alt Tag: this attribute tag tells the browser to display some text when
it can not show the image. Some of the search engines read the keywords
in these tags to rank a site in their index. They are viewable when your
cursor is placed over the graphic.
Banner: a component of a web page containing an advertisement that
is usually an inch or less tall and spans the width of the web page, but
can be even smaller. The banner contains a link to the advertiser's own
web site. Some web sites contain a Link Exchange banner - a banner exchange
program that many web sites use to advertise each other's work.
bridge page (doorway or entry page): HTML pages designed specifically to
rank highly on search engine results for a particular search engine and
a particular phrase or keyword. Their high rank on search results gets them
found and noticed by large numbers of search engine users. They then redirect
this traffic volume to your main site.
Browser: an application program that interprets HTML and presents
the final web page. Used to surf the web. Examples include: Internet Explorer,
Netscape Navigator and Mosaic.
Flash: Flash is a popular Web animation format developed by Macromedia.
If
you have ever drummed your fingers impatiently while waiting for a
Web page's intro movie to load, or clicked "Skip Intro" as quickly
as
you could find the link, then you have probably experienced Flash.
Unlike human beings, search engine spiders never click "Skip Intro",
because search engine spiders cannot see that link. In fact, search
engines cannot read anything in Flash. Any text, links, or images
appearing within Flash will be invisible to search engines.
Frames: This term has many different uses but by far the most
frequently used is in relation to web pages where the web page being viewed
has a number of independent boxes or frames. A common application of this
is with a search engine where in the left-hand frame you enter the information
you want to be searched & the results of this search are presented
back in the right-hand frame. Frames hurt search engine exposure due to
the complexity of the programming involved. Most major search engines
can index pages in frames. However, they will index each frame as a separate
page, causing bits and pieces of the page to show up separately in the
index.
FTP: Abbreviation of File Transfer Protocol, the protocol used
on the Internet for sending files.
GIF File: The most common type of image file used on the internet.
These files are compressed so they take up the minimum amount of space
& can therefore be downloaded a lot quicker than other graphics files.
GIF files are typically used for: backgrounds, displaying banners, advertisements
and buttons.
Header Tag: The header tags are used for section headings. They
are usually rendered in large, bold letters and placed on its own line.
<H1> is the largest and <H6> is the smallest.
Homepage: The main or opening page of a web site, which is often
referred to as index.html or default.html, if running on a Windows NT
server.
Host: a computer system that is the source of network services;
also the site where you can hold an interactive session. Your hosting
company is the company that houses your web page on their computer so
this is viewable on the internet.
HTML: Short for HyperText Markup Language, the authoring language
used to create documents on the World Wide Web. This is the programming
that web browsers read behind your website. The meta tags that search
engines crawl and index your site with are all written in this programming
language.
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol, the underlying protocol used
by the World Wide Web. HTTP defines how messages are formatted and transmitted,
and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various
commands. For example, when you enter a URL in your browser, this actually
sends an HTTP command to the Web server directing it to fetch and transmit
the requested web page.
Hub: A network term used for any device to which several others
are attached, providing a common point of connection to all other devices
in the network.
Hypertext: underlined text (can also be a different color than
regular text on page, especially if you have clicked on it) that you can
click on to take you to a linked page.
Inside Page(s): all pages within the website except for the homepage.
Internet Marketing: the promotion and advertising of web sites
Javascript: Search engine ranking algorithms weight text most
that appears at the top of a page (and, in some cases, also text that
appears at the
bottom of a page). Large quantities of JavaScript on the top of a page
will push a page's text down to where the algorithms will give it less
weight.
Keyword: it is a one, two or three word combination or phrase
a customer would enter in a search engine to find a product or service
link: A component of a hypertext document which when clicked with a mouse
takes the user to another document or a different section of the current
document. The word "mouse" above in this paragraph - which you
can probably see in mauve or blue is an example of a link.
Listing: the individual web sites that appear for a search engine
or directory query. When a keyword or keyword phrase is typed into a search
engine or directory, the results that are displayed are often referred
to as listings. We aim to place all of our clients at the top of these
listings.
Manual Submissions: going to selected search engines/directories
and filling out online forms to submit to the engine for indexing and
possible inclusion. Automated submissions are not considered ethical SEO
practices and may get you penalized with the search engines.
Maximize: targeting heavily a keyword within the meta support-including
the meta, graphics, alt tags, domain name, hypertext links and text. Utilizing
techniques to rank a page under a specific set of keywords, and to make
a website as search-engine friendly as possible.
Meta or Meta Tags: Hidden programming tags to maximize your website
to the search engines. For the more technically advanced - Describes the
content of the document in which they're written. Meta tags have two possible
attributes: <META HTTP-EQUIV="name" CONTENT="content">
and <META NAME="name" CONTENT="content">. Meta
tags with an HTTP-EQUIV attribute are analogous to HTTP headers that can
control the action of browsers. Meta tags with a NAME attribute are used
primarily by indexing and searching tools. These tools can gather meta
information in order to sort and classify Web pages. One way to help your
document show up more frequently in search engines and directories is
to use the META NAME attribute to set keywords that will pull up your
site when someone does a search for those words. Some search engines rank
websites mostly from meta, others do not consider meta for rankings but
rather as the description which shows if your website ranks.
Meta Support: is the HTML support required for the web designer
to implement into the web page design to maximize the website for the
search engines. This includes meta, graphics, alt tags, domain name, hypertext
links and text in the proper order and placement on a page.
Newsgroups: collection of information and users who get together
to communicate about one particular subject, a good example would be www.dejanews.com.
Off-Line Advertising: traditional means of advertising that are
outside of the internet (i.e. commercials, print ads, stationary, business
cards etc.) We of course recommend all our clients to do off-line marketing.
Opt-in E-mailing: A term popular in newsgroups and e-mail. You
can request to receive e-mails on a certain subject. Some of these lists
get their e-mails by offering the requester a chance to win something;
others just want targeted information sent to them by e-mail.
Position Report: a report we run using software to determine a
page or site's ranking or statistics on the search engines.
Ranking: The position for a particular keyword on a search engine.
For example typing in a search engine for "blue widgets" will
yield a number mostly the top 10 websites that fit this word for relevancy,
being in the first page or top 10 can bring tons of visitors for your
website that found you through a particular keyword.
Search Engine: it is a website connected to the internet that
specializes in listing other websites on their site. This is done through
one or many databases that index other websites following a mathematical
algorithm. This algorithm is different for every search engine; therefore
it is next to impossible to rank #1 for every keyword on every search
engine. Once your site is submitted this alerts the meta crawler or robot
to go and crawl your web page programming. Most will only crawl the homepage
and the links coming from your homepage. It is very important to have
any pages you want indexed linked to the homepage.
Search Engine Optimization: designing, writing, and coding (in
HTML) your entire web site so that there is a good chance that your web
pages will appear at the top of search engine queries for your selected
keywords and key phrases.
Server: a computer (or service) that provides information or service
to other computers on a network. Your server is also the name of a particular
computer out of many from a hosting company that your website is hosted
with.
Site Consultation: This is the review and recommendations given
by a SEM company to make your website easier to navigate for the user
and making it search engine friendly for better rankings.
Strategic Linking: Business networking online to exchange free
or paid listings with other websites with your target audience. We do
this by visiting and contacting their website and sending them an invitation
to visit your website to see if they are interested. Most sites have a
links page to place their various links. These sites have a link to your
website and you will have a link to theirs. Linking increases website
popularity or how many other websites which have a link to yours, which
in turn increases your rankings on most of the search engines. It gets
factored in their mathematical algorithms to yield higher positioning.
Tag: A term used within HTML tags are codes that tell the web browser
exactly how to display information, for example there is a tag to display
text in bold
URL: Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address
of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. A url is a website's
address.
The first part of the address indicates what protocol to use, and the
second part specifies the IP address or the domain name where the resource
is located. For example, the two URLs below point to two different files
at the domain pcwebopedia.com. The first specifies an executable file
that should be fetched using the FTP protocol; the second specifies a
Web page that should be fetched using the HTTP protocol.
Search Engine Marketing Concepts:
Text Embedded in Graphics: Search engines cannot read text that
is inside an image. For example, corporate logos on Web pages usually
are graphics, and the company name inside that logo will be invisible
to search engines. Furthermore,
search engines place considerable weight on the text associated with hyperlinks;
if that text is in the form of a graphical "button", search
engines will not see it.
Dynamic Page Generation: Most search engines will not index pages
that have URLs containing any of the following characters: ?, =, &,
%, +, $. Google's spider currently will include such links in its index,
but it will not follow any
links that those pages contain. Depending upon a site's back-end
software, workarounds for this problem may be available.
Contact us for more SEM terms, definitions
and concepts.
|
