as and when required.
JPG (JPEG) Joint Photographic Experts Group. A compression technique used for saving images and photographs. This compression method reduced the file size of the images without reducing its quality. Widely used on the World Wide Web.
Keyword A word entered into the search box of a Search Engine or Directory by a user to look for information pertaining to the word on the internet.
Keyword Density A percentage calculated on the basis of the number of times a keyword occurs in your web page copy against the total number of words on your web page.
Keyword Stuffing A technique where too many instances of the keyword are put into a web page without any context or use to make it keyword rich or increase keyword density. This practice is considered spamming and should be avoided at all times.
Keyword Tag A Meta tag that defines the keywords that the web page is targeting. It is considered, in the current day and age, to be of little or of no use. Search engine spiders no longer assign any importance to this tag.
Link farms A process by which independent websites create a complex linking structure to build their Link Popularity. Since websites participating in these link farms create links to each other without any context or genuine reason, they are considered an infringement by most Search Engines and if caught carry a penalty.
Link Popularity Link popularity is defined by the quality and quantity of inbound and outbound links of your web page. By quality we mean the reputations of the websites that link to you, the titles of the pages that link back to you, the text used to link to your website and a few other factors. By quantity we simply mean the number of links on the internet which point to your website.
Linking Strategy The planning process that goes into creating link popularity. Deciding who to form associations with, who to exchange links with and who to buy links from.
Meta Tag A tag created to provide keyword, description and other information to Search Engine spiders and other user agents. This tag is invisible when the page is rendered on the web browser and can be seen by viewing the source of the web page.
Mirror Sites Websites or web pages with the same or similar content as another. They could be used to target near same keywords as the other. As they provide no new and no useful information a Search Engine may penalize a mirror website.
ODP (Open Directory Project) See DMOZ.
Optimisation / Optimization When used in the context of Search Engine Optimisation, it is a series of steps that promote a webpage or website on the internet and strive to achieve higher rankings on the Search Engines.
Outbound Link The opposite of inbound link. An outbound link is a link from your web page to another page.
Paid Inclusion The process of inclusion in a Web Directory or a Search Engine by paying a fee.
PDF Portable Document Format This document format is used extensively on the World Wide Web to read and publish documents as these documents are platform independent. All you need is a PDF reader which can be downloaded free from http://www.adobe.com
Penalty A violation of Terms of Inclusion of a Search Engine or Web Directory can result in a penalty. The penalty is usually a ban on the website by the Search Engine. It effectively means that the banned web page or web site will no longer be included in the searches within the Search Engine for a particular period or until the violation is corrected. The violation can be triggered by any factor like spamming, participating in Link farms, using hidden text etc.
PHP A server side language similar to ASP in functionality. PHP is open source and is generally used to create dynamic web pages for personal websites. Pages implementing PHP end with a .php file extension.
PPC (Pay Per Click) A model of Website inclusion where you pay an agreed amount every time a user clicks to your website through a Search Engine. Usually you buy the position you want to rank at, for a particular keyword or keywords and pay the Search Engine every time it generates a hit to your website.
PR (Google PageRank) A number of link popularity factors combine to produce a rating that Google assigns to your website. This rating is called PageRank and is a score between 0-10. It is an extremely important factor for ranking high in Google.
PSP (Payment Service Provider) - used in ecommerce websites to look after the payment process, such as WorldPay, Protx, High Street Banks, PayPal
Query A search conducted in a Search Engine using a keyword or key phrase.
Ranking The position of a web page in the SERP, plus the number of results displayed prior to it on previous pages.
Reciprocal Link A link to your web page by an associate site. When you create a link to another web page (Page B) from your own page (Page A) and the other website does the same, then a link from Page B to Page A is a reciprocal link.
Reciprocal Linking The process of exchanging links with other websites is called Reciprocal Linking. Since both participating websites get an inbound link, it helps in building link popularity.
Referrer When a user visits your website by clicking a link from another website, the other website is called a referrer. The referrer could be a Search Engine or an associate website that provides links to your web page.
Registration See inclusion.
Robot.txt A file written and stored in the root directory of a website that restricts the Search Engine spiders from indexing certain pages of the website. This file is used to disallow certain spiders from seeing files that you not want them to see. You can also prevent a certain spider to look at any of the web pages through this file.
Search Engine Friendly A web page that conforms to most guidelines laid down by the Search Engines for web page creation and which does not breach any Terms of Inclusion in a Search Engine. A page that is not dynamic, simple in layout and easy in navigation is usually one that is likely to perform better in a search Engine, as it is friendly for a search engine to read.
Search Engines Websites that enables users to search for information on the internet based on the keywords that they provide. Some of these websites gather information from all across the World Wide Web and furnish them to the user in the order of importance and relevance that it assigns each page based on the entered keyword.
SEO Search Engine Optimiser Refers to an individual or an organisation that undertakes the process of Search Engine Optimisation.
SERP Search Engine Results Page This is the page that the user sees after entering a query. Since the page itself does not hold much information prior to a user request, these pages are hard for a Search Engine to index correctly as they never know what the page is about. Search Engines these days are getting more and more adept at deciphering dynamic pages, but still have a long way to go.
Spamming Deliberately using any technique that is in violation of Terms of Inclusion of a Search Engine. The practice when caught can lead to a penalty.
Spiders See crawlers.
Stats See Website Statistics.
Stemming Is a method by which Search Engines associate words with prefixes and suffixes to their word stem to make the search broader. It is especially important to look out for these while participating in a PPC program, since a search for pen can yield results for pencil, pendulum and penicillin and you might not be promoting all of these products.
Stop Word Words that are of generic nature and are ignored by Search Engines in the search. Some of these are a, an, the, with etc.
Submission The process of requesting a web page or a website to be included in a Search Engine or Web Directory.
SWF The format of the file published through Flash or other Macromedia Products. It is usually a piece of animation or dynamic menus integrated into an HTML page. The files end with a .swf file extension.
Targeted Keywords / Key Phrases / Keyword Search Phrases Keywords or key phrases that your web page is trying to rank high in. These keywords are chosen on a number of factors including your target market, industry and competition.
Title Tag The tag that defines the title of the web page. It is probably the most important page element that influences the ranking of a page.
Traffic Term used to describe internet users
Unique Visits Number of individuals who have visited a Web site (or network) at least once in a fixed time frame, typically a 30-day period.
Web Browser A program that request pages from the World Wide Web and renders them on your computer. Internet Explorer is one example.
Web Hosting An arrangement where you allow an agency to host your website for you on their Web Server for a fee.
Web Ring A conglomeration of separately owned websites with similar topics that provide links to one another.
Website statistics A detailed report on the performance of a web page or a website in terms of hits generated, visitors attracted and referrals got, plus many more factors. It is usually provided by the web host of your website.
WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get It is used to describe applications that render the same or very similar output as the display on screen.
XML eXtensible Markup Language - A language that enables developers to create their own Tags.
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