Search Engine Optimization Glossary.

Filed Under (SEO Tips) by admin on 30-09-2009

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Algorithm. A set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the pages contained within its index in response to a particular query. No search engine reveals exactly how its algorithm works, to protect itself both from competitors and from those who wish to spam the search engine.

Back links. These are links to a website from external sources, including other web pages, directories, and advertising.

Banned. When pages are removed from a search engine’s index because the search engine has deemed them to be spamming, or violating one of the search engines other rules.

Click-through rate. How many people clicked on a link, as a percentage of the total number of people that saw the link.

Cloaking. The act of serving content to search engine spiders that is different to what normal visitors would see. Search engines will ban you if they find you doing this.

Contextual links. Contextual links are displayed on web pages when the content on the page indicates to an ad server that the page is a good match for specific keywords or phrases.

Conversion rate. The percentage of visitors to a website who buy something.

Cost per click (CPC). A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their website.

Cost per mille (CPM). A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for the number of times an ad is seen, regardless of how many people actually click through. The mille refers to one thousand viewings of the ad.

Crawler. A component of a search engine that gathers listings by automatically crawling the web, following links to understand how pages are connected.

De-listing. This is when pages are removed from a search engines index, usually because they havent been updated for a long time.

Directories. A type of search engine where listings are gathered by humans, rather than by automated web crawlers.

Doorway page. A web page created in the hope of improving another pages ranking in a search engines listings. Doorway pages dont give much information to the people viewing them.

Graphical inventory. Banners and other ads that appear depending on the keywords a page contains. This includes pop-ups, browser toolbars and rich media.

Index. The collection of information a search engine has that searchers can query.

Landing page. The web page that a visitor reaches after clicking your search engine listing.

Link popularity. A count of how popular a page is based on the number of other pages that link to it.

Link. A link is text that you can click on to go to another website, or another page on the same website.

Listings. The information that appears on a search engine’s results page in response to a search.

Meta-search engine. A search engine that returns listings from two or more other search engines, instead of using its own index.

Meta tags. Tags placed in a web pages code that pass information to search engine crawlers, browser software and some other applications.

Meta description tag. This meta tag allows pages to provide descriptions to search engines.

Meta keywords tag. Allows authors to add text to a page to help with the search engine ranking process.

Meta robots tag. Allows page authors to keep some web pages from being indexed by search engines. Similar to a robots.txt file.

Natural listings. The listings that search engines do not sell. Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine believes it is important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Note that paid inclusion listings are still treated as natural listings by many search engines.

Outbound links. Links on one website that lead to other websites.

Paid inclusion. An advertising program where pages are guaranteed to be spidered and included in a search engine’s index in exchange for payment.

PPC. Pay-per-click means the same as cost per click (CPC).

Paid listings. Listings that search engines sell to advertisers, usually through paid placement or paid inclusion programs.

Pay-for-performance. A term popularized by some search engines as a synonym for pay-per-click. It stresses to advertisers that they are only paying for ads that “perform” in terms of delivering traffic, as opposed to CPM-based ads, where ads cost money even if no-one clicks on them.

Paid placement. An advertising program where listings appear in response to particular search terms, with higher rankings typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers.

Rank. The order in which web pages are listed in search engine results.

Reciprocal link. A link exchange in which two sites link to each other.

Results page. The page that appears after a user enters their search terms.

Robots.txt. A file used to keep web pages from being indexed by search engines.

Search engine. A service designed to allow users to search the web, or another database of information.

Search engine marketing (SEM). Marketing a website using search engines, whether youre improving your ranking in natural listings, purchasing paid listings or some combination of the two.

Search engine optimization (SEO). Altering a website so that it ranks higher in the search engines.

Search terms. The words a searcher enters into a search engine’s search box.

Shopping search. Shopping search engines allow shoppers to search the web for products and their prices.

Spam. Any search engine marketing method that a search engine decides is detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant search results.

Spider. See crawler.

Submission. The act of sending a URL to a search engine, for inclusion in its index.

XML feeds. A process in which information about a page is fed to the index without using a crawler, for example using RSS.

The best advice is to follow a good search engine promotion system. Keep track of when you submit your sites and how soon theyre indexed — checking once a week is sufficient.

Ranking systems can be confusing and there are often complex factors involved, but you do not need to be an expert in the field to achieve top results. Take a chance after all, you have nothing to lose.

Many thanks to Danny Sullivan, Kevin Lee, Ikonya Nginyo, and all the other volunteers who contributed

The Importance of Search Engines

Filed Under (SEO Basics) by admin on 14-09-2009

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It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. When a topic is typed for search, nearly instantly, the search engine will sift through the millions of pages it has indexed about and present you with ones that match your topic. The searched matches are also ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first.

Remember that a prospective customer will probably only look at the first 2-3 listings in the search results. So it does matter where your website appears in the search engine ranking.

Further, they all use one of the top 6-7 search engines and these search engines attract more visitors to websites than anything else. So finally it all depends on which search engines the customers use and how they rank your site.

It is the Keywords that play an important role than any expensive online or offline advertising of your website.

It is found by surveys that a when customers want to find a website for information or to buy a product or service, they find their site in one of the following ways:
The first option is they find their site through a search engine.
Secondly they find their site by clicking on a link from another website or page that relates to the topic in which they are interested.
Occasionally, they find a site by hearing about it from a friend or reading in an article.

Thus its obvious the the most popular way to find a site, by search engine, represents more than 90% of online users. In other words, only 10% of the people looking for a website will use methods other than search engines.

All search engines employ a ranking algorithm and one of the main rules in a ranking algorithm is to check the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Dont forget that algorithms also give weightage to link population (number of web pages linking to your site). When performed by a qualified, experienced search engine optimization consultant, your site for high search engine rankings really does work, unless you have a lot of money and can afford to pay the expert. With better knowledge of search engines and how they work, you can also do it on your own.