A

Anchor text - A hyperlinked text leading the internet users to the website page. It is the actual text that represents the link. According to the internet experts that anchor text is advised to give the user an idea of the website page content. Example: Instead of using Click Here for the "www.neuracom.com" website, one may use the anchor text neuracom.

Address - Please refer to URL.

AdWords - A system in Google to drive PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. It is often seen on the web page as "Ads By Google."

Agent Name - The name of the software (spider or browser) accessing a web page. It is also known as "User-Agent."

Algorithm - A mathematical or systematic formula that comprises the spider or crawler used to rank a site. It is a logical process that decides which website content must be indexed and displayed to the users.

Alt Text - Also known as alternative text, image property that is used as a placeholder when the image is loading or when the web page is unable to display the image.

Authority Site - The site (often ranked first or second in the SERP) that has many inbound links coming to it and very little outbound links. The search engine regarded this site as authoritative in its specific field. Example: if the user is searching for "online encyclopedia", encyclopedia.com and britannica.com would appear in the first two ranks since they are recognized by the search engine as leading experts.

B

Backlink - Also called inbound link, incoming link, inward link, external link and inlink. It is any link that brings one website to another. In gaining higher page rank, the quality and quantity of backlinks are most considered. Google Toolbar is used in measuring it.

Banned - The term called to a site that has been removed from search engine's index. Most of these are spamming sites that as a result, they will not appear in the search engine results page.

Blind Traffic - A low quality, untargeted traffic that is usually generated by spam. Examples are misleading advertising, pop-ups and link farms

Blog - A web log that is an online journal that usually contains opinion of one person. Many blog sites are created and subscribed by millions of internet users today: Wordpress and Blogger are examples.

Body Text - The text that forms the main body of a document, excluding the heading, title or subtitle

Bot - Abbreviation for Robot.

Browser - A software application used to browse the internet (ex. Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape).

C

Click Through - A click on a link that leads the user to another site. It is the ratio of clicks per impressions in a PPC campaign. The ratio is based on the number of times the banner is shown over the number of clicks by internet users: a 5% percent Click Through is equal to 5 clicks in 100 times that the banner is shown.

Click Tracking - A click using scripts to track the number of clicks into and out from a website.

Cloaking - A process used to deliver highly optimized pages to search engines while end users see a different page because of hiding the code and content. Such practice is considered spam by many search engines

Clustering - A way of limiting a website to appear once or twice in the results, done by grouping sites of similar content into one theme

Comment Tag - An HTML tag that is invisible to end-users, but can be picked up by search engines. It is a string of text found between <!-- and --> tags.

Content Network - Please refer to link farm.

Cookie - The information stored on a user's computer by a website. It contains the user ID, user preferences, archive shopping cart information, and the like

Counter - A Program that tracks the number of impressions or visits to a web page or website.

CPA - Abbreviation of Cost Per Action that is paid when a certain action is performed by a user. Such paid actions may include subscribing to a site or e-newsletter, signing in, or joining a contest

CPC - Abbreviation for Cost Per Click. It is the base unit of cost for PPC advertising, determined by a number of Click Through

Crawl - Process by which a search engine indexes web page into its database, or simply a retrieval of web page information

Cross Linking - Multiple sites (usually owned by one person or company) all linking to each other for the purpose of increasing link popularity and page rank.

D

Dead Link - A page that does not exist because the document is deleted or no longer works. This causes ‘404 error’ on page.

Description - A text concisely explains the purpose and content of a page. It is often displayed below the web page title in the search engine results page.

Directory - A website that contains a categorized list of links from the web. Credible directory are human-edited and not ran by crawlers

Doorway Page - Please refer to gateway page.

Dynamic Content - also known as Dynamic Page. It is a webpage that changes its content depending on database information or user settings. Search engines indexes dynamic content (URL ending with .asp, .cf, .cgi or .shtml) in the same way as static content (URL ending with .htm or .html) as long as there is no "?" mark.

Dynamic Page - Please refer to dynamic content.

E

External Link - Please refer to backlink.

Entry Page - Please refer to gateway page.

F

FAQ - Abbreviation for Frequently Asked Question. This provides the website owner the opportunity to know the internet users’ concerns

FFA - Abbreviation for Free For All. It is a site that posts a large list of unrelated links to anyone and everyone. Denotes to a page where a link can be added by anyone. This is commonly known as link farms.

Filter Word - Please refer to stop word.

Flash Page - Please refer to splash page.

Frames - An HTML technique which allows a site to display two or more separate web pages within a single browser screen. Each frame’s content is taken from different web page. Designers avoid them since it causes problems in navigational and ranking aspects.

G

Gateway Page - also known as "jump," "doorway," "bridge" or “entry” page with purpose of enticing an internet user to watch another page. This greatly helps to drive traffic of one’s web page for the page rank increase.

Google - One of the most popular and leading search engine that provides resources to internet users, aside from Yahoo!

Googlebot - The name of the robot from Google that is used to index websites.

H

Headline Tag - denoted by <h> and </h>. The content between the codes is usually used to identify page title, external file loads and meta tags.

Hidden Text - A Text that users cannot normally see in a browser because the text is in the same color with its background. However, it is visible to search engines. Same as cloaking.

HTTP - Abbreviation for HyperText Transfer Protocol. It is a set of rules in exchanging or transferring files (text, graphic, audio, video, etc.) on the internet.

Hub - A site that has many outbound links characterized as a place of assemblage where information comes from one or more directions and is forwarded out in one or more other directions.

Hit - A single access request made to the server for either a text file or a graphic in the context of a searcher. In the context of the search engines, a hit is a number of web pages matching to a query returned by a search engine or directory.

HTML - Abbreviation of HyperText Markup Language. It is the basic web coding of a website to exist in the World Wide Web.

I

Inbound Links - known as the links of in one’s website that direct internet users to other web sites. The hypertext link to a page from another site, bringing traffic to that page. Other terms are backlinks and external links.

Index - used to describe the database that holds all the web pages crawled by the search engine for each website. Indexing includes data collection, analysis and storing for to fast and accurate retrieval.

Inktomi - Back-end search engine acquired by yahoo.

Internet - An interconnected system of networks that can be accessed worldwide, publicly with purpose of data sharing or transmission. Networks use Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP) in communicating.

IP Address - A unique identification number of a computer and/or system on the internet. Destination of a message is based primarily on IP Address.

IP spoofing - The process of hiding the real IP address and spoofing trusted IP Addresses to gain privileges of security exploitation. It is common among website hackers.

J

Javascript - A popular scripting language produced by Netscape embedded into web pages. A URL linked in a javascript code cannot be indexed by a web crawler.

K

Keyword - A word with particular importance to the theme of a site. It is found within a search query. It is the most important ingredient in optimizing a page or website.

Keyword Density- The ratio of the keyword frequency of textual appearance as compared to the total words found on a page. This is used for determining keyword stuffing.

Keyword Stuffing- Practice of adding superfluous keywords. It is an act of unnecessary repetition of keywords or key phrases and body text in the presumption of gaining popularity. This is one of the known spamming techniques

L

Link Popularity- The popularity of one’s website in the eyes of the search engine, based on the quality and quantity of links to and from your website. Link popularity is the basis for page ranking in the SERP.

Log Files- contains all details of any file access such as date, time, IP address, HTTP status, bytes sent, and bytes received. It is generated and maintained by the server.

Link Farm- Interlinked websites to increase link popularity. It is characterized by the presence of uncategorized several links in a web page. See also FFA.

M

Meta Tags- Special tags included at the top of a HTML page. It provides extra information about your webpage.

Mirror Sites- A multiple copies of an original site hosted on a different server and one of the spamming strategies. Search engines ban this kind of sites.

N

Natural Listing- A listing that appears below the sponsored ads produced by algorithm-based (or crawler-based) search engines. Also known as Organic Listing

O

Organic Listing- Please refer to natural listing.

Off Page- Elements that are outside the direct control of the website developer and are influential in determining search engine ranking.

On Page- Influential in determining search engine ranking and within direct control of the website developer

One Way Link- Linking one’s website to the other but is not reciprocated. Illustrated as SITE A to SITE B.

Optimization- Please refer to Search Engine Optimization.

P

Page Popularity- Please refer to link popularity.

Page View- Also known as impressions or visits by an internet user. It measures the number of pages viewed by end users and an important tool for link popularity.

PFI- Abbreviation for Pay For Inclusion. It is use to assure frequent spidering of a site and ensure visibility on the major search engines. Today, its market value is decreasing in the walks of Search Engine Marketing

Portal- An entry website for a large population of users.

Placement- Please refer to ranking.

Popup- An unsolicited window that opens on the top of the viewed window (some times even without clicking on its link).

Positioning – Please refer to ranking.

R

Ranking- The position within search engine results that a web site reaches for a particular search phrase. It is the process by which search engines display websites so that the most relevant websites appear on the top. It is also known as placement or positioning. Also termed as page rank (PR)

Referrer- The URL of the website that a user has previously visited before your site. It also helps in finding which keywords are driving more traffic to your site because it encodes the visitor’s query phrase used in searching a specific page.

Registration- Please refer to Submission Service.

Robot- An automated piece of program that automatically traverses the Web's hypertext structure by retrieving documents. It is often used in search engines and chatrooms. Ex. AltaVista’s Scooter.

Robots.txt- A file stored in the root directory of a website which spiders read to determine which part/s of a website they must crawl for indexing. Thus, pages with this file are restricted for search engine indexing.

ROI- Abbreviation for Return On Investment, expressed in percentage of profit as a result of advertising or marketing.

Reciprocal Link- Occurs when your website links to a site and in turn, that site links back to your website. Illustrated as SITE A à SITE B and then, SITE B à SITE A

S

Search Engine- A database of information retrieved form indexing web pages from all over the web. It is a website that indexes web pages, stores these results, and then returns the results based on user queries.

Search Engine Optimization - The process of modifying a website content, structure and link popularity to maximize the chances of a higher ranking within search engine results. This refers to the process of modifying and marketing a website for higher rankings in search engine results to increase visibility and traffic.

Search Query- A word or phrases that are passed on to a search engine in order to find relative sites or also termed as an act of administering a keyword search in the search bar.

Search Term- Please refer to search query.

SEM- Abbreviation for Search Engine Marketing. It is an internet marketing strategy that includes combination of search engine optimization and paid advertising for improved search engine results

SEO- Abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization.

SERP- Abbreviation for Search Engine Results Page/Positioning. It is the actual result returned to the user based on search query.

Site Map- A linking all pages found on your website in an intelligent and coherent manner. It helps users find information on a site without navigating through various web pages. An internet version of book's table of contents

Site Submission- The actual process by which a site is directly submitted to a search engine for inclusion into their database.

Spamdexing- Please refer to spamming.

Spamming- Refers to unsolicited bulk mail. It is a manipulation technique that violates search engines Terms of Service. It includes link farm, mirror sites, keyword stuffing and more

Spider- A robot sent out by search engines to catalog websites on the internet so that search engines can easily retrieve website information when a searcher type a query

Splash Page- Introduction pages to a website that is usually graphics or flash animations with no textual content, designed to impress a visitor or complement some corporate brand. It is similar in the doorway page but more artistic. Sometimes, it is known as interstitial because it is the bridge between a banner ad and a main advertiser's website.

Spoofing- A kind of tricking a search engine spider.

Stemming- A variation of a root word.

Stop Word- Words that are ignored by search engines when indexing web pages and processing search queries because it does not add relevancy.

Submission Service- services that submit your website to search engines for inclusion to assure appearances in SERP.

T

Title- A title of a page is the string of text found between the <title></title> tags in the header of an HTML document.
Title Tag- used to specify what text appears at the top of a browser window when visiting a web page. Title tag is used by search engines in providing a link to the sites that match the query phrase. It is also important in SERP ranking.

Traffic- Refers to the visitors that visit a website.

U

Unique Visitor- The best measurement of how many people actually visits a website.

URL- Also known as Universal Resource Locator (others define it as Uniform Resource Locator). It is the unique address that identifies a certain website. It often begins with "http://" or "www" (or the presence of both) in an address bar.

Y

Yahoo!- One of the largest and most popular websites on the internet which first officially operated on 1994, before Google exploded. It is a web-based email provider, search engine and etc.