Search Marketing Glossary
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- Algorithm
- A set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the listings contained within its index, in response to a particular query. No search engine reveals exactly how its own algorithm works, to protect itself from competitors and those who wish to spam the search engine.
- Algorithmic Results
- See Organic Listings
- Anchor Text
- Anchor text refers to the visible text for a hyperlink. For example: This is the anchor text
- Banned
- When pages are removed from a search engine's index specifically because the search engine has deemed them to be spamming or violating guidelines.
- Back Link
- Any link on another page that points to the subject page. Also called inbound links or IBLs.
- Bot
- Abbreviation of robot (also called a spider). It refers to software programs that scan the web. Bots vary in purpose from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.
- Cloaking
- In terms of search engine marketing, this is the act of getting a search engine to record content for a URL that is different than what a searcher will ultimately see. It can be done in many technical ways. Several search engines have explicit rules against unapproved cloaking. Those violating these guidelines might find their pages penalized or banned from a search engine's index. As for approved cloaking, this generally only happens with search engines offering a paid inclusion program. Anyone offering cloaking services should be able to demonstrate explicit approval from a search engine about what they intend to do. If not, then they should then have explained the risks inherent to unapproved cloaking.
- Contextual Link Inventory
- To supplement their business models, certain text-link advertising networks have expanded their network distribution to include “contextual inventory”. Most vendors of "search engine traffic" have expanded the definition of Search Engine Marketing to include this contextual inventory. Contextual or content inventory is generated when listings are displayed on pages of Web sites (usually not search engines), where the written content on the page indicates to the ad-server that the page is a good match to specific keywords and phrases. Often this matching method is validated by measuring the number of times a viewer clicks on the displayed ad.
- Conversion
- Conversion refers to site traffic that follows through on the goal of the site (such as buying a product on-line, filling out a contact form, registering for a newsletter, etc.). Webmasters measure conversion to judge the effectiveness (and ROI) of PPC and other advertising campaigns. Effective conversion tracking requires the use of some scripting/cookies to track visitors actions within a website. Log file analysis is not sufficient for this purpose.
- CPC
- Abbreviation of 'cost per click'. It is the base unit of cost for a PPC campaign.
- CPM
- System where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for the number of times their ad is seen by a consumer, regardless of the consumer's subsequent action. Heavily used in print, broadcasting and direct marketing, as well as with online banner ad sales, CPM stands for "cost per thousand," since ad views are often sold in blocks of 1,000. (The ‘M’ in CPM is Latin for thousand.)
- Crawler
- Component of search engine that gather listings by automatically "crawling" the web. A search engine's crawler (also called a spider or robot) follows links to web pages. It makes copies of the web pages found and stores these in the search engine's index.
- CTR
- Abbreviation of click-through rate. The percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who see the link. For example, imagine ten people do a web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three of the ten people all choose one particular link. That link then has a 30 percent click-through rate.
- CTA
- Abbreviation of content targeted ad(vertising). It refers to the placement of relevant PPC ads on content pages for non-search engine websites.
- Directories
- A type of search engine where listings are gathered through human efforts, rather than by automated crawling of the web. In directories, web sites are often reviewed, summarized in about 25 words and placed in a particular category.
- FFA
- Abbreviation of free for all. FFA sites post large lists of unrelated links to anyone and everyone. FFA sites and the links they provide are basically useless. Humans do not use them and search engines minimize their importance in ranking formulas.
- Graphical Search Inventory
- Banners, and other types of advertising units which can be synchronized to search keywords. Includes pop-ups, browser toolbars and rich media.
- IBL
- Abbreviation for inbound link. Any link on another page that points to the subject page. Also called a back link.
- ISP
- Internet service provider (i.e. AOL, BT, NTL, Tiscali, Virgin).
- Index
- The collection of information a search engine has that searchers can query against. With crawler-based search engines, the index is typically copies of all the web pages they have found from crawling the web. With human-powered directories, the index contains the summaries of all web sites that have been categorized.
- Keyword or Keyphrase
- Keywords are words which are used in search engine queries. Keyphrases are multi-word phrases used in search engine queries. SEO involves the process of optimizing web pages for keywords and keyphrases so that they rank highly in the results returned for search queries.
- Keyword Stuffing
- Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of adding superfluous keywords to a web page. The words are added for the 'benefit' of search engines and not human visitors. The words may or may not be visible to human visitors. While not necessarily a violation of search engine terms of service, at least when the words are visible to humans, it detracts from the impact of a page. It looks like spam. It is also possible that search engines may discount the importance of large blocks of text that do not conform to grammatical structures (such as lists of disconnected keywords). There is no valid reason for engaging in this practice.
- Landing Page
- The specific web page that a visitor reaches after clicking on a PPC listing. Online marketers work to improve conversion rates by testing different iterations of landing page creative text, which encompass the entire user experience including navigation, layout, and copy.
- Link Building
- Creating free and fee-based backlinks in order to increase link popularity and PageRank in order to achieve high rankings. Also see reciprocal links.
- Link Farm
- A link farm is a group of separate, highly interlinked websites for the purposes of inflating link popularity (or PR). Engaging in a link farm is a violation of the terms of service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.
- Link Popularity
- A raw count of how "popular" a page is based on the number of backlinks it has. It does not factor in link context or link quality, which are also important elements in how search engines make use of links to impact rankings.
- Link Text
- The text that is contained within a link. For example, search engine is a link that contains the link text "search engine."
- Listings
- The information that appears on a search engine's results page in response to a search.
- Meta Search Engine
- A search engine that gets listings from two or more other search engines, rather than through its own efforts.
- Meta Tags
- Information placed in a web page not intended for users to see but instead which typically passes information to search engine crawlers, browser software and some other applications.
- Meta Description Tag
- Allows page authors to say how they would like their pages described when listed by search engines. Not all search engines use the tag.
- Meta Keywords Tag
- Allows page authors to add text to a page to help with the search engine ranking process. Not all search engines use the tag.
- Meta Robots Tag
- Allows page authors to keep their web pages from being indexed by search engines, especially helpful for those who cannot create robots.txt files. The Robots Exclusion page provides official details.
- Mirror
- In SEO parlance, a mirror is a near identical duplicate website (or page). Mirrors are commonly used in an effort to target different keywords/keyphrases. Using mirrors is a violation of the terms of service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.
- Organic Listings
- Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings). Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine has deemed it editorially important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Paid Inclusion content is also often considered "organic" even though it is paid for. This is because that content appears intermixed with unpaid organic results.
- Outbound Links
- Links on a particular web page leading to other web pages, whether they are within the same web site or other web sites.
- Paid Inclusion
- Program guaranteeing that all pages of a web site are included in Yahoo, leading ISP portals, and 35 other search providers within three days in exchange for payment. However no guarantee of good ranking is given. Website content is refreshed in natural search listings every 48 hours, providing control of what and when search engines display information about web pages. This allows your SEO team to tweak listings for higher conversions. Marketers pay to be included in search engines and directories on a per-URL listing fee plus a fixed cost per click that is currently under £0.50 per click
- Paid Placement
- Advertising program where listings are guaranteed to appear in response to particular search terms, with higher ranking typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers. Paid placement listings can be purchased from a portal or a search network. Search networks are often set up in an auction environment where keywords and phrases are associated with a cost-per-click (CPC) fee. Overture and Google are the largest networks, but MSN and other portals sometimes sell paid placement listings directly as well. Portal sponsorships are also a type of paid placement.
- PFI
- Abbreviation for Pay For Inclusion, see Paid Inclusion.
- Pay-for-Performance
- Term popularized by some search engines as a synonym for pay-per-click, stressing 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 they don't generate a click.
- Portal
- Designation for websites that are either authoritative hubs for a given subject or popular content driven sites (like Yahoo) that people use as their homepage. Most portals offer significant content and offer advertising opportunities for relevant sites.
- Position
- See Rank.
- PPC
- Abbreviation of pay per click. An advertising model where advertisers pay only for the traffic generated by their ads.
- PR
- Abbreviation of PageRank, Google's proprietary measure of link popularity for web pages. Google offers a PR viewer on their toolbar.
- Rank
- How well a particular web page or web site is listed in a search engine results. For example, a web page about apples may be listed in response to a query for "apples." However, "rank" indicates where exactly it was listed -- be it on the first page of results, the second page or perhaps the 200th page. Alternatively, it might also be said to be ranked first among all results, or 12th, or 111th. Overall, saying a page is "listed" only means that it can be found within a search engine in response to a query, not that it necessarily ranks well for that query. Also referred to as position.
- Query
- See Search Terms.
- Reciprocal Link
- A link exchange between two sites. Reciprocal links can often increase Page Rank and provide higher listings in natural search results.
- Registration
- See Submission.
- Results Page
- After a user enters a search query, the page that is displayed is referred to as the results page. Sometimes it may be called SERPs, for "search engine results page."
- Robot
- See Crawler.
- Robots.txt
- Robots.txt is a file on a web server which well-behaved spiders read to determine which parts of a website they may visit.
- ROI
- Stands for return on investment and refers to the percentage of profit or revenue generated from a specific activity. For example, one might measure the ROI of a paid listing campaign by adding up the total amount spent on the campaign (say £200) versus the amount generated from it in revenue (say £1,000). The ROI would then be 500 percent.
- Search Engine
- Any service generally designed to allow users to search the web or a specialized database of information. Web search engines generally have paid listings and organic listings. Organic listings typically come from crawling the web, though often human-powered directory listings are also optionally offered.
- Search Engine Marketing
- Abbreviated to SEM. The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities.
- Search Engine Optimization
- Abbreviated to SEO. The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this.
- SEO Pages
- A web page created expressly in hopes of ranking well for a term in a search engine's non-paid listings and which itself does not deliver much information to those viewing it. Instead, visitors will often see only some enticement on the doorway page leading them to other pages (i.e., "Click Here To Enter), or they may be automatically propelled quickly past the doorway page. With cloaking, they may never see the doorway page at all. Several search engines have guidelines against doorway pages, though they are more commonly allowed in through paid inclusion programs. Also referred to as bridge pages, gateway pages, and jump pages, among other names.
- Search Terms
- The words (or word) a searcher enters into a search engine's search box. Also used to refer to the terms a search engine marketer hopes a particular page will be found for. Also called keywords, query terms or query.
- SERP
- Abbreviation of Search Engine Results Page/Positioning. This refers to the organic (excluding paid listings) search results for a given query.
- SEMPO
- Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, the non-profit search engine marketing industry body formed to increase the awareness – and educate people on the value – of search engine marketing.
- Shopping Search
- Shopping search engines allow shoppers to look for products and prices in a search environment. Premium placement can be purchased on some shopping search indices.
- Spam
- Any search engine marketing method that a search engine deems to be detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant, quality search results. Some search engines have written guidelines about what they consider to be spamming, but ultimately any activity a particular search engine deems harmful may be considered spam, whether or not there are published guidelines against it. Examples of spam include the creation of nonsensical doorway pages designed to please search engine algorithms rather than human visitors or heavy repetition of search terms on a page (i.e. the search terms are used tens or hundreds or times in a row). These are only two of many examples. Determining what is spam is complicated by the fact that different search engines have different standards. A particular search engine may even have different standards of what's allowed, depending on whether content is gathered through organic methods versus paid inclusion. Also referred to as spamdexing.
- Spider
- Also called a bot (or robot). Spiders are software programs that scan the web. They vary in purpose from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.
- Spider Trap
- A spider trap refers to either a continuous loop where spiders are requesting pages and the server is requesting data to render the page, or to an intentional scheme designed to identify (and "ban") spiders that do not respect robots.txt.
- Spyware
- Spyware is a generic/catch-all label that applies to software that:
- Installs itself secretly, dishonestly or without consent
- Does not allow for easy un-installation / removal
- Monitors or tracks users actions without the users awareness or consent
- Alters the behaviour/default options of other programs without the users consent or awareness (aka thiefware)
- Submission
- The act of submitting a URL for non-paid inclusion into a search engine's index. Submission does not generally guarantee a listing. In addition, submission does not help with rank improvement on crawler-based search engines unless search engine optimisation efforts have been taken. Submission can be done manually (fill out an online form and submit) or automatically, where a software program or online service may process the forms behind the scenes.
- Stop Words
- Words – such as the, a, an – that are ignored by search engines when indexing web pages and processing search queries.
- Tags
- Refers to the correct labelling of key areas of web pages such as the web page title, the meta content, alt attributes on images and keyword links, and anchor tags within the page content.
- Tagging
- The process of adding a variety of tags to web pages.