SEO Software Glossary
(A - C)
(D - F)
(G - L)
(M - O)
(P - Q)
(R - Z)
G
definition: Google.
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Gateway Page
definition:
a web page submitted to a search engine (spyder) to give the
relevance-algorithm of that particular spyder the data it needs, in
the format that it needs it, in order to place a site at the proper
level of relevance for the topic(s) in question. (This determination
of topical relevance is called "placement".) A gateway page may
present information to the spyder, but obscure it from a casual
human viewer. The gateway page exists so as to allow a web-site to
present one face to the spyder, and another to human viewers. There
are several reasons why one might want to do this. One, is that the
author may not want to publicly disclose placement tactics. Another
is that the format that may be easiest for a given spyder to
understand, may not be the format that the author wishes to present
to his viewers for aesthetics. Still another may be that the format
that is best for one spyder may differ from that which is best for
another. By using gateway pages, you can present your site to each
spyder in the way which is known or thought to be best for that
particular spyder. Also known as bridge pages, doorway page, entry
pages, portals or portal pages.
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Geo Targeting
definition: the distribution of ads to a particular geographical
area. For example, you can use a place name in your keyword, such as
"London museum" or "Kiev symphony orchestra". Some search engines
allow you to target specific countries " and languages " without
using keyword relevance.
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GG
definition: Google Guy (Google Representative at WebmasterWorld)
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Google
definition: the leading search engine on the internet today with
approximately 80% of all search traffic. When people speak of search
engine optimization (SEO), they're often referring specifically on
ranking with Google.
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Google API
definition: service is software for searching Google. Google does
not approve of people using automated software tools to request
information from their index. However, Google allows their database
of more than 4 billion documents to be searched using their
software. You can make requests to Google's database from Web CEO
through Google APIs. The number of requests via Google APIs is
limited to 1000 per day.
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Google Bombing
definition: a method of getting a large number of backlinks
targeting one keyword phrase in the link text so that a web page
will come up for that keyword. For example: search "miserable
failure" in Google.
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Google Bot
definition: this is the name given to the Google spider that crawls
the web looking for webpages. It can be recognised by the user-agent
string which has Goolgebot in it.
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Google Dance
definition: is the name of Google's updates called so among the
experts. At the beginning of the month, a deep crawl of the Web took
place, then after a couple of weeks the PageRank for the retrieved
pages was calculated, and at the end of the month the index database
was finally updated. Nowadays, Google has switched to an incremental
daily update model (sometimes referred to as everflux) so the
concept of Google dance is quickly becoming historical.
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Google Everflux
definition: an anomoly by which pages can quickly appear and then
disappear in google PageRankings. Usually occurs to newly added
WebPages.
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Google Toolbar
definition: a downloadable toolbar for Internet Explorer that allows
a user to do a Google search without visiting the Google website.
The toolbar also displays the Google PageRank (PR) of the page
currently displayed in the browser. The latest version also includes
a very good popup-blocker. The Google Toolbar is a must have for
every serious webmaster. The Google Toolbar can be downloaded here:
http://toolbar.google.com
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Google.com
definition: the leading search engine on the internet today with
approximately 80% of all search traffic. When people speak of search
engine optimization (SEO), they're often referring specifically to
Google.
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Googlebot
definition: the crawler that Google uses on a daily basis to find
and index new web pages.
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GOOGOL
definition: 1 followed by 100 zeros
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HB
definition: HotBot
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HEAD Area
definition: every HTML document should have a HEAD tag at the
beginning of its code. The information contained inside the head tag
(<HEAD>...</HEAD>) describes the document. It does not show up on
the page displayed by the browser. The Title tag and Meta tags are
found inside the Head tag.
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Heading
definition: many search engines give extra weight and importance to
the text found inside HTML heading sections. It is generally
considered good advice to use headings when designing web pages and
to place keywords inside headings.
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Headings H1-H6
definition: Syntax: <H1>Keyword in the Heading</H1>, < H3>Keyword in
the Heading</H3>, etc. There are standard rules for the structure of
HTML pages. They are in a document-like fashion: first the title,
then a major heading that usually describes the main purpose of the
section. Subheadings highlight the key points of each subsection.
Many search engines rank the words found in headings higher than the
words found in the text of the document. Some search engines also
evaluate information about keywords found in all headings together.
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Hidden Links
definition: unethical search engine optimizers may place links on a
site and then hide them by making them the same color as the
back-ground, or hiding them behind a CSS div.
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Hidden Text
definition: much like hidden links, hidden text is the art of hiding
text on the webpage to influence search engine rankings. They can be
hidden by making the text the same color as the webpage or using a
CSS div and hiding the text in there.
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Hit
definition: a single request from a browser for a single item from a
Web server. This can be any file -- image, download, animation,
audio, video, PDF, Word, Excel, RTF document, etc. To load a single
Web page consisting of a html file, eight graphics, one CSS file and
two external JavaScripts, the server will get twelve hits. In log
file analyzers, 'Hits' are often used as a measure of server
activity. Hits the term hits is commonly misused. Many people think
of a hit as a visit to one of their web pages. This is incorrect. A
hit takes place every time a file is accessed on your website. For
example, let's say your friend's home page has a logo gif and 12
pictures on it. Every time a visitor loads that page, 14 hits are
recorded: 1 for the logo gif, 12 for the pictures, and one for the
page itself. So don't be all that impressed if he boasts that his
site receives 1000 hits a day. In our example, those 1000 hits could
have been generated by as few as 72 visitors to the site. The only
meaningful way to evaluate the traffic flow of a site is to consider
the average daily or monthly number of unique visitors and page
views a site receives.
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Hits
definition: as a type of data are most commonly used by Network
Administrators to determine the load on a single Web server within a
server farm. In terms of Web analytics and marketing, this data is a
great deal useless.
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Home Page
definition: = Homepage several meanings. Originally, the web page
that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common
meaning refers to the main web page for a business, organization,
person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages,
e.g. "Check out so-and-so's new Home Page".
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Host Ping
definition: this service checks your server's IP address for
accessibility. The monitoring center sends an ICMP packet to your
server's echo port and listens for a response. When the echoed
packet is received from the host server, it is compared with the
original packet sent. If the data matches, the host server is
considered accessible.
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HTM
definition: Three letter file extension for Hypertext Markup
Language (file.htm)
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HTML
definition: Hypertext Markup Language (file.html)
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HTML Table
definition: HTML table model allows authors to arrange data - text,
preformatted text, images, links, forms, form fields, other tables,
etc. - into rows and columns of cells. Nowadays, especially in the
context of Web 2.0, the use of tables for page layout is widely
discouraged by expert Web designers since it makes the source code
less readable and slowly rendering in Web browsers and the page
content harder to update. By their nature, tables are meant for
laying out tabular data, such as lists and matrices. For cleaner
page layout, CSS is used nowadays, which also makes pages an easier
nutrition for Web crawlers.
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HTTP
definition: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
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HTTPS
definition: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
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Human-Edited Directory
definition: is created and maintained by editors who add links based
on the policies particular to that directory.
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Hyperlink
definition: a blue, underlined word or phrase that, when clicked
upon, takes users to another Web page, or section within a Web page.
Hyperlinks are also known as call-to-action links.
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Hyperlink
definition: Clickable content on a web page usually leads to another
page, another site or another part of the same page. The clickable
content therefore is said to link to the other page / site / part of
the same page. Spiders use links to crawl from one page to the next
as they index web sites.
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IBL
definition: abbreviation for In Bound Link. Any link on another page
that points to the subject page. Also called a back link.
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Image Map
definition: a set of hyperlinks attached to areas of an image. This
may be defined within a web page, or as an external file. If the
image map is defined as an external file, search engines may have
problems indexing your other pages, unless you duplicate the links
as conventional text hyperlinks. If the image map is included within
the web page, the search engines should have no problem following
the links, although it's good practice to provide text links too, to
aid the visually impaired and those accessing the web with graphics
switched off or using text only browsers.
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Impression
definition: an ad served to a user's browser. Number of impressions
determines the cost of online ads in CPM pricing models. Also known
as an exposure.
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Inbound and Outbound Links
definition: there are two types of links on a page: inbound (links
on other sites to yours) and outbound links (links on your Web page
to other sites). "Backward links" is another term for inbound links
that came into general use through the Google's "Backward links"
option in the "Page Info" menu of the Google toolbar. Inbound links
increase your site's link popularity, while the outbound links on
your site increase the popularity of the destination page. Experts
recommend having many inbound and few outbound links.
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Index
definition: a websites home page, this is the front cover to the
website. You must get your sites over all theme and content across
on this page, this is for both the user and the search engine.
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Indexability
definition: otherwise known as spiderability. Indexability refers to
if a site can be indexed - or recorded - by a search engine spider.
If a site is not indexable, or if a site has reduced indexability,
positioning will suffer.
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Indexing
definition: the process by which search engines collect information
and include it into their database of search results. The process
involves extracting the machine-readable text from web pages, and
storing it in a format that can be efficiently searched. Indexing is
carried out by search engine spiders.
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Indices
definition: are search engines that automatically crawl the Internet
for web page and news group content. Due to the automated nature of
indices they can contain a huge amount of information that is
regularly updated every time the search engine spiders new content.
The major search engine indices include Google, Yahoo and Teoma.
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Information Retrieval
definition: the study of systems for indexing, searching, and
recalling data, particularly text or other unstructured forms.
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INK
definition: Inktomi
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Insertion order
definition: I/O a contract that specifies the details of your search
advertising campaign, including placement options, keywords, ad
creative, landing page, pricing, geo-targeting, and language
options.
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Interactive Advertising
definition: the use of interactive media to promote and/or influence
the buying decisions of the consumer in an online and offline
environment. Interactive advertising can utilise media such as the
Internet, interactive television, mobile devices (WAP and SMS), as
well as kiosk-based terminals.
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Internal and External Pages
definition: Internal pages are on the Web site that you have
scanned. If a page is found in any other domain, this page is
considered an external page.
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Internet Marketing
definition: means the use of the Internet to advertise and sell
goods and services. Internet Marketing includes pay per click
advertising, banner ads, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing,
interactive advertising, search engine marketing, (including search
engine optimization), blog marketing, article marketing, and
blogging.
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Interstitial Ad
definition: an ad page that appears for a short period of time
before the user-requested page is displayed. Also known as a
transition ad, splash page, or Flash page.
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Inventory
definition: advertising space available for purchase on a website.
Based on projections, inventory may be specified as number of
impressions or as a share of voice. Also known as ad avail.
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IP
definition: Internet Protocol
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IP Address
definition: a unique numerical Internet Protocol Address that is
assigned to every computer that connects to the internet. IP
addresses can be either static or dynamic (changes with every
internet connection). Your computer's IP address is what enables it
to be "found" on the internet in order to receive email, web pages,
etc.
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IP Delivery
definition: similar to agent name delivery, this technique presents
different content depending on the IP address of the client. It is
very difficult to view pages hidden using this technique, because
the real page is only visible if your IP address is the same as (for
example) a search engine's spider.
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JS
definition: Javascript (file.js)
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JavaScript
definition: JavaScript is the name of Netscape Communications
Corporation's and now the Mozilla Foundation's implementation of the
ECMAScript standard, a scripting language based on the concept of
prototype-based programming. The language is best known for its use
in websites (as client-side JavaScript), but is also used to enable
scripting access to objects embedded in other applications.
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Jump Page Ad
definition: a microsite reached by clicking a button or banner. The
jump page itself can list several topics, which can link to your
site.
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KEI
definition: Measuring and comparing the demand for your keyword
(Daily World Searches) against the number of Web pages that include
it (Competition) is a helpful approach to pick up the best keywords.
The resulting ratio, KEI or "Keyword Effectiveness Index" will give
an idea of how important a specific keyword is. The formula for KEI
is KEI = (DS^2/C) = (DS/C * DS), where DS is the number of daily
world searches and C is the competition. The KEI range goes from 0
to over 400: 0-10 = Poor keyword; 10-100 = Good Keyword; 100-400+ =
Excellent Keyword. Keywords with the highest KEI combine popularity
and less competition. It means that it is more likely that you will
get a high ranking, if you use these keywords for optimizations.
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Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
definition: helps an online business define and measure progress
toward its goals. KPIs are quantifiable measurements of the
improvement in performing an activity that is critical to the
success of any online business.
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Key Phrase
definition: is a group of keywords which appear in the content of a
site page. In order for a search engine to return a page in it list
of results, it is vital that the targeted search terms appear as key
phrases in the web site copy with the appropriate weighting so that
its algorithm will find the page a suitable match. A good SEO will
have experience in ensuring the copy of the page is optimised for
the targeted search terms while still providing useful and
informative copy for the user. "Key phrase" is often (incorrectly)
used interchangeably with "search term".
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Key Phrase Search
definition: a search for documents containing an exact sentence or
phrase specified by a user in a search engine text box.
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Keyword
definition: a specific word, or combination of words, entered into a
search engine that results in a list of pages related to the
keyword. A keyword is the content of a search engine query.
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Keyword Density
definition: This is the ratio of the keyword frequency as compared
to the total words found on a page. Online tools can be used to
compare keyword densities for multiple pages. With this knowledge,
one can build up a page with a similar density as other high ranking
pages.
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Keyword Domain Name
definition: the use of keywords as part of the URL to a website.
Positioning is improved on some search engines when keywords are
reinforced in the URL.
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Keyword Frequency
definition: Denotes how often a keyword appears in a page or in an
area of a page. In general, higher the number of times a
keywordappearsin a page, higher its search engine ranking. However,
repeating a keyword too often in a page can lead to that page being
penalized for spamming.
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Keyword Monitoring
definition: when keyword monitoring is wanted, the monitoring center
will download your page (200 Kb max.) using a GET/page-name.html
command. Web CEO will then search it for specified keywords and
alert you if the content of this page has changed. For instance, if
it suffers a hacker attack or something else happens, you will be
told.
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Keyword Nesting
definition: placing one keyword or keyword phrase inside a broader
keyword term.
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Keyword Phrase
definition: two or more word term that defines a keyword in more
detail. Used by searchers to find a product.
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Keyword Prominence
definition: Denotes how close to the start of an area of a page that
a keyword appears. In general, having the keyword closer to the
start of an area will lead to an improvement in the search engine
ranking of a page.
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Keyword Purchasing
definition: the buying of search keywords from search engines,
usually to control banner ad placement. All the major search engines
(except EuroSeek and GoTo) insist that keyword purchasing is only
used for banner ad placement, and doesn't influence search results.
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Keyword Research
definition: the process in SEO of finding the keywords or keyword
phrases customers use to find a product or service.
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Keyword Search
definition: A search for documents containing one or more words
specified by a user in a search engine text box.
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Keyword Spamming
definition: the process of repeating keywords or key phrases in meta
tags and body text. This can result in keyword densities over 50%,
and is seen as spam by most search engines.
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Keyword Stuffing
definition: 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 (ie. lists of disconnected keywords).
There is no valid reason for engaging in this practice.
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Keyword Theme
definition: is a group of keywords or key phrases which appear in
the content of a site page. In order for a search engine to return a
page in its list of results, it is vital that the targeted search
terms appear as key phrases in the website copy with the appropriate
weighting so that its algorithm will find the page a suitable match.
A good SEO will have experience in ensuring the copy of the page is
optimized for the targeted search terms while still providing useful
and informative copy for the user.
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Keyword Weight
definition: Denotes the number of times a keyword appears in a page
as a percentage of all the other words in the page. In general,
higher the weight of a particular keyword in a page, higher will be
the search engine ranking of the page for that keyword. However,
repeating a keyword too often in order to increase its weight can
cause the page to be penalized by the search engines.
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Keywords
definition: are words or phrases that search engine users enter into
the query boxes, when they look for relevant Web pages. If your Web
page has apt keywords, it has every chance to of attracting
qualified traffic to your site. The Keyword may be a single word or
phrase. The term 'Keyphrase' is often used to define a combination
consisting of two or more keywords. As far as Web CEO is concerned,
keywords and keyphrases are no different. Major search engines rank
pages based on keywords placement within different Web page areas,
such as an HTML title, texts in the Body, anchor names and various
other tags. This makes keyword placement an essential part of Web
site optimization for search engines. Keyword optimization focuses
on placing the best possible keywords in the areas of a Web page
that are considered most important by search engines. Good keywords
are ones that are often searched for by search engine users and have
little competition.
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Keywords Meta Tag
definition: An HTML meta tag that lists all of the main keywords and
key phrases that are contained on that web page. Some search engines
use the keyword meta tag to help rank web pages in their databases.
Google does not.
Example:
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="small business,
business,advertising,sales">
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Landing Page
definition: (sometimes called a jump page or splash page) an active
Web page where Internet users will "land" when they click your
online ad. Your landing page doesn"t need to be your home page. In
fact, ROI usually improves if your landing page directly relates to
your ad and immediately presents a conversion opportunity whether
that means signing up for a newsletter, downloading a software demo,
or buying a product. Also known as a destination URL or clickthrough
URL. Landing pages are pages that users would click through to from
a PPC campaign or XML feed. For best results, these pages are highly
targeted for the reader and specific to the PPC ad or feed
description (for instance, if a PPC ad advertises a coat sale,
sending prospects to the company home page would invoke frustrations
and decrease conversions). Rewriting landing pages is one of the
easiest ways companies can increase their conversion rates.
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Lead
definition: A typical most wanted response, mostly referring to a
potential customer's contact details. Many companies don't sell
online but rather use their sites to generate leads that are then
followed up. Many affiliate programs also reward affiliates on a
per-lead basis rather than a per-sale basis.
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Link
definition: can be text or image that connects to web pages
together. There are many terms for links, inbound links, backlinks,
external links, internal links.
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Link Anchor Text
definition: the "clickable" part of the link structure. Using
keywords in the link anchor text of your inbound links will help
your search engine rankings for those keywords. Example: <a href="http://www.mysite.com">This
is the link anchor text for this link</a>
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Link Exchange
definition: internet marketing campaign is the process of exchanging
hyperlinks with a quality site that is somehow related to a
company's product or service. For instance, a public relations
agency may link to a search engine positioning firm's article on "PR
and SEO marketing." The SEO may then include a link on their site
listing the public relations company. Good link exchange vendors can
increase a company's PageRank and increase the number of targeted
visitors. Poor link exchanges (think $99 "link farms" where a
company promises to link your site to thousands of others) can
actually harm site positioning.
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Link Farm
definition: A link farm is a Web site set up with the sole purpose
of increasing the link popularity of other sites by increasing the
number of incomming links to those sites. They are typically made up
of long lists of unrelated links. Some link farms are created as
networks of sites that contain numerous links to one another. Link
farms are also known as free for all links pages (FFA). Nearly all
search engines remove link farms from their directories when they
find them, and many also penalize other sites that link to them. It
is not a good idea to link to a link farm if you rely on organic
search for page views.
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Link Popularity
definition: is an important factor in search engine optimization and
positioning. Search engines use link popularity as a factor in
deciding how important your website is. This was Google's simple but
brilliant contribution to web search - popular or relevant pages
will tend have more links and should therefore be ranked higher. In
addition, link popularity is much more difficult to manipulate
artificially than on-page factors, and is thus less open to abuse.
Link popularity is calculated firstly by counting the amount of
websites that link to yours. However, more links do not necessarily
mean better positioning as search engines also measure the quality
of these incoming links. If your site enjoys links from other
well-linked sites then your link popularity is further boosted.
Additionally, some search engines, for example Google, are
increasingly attempting to refine their link popularity calculations
by paying attention to the theme of a link. Some new search engines,
like Teoma, are taking this a step further and only counting links
within certain web 'communities' of similar themed websites.
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Link Quality
definition: may be defined as the quality of content in the sites
that are linked to yours, as well as the industry relevance to your
site.
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Link Reputation
definition: how the search engine refers to the link by evaluating
the link text.
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Link Strategy
definition: the method used by a particular site owner to increase
the number of inbound links to their pages and boost their site's
link popularity.
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Link Text
definition: the visible text contained within an <A></A> or anchor
tag that provides instructions or information to the viewer.
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Linking
definition: placing a link to another web page (usually on another
web site) on one of your own web pages.
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Links
definition: is a short form of the term "hypertext link". A link can
point from one document to another or to any resource in fact. It
might be inside or outside the current document. Hyperlinked text is
usually highlighted in some way. The default is blue underlined
text, but it may vary. If there were no links, you would not be able
to get from one Web page to another. Typically, you click on the
hyperlink to follow it. Sometimes they are a picture or sometimes an
icon. They can also appear as a word, image, icon, or another
graphic element which can be activated by the click of a mouse. In
the source code of a document, a link is a special set of characters
that includes a destination URL.
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"Live searches"
definition: "Live searches" is the information on how often people
search a given keyword on the Internet.
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Log File
definition: a file maintained on a server in which details of all
file accesses are stored. Analyzing log files can be a powerful way
to find out about a web site's visitors, where they come from and
which queries are used to access a site. Log Files log files are
generated and maintained by the server and contain all details of
any file accesses. This includes data such as file accessed, date
and time accessed, referring page, user agent, and more. Analyzing
log files can be a powerful way to obtain information about visitors
and their behavior on your website. Log files are also used to track
search engine referrals, and are a good way to find keywords to
target for search engine optimization.
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Log File Analyzer
definition: the primary purpose of server logs is to provide
information on server performance and register errors. However, they
turned out to be helpful as sources of visitor information. This
info is extracted from the logs and given in a legible format to
end-users. The software programs that process log files and
interpret server events are called log analyzers. They are installed
either on the server side or on a user's PC. In the first case, the
end users need to access their site reports through a Web interface,
while in the second case they should download server logs to their
PCs. In both cases, there will be a lag between the time the log was
created and when Web site statistics are reported and viewed.
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Looksmart
definition: Directory/PPC Engine hybrid.
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LS
definition: LookSmart
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