SEO Software Glossary

(A - C) (D - F) (G - L) (M - O) (P - Q) (R - Z)

R

Ranking
definition: the order a search engine shows results extracted from its database, relevant to the searcher's query. Each search engine uses its own unique algorithm to rank pages. Most major search engines use the ranking algorithms that combine both keyword relevance and page popularity.
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Ranking Algorithm
definition: the methodology by which search engines calculate positioning results. Ranking algorithms can be influenced by a wide variety of factors including domain name, spiderable content, submission practices, HTML code and link popularity. Search engine ranking algorithms are closely guarded and constantly updated to attempt to filter out those sites which attempt to manipulate the results.
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Re-Submission
definition: repeating the search engine registration process one or more times for the same page or Website. This is regarded with suspicion by search engines because it can be indicative of spamming techniques. Some search engines will de-list sites for repeated re-submission. Others limit the number of submissions of the same page in a 24 hour period. Occasional re-submission of changed pages is usually not a problem.
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Reach
definition: the total number of unique users who will be served your ad over a specific period of time. Reach is often expressed as a percent of the universe for the demographic category. Also known as an unduplicated audience.
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Reach
definition: Customer life cycle step which is defined as the likelihood of gaining your prospective visitor's attention. This is the number of people you succeed to broadcast your message to. Reach is defined by the audience of the website you advertise on, or by the size of your mailing list.
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Reciprocal Links
definition: to another website placed on your site in exchange for links back to your site from theirs. This is a proven way to build link popularity which is instrumental in getting high search engine rankings. Reciprocal links to improve the link popularity of sites, webmasters exchange links, so when one site places a link to another site in exchange for the other site doing the same in return, this is reciprocal linking. Links exchange is a good strategy for low-budget sites, however you should take a close look at the site you are going to link to, because a search engine can penalize your site for reciprocal linking if the site has been blacklisted by the search engine.
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Redirects
definition: when a server tells a browser to load another page instead of that requested, such a substitution is called a redirect. Redirects are started in different ways. Auditor analyzes redirect URLs if they result from server responses 3xx, and meta refresh. To turn the check on or off, you should open 'Check Rules' in 'Options' on the 'Scan' button menu.
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Referral Fees
definition: paid in exchange for delivering a qualified sales lead or purchase inquiry. For example, an affiliate drives traffic to other companies' sites, typically in exchange for a percentage of sales or a fl at referral fee.
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Referrer
definition: This is the URL of the page a visitor viewed before proceeding to your Web page. Web browsers normally provide the most recent previous URL when making a request for your site's page. To get the referrer information, visitor tracking systems look for 'document.referrer' property in the tracking JavaScript. When a visitor uses a firewall with referrer blocking enabled or another program for the same purpose, the program won't find the external referrer, and in this case the referrer will be reported under 'Undefined'.
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Referring Sites
definition: are those websites that link directly to your website and thereby drive traffic to you.
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Registration
definition: the process of informing a search engine or directory that a new web page or web site should be indexed.
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Relevance
definition: a measure of how closely a search result, or a keyword-based ad, matches the user's keyword. Relevance is key to harnessing the power of search advertising, regardless of whether the keyword-based ad appears on a results page or on a related content page. The more relevant your ad, the more likely the audience will be motivated to respond to your call to action. At the same time, the relevance of your ad and your ad's landing page can enhance the user's search and browsing experience, where irrelevant ads can cause users to ignore advertising altogether.
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Relevancy
definition: the degree to which the content on a web page that is returned in a list of search results (SERPS) "matches" the topic of the information that the user was searching for. In other words, if you use the search phrase "small green widgets" and a page is returned that deals with "large red thingamajigs", the relevancy of that page is very poor.
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Relevancy Algorithm
definition: the method used by search engines and directories to match the keywords in a query with the content of all the Web pages in their database so the Web pages found can be suitably ranked in the query results. Each search engine and directory uses a different algorithm and frequently changes this formula to improve relevancy.
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Remnant Inventory
definition: low-cost advertising space that is relatively undesirable or otherwise unsold.
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Repeat Visitor
definition: a unique visitor who has accessed a website more than once over a specific time period.
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Repeat Visits
definition: users who browsed your site more than once during the selected time period. In other words, these are all visits minus the first visits (or unique visitors) in the selected period. The percentage of repeat visits to all visits will give you a good picture of how appealing the content of your Web site is.
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Resource Box or Bio
definition: is a special part of an article where information about the author, author's websites, services and links to the sites are presented. It is a powerful marketing tool which should give the readers valuable information and include no more than 1-2 URLs to attract visitors to the sites.
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Retention
definition: Customer life cycle step which measures the activities of your repeat customers, tracking whether they are back to get support information, to make another purchase or just to do additional research.
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Return on Investment
definition: ROI the benefit gained in return for the cost of your ad campaign. Although exact measurement is nearly impossible, your clickthrough rate and your conversion rate combined with your advertising costs, can help you assess the ROI of your campaign.
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RFP
definition: Request for Proposal.
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Robot
definition: a program that runs automatically without human intervention. A robot is typically endowed with some artificial intelligence, so it can adjust to the various situations it may encounter. Two common types of robots are agents and spiders. Also known as a bot.
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ROBOTS Tag
definition: Meta information tag used to tell visiting search engine robots how to behave (e.g. not to index a certain page, or not to archive a certain page).
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Robots.txt
definition: this is a text file that is used to control spiders that visit your website. Only spiders that conform to the Robots exclusion standard will obey the contents of the robots.txt file. This file allows you to grant and exclusive access to certain folders, file types, and specific files depending on the robot accessing the site. This file is not necessary for your site. For more information, visit - http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html
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RSS
definition: Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication A commonly used protocol for syndication and sharing of content, originally developed to facilitate the syndication of news articles, now widely used to share the contents of blogs. RSS is an XML-based summary of a web site, usually used for syndication and other kinds of content-sharing. There are RSS "feeds" which are sources of RSS information about web sites, and RSS "readers" which read RSS feeds and display their content to users.
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RSS Feeds
definition: an acronym for Rich Site Summary or Rich Site Syndication. RSS feeds uses an XML document to publish news headlines. This document is submitted to sites which may choose to display the information in their site or program which uses an aggregator to parse the information.
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Run-of-Site
definition: ROS the scheduling of ads across an entire site, often at a lower cost than the purchase of specific pages or sub-sections of the site. A run-of-site ad campaign is rotated on all general, non-featured ad spaces on a site.
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S

Sales Funnel
definition: is a metric that measures visitor actions on your site, their path from the beginning till the sale. Suspect, Prospect, Lead, Opportunity and Sale are steps of this path according to Sales funnel.
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Sandbox
definition: refers to Google's algorithm which detects how old your page is and how long ago it has been updated. Usually pages with stale content tend to gradually slip down the result list, while new pages just crawled initially have higher positions than they would if based on PageRank only. However, some time after gaining boosted positions, new website disappear from the top places in search results, since Google wants to verify whether your website is really continued and was not created with the sole purpose to benefit from artificially high rankings over the short term. The period when a website is unable to make it to the top of search results is referred to as "being in the sandbox". This can last from 6 months to one year, then the positions usually restore gradually. However, not all brand new site owners observe the sandbox effect on their own sites, which has led to discussions on whether the sandbox filter really exists.
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SE
definition: Search Engine
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Search Engine
definition: a search engine is a searchable online database of internet resources. It has several components: search engine software, spider software, an index (database), and a relevancy algorithm (rules for ranking). The search engine software consists of a server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing Internet Web pages, storing the results and returning lists of pages to match user queries. The spidering software constantly crawls the Web collecting Web page data for the index. The index is a database for storing the data. The relevancy algorithm determines how to rank queries. Examples of major search engines are Google, AOL, MSN and Lycos, etc.. Examples of major directories are Yahoo!, LookSmart and ODP
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Search Engine Friendly
definition: a web page that has been designed and optimized for high search engine rankings. A search engine friendly page also makes it easy for search engines to follow the links on the page.
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Search Engine Index
definition: is a giant repository (database) of Web pages. Web crawlers collect web documents to generate and maintain index for the search engines.
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Search Engine Optimisation
definition: SEO Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising a website or web page to increase its visibility within the search engine results. Search engine optimisation entails making sure that there is content relevant to the targeted key phrases on the web site, and that search engine spiders can find this content easily. Good search engine optimisation will ensure that this content is also useful to the user. Without relevant content, SEO techniques can only be partially successful, and will probably stray into the wrong side of search engine Acceptable Use Policies. See also 'ranking algorithms'
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Search Engine Optimization
definition: SEO is the process of optimizing a website or web page to increase its visibility within the search engine results. Search engine optimization entails making sure that there is content relevant to the targeted key phrases on the web site, and that search engine spiders can find this content easily. Good search engine optimization will ensure that this content is also useful to the user. Without relevant content, SEO techniques can only be partially successful, and will probably stray into the wrong side of search engine Acceptable Use Policies.
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Search Engine Optimization Writing
definition: is specialized copywriting that entails weaving keywords and keyphrases into marketing or informational copy. The purpose of search engine optimization copywriting is to gain prime positioning for the desired keyphrases, as well as increase page conversion rates.
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Search Engine Partner Network
definition: is the unity of search engines showing the search results, ads or PPC listings throughout the whole network. Google's search partners' network for example receives PPC listings and ads from Google AdWords program. Google's network includes such search engines as AOL, AT&T Worldnet, AskJeeves, CompuServe, Earthlink, Netscape Netcenter, Shopping.com and others.
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Search Engine Positioning
definition: also known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), is a phrase to describe the practice of positioning a web site within the search engine results. A multitude of techniques are involved in successful search engine positioning. Not only must a web site be optimised, but it's link popularity must also be built. Good visibility in directories must be gained and other search engine marketing techniques pursued, such as Pay Per Click campaigns. Search engine positioning has evolved over the last few years. While initially involving only search engine optimisation, the industry has grown to include a whole array of additional techniques.
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Search Engine Results Pages
definition: (SERPS) the ranked listing of web pages that are returned for a specific search query
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Search Engine Spammers
definition: are optimizers which consciously take excessive and other measures a search engine deem to be unethical to rank high on search engines.
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Search Engine Spider
definition: search engines and other sites send robots (also known as spiders, bots, and crawlers) to read and index your site's pages. A search engine spider is an automated software program designed to find and collect data from Web pages. This is included in a search engine's index. It follows links to find new pages on the Web. Traces of a spider's activity can be found in server logs. You can see which files they requested. Search engine spiders identify themselves when they visit a site, for example, Google's spider is Googlebot, Yahoo!'s spider name is Yahoo! Slurp.
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Search Engine Submission
definition: is the process by which one makes search engines aware that ones website is ready to be indexed by the search engine spiders. In general search engines spider the web on a regular basis, and will eventually find your web site by following a link from a site already within its index. It is sometimes necessary however to manually submit a new site which has not been linked, or to use a paid for inclusion process to ensure quick inclusion into the database. The search engine submission process involves going to a specified section of the search engine web site (the "Add URL" page) and inputting details which can include those web pages that one requires to be spidered. The term 'submission' also covers the process of requesting a listing in the directories.
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Search Engine Visibility
definition: means the summary of all positions of your site in search results for certain keywords that people type in the search box to obtain these results. Mainly, you are interested not in all search engines on the Web, but only in those that actually bring you visitors (or have the potential to do so). Summarized search engine visibility score (like the one calculated by Web CEO) is useful in two cases: when you need to know how your Web visibility changes over time, and when you need to compare your overall visibility to your competitors'.
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Search Marketing (is also known as Search Engine Marketing)
definition: is a part of a business's marketing efforts that is aimed at increasing the traffic (number of visitors) to your website from the search engines, as well as their conversion (the percent of visitors who become buyers). SEM strategies include: search engine optimization, pay per click advertising and paid inclusion.
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Search Optimization
definition: tactics and techniques that make it easier for spiders to find your page, contributing to higher ranking on a list of search engine results. Basic optimization starts with listing relevant keywords in your metatags and building clear and descriptive words into page copy, title, text hyperlinks, and image file names. It's also important to design your site in a logical link structure and follow standard HTML conventions, avoiding the use of frames, dynamic URLs, Image Maps, and JavaScript for navigation.
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Search Query
definition: the keyword, keyphrase, or list of words that you type into a search engine to find web pages on a topic that you're interested in.
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Search Term
definition: is the word or phrase entered by a user into a search engine in order to perform a search. The search engine or directory then uses its algorithm to search its database of pages or sites to find a matching key phrase and return a list of results. Users may enter general search terms, such as "software", or they may enter more focused terms, such as "web promotion software". A properly focused search term set forms the core of a good search engine positioning strategy and it is important to ensure that these are reflected in the actual content on the website. A search engine promotion that targets popular but relevant search terms has the advantage of driving targeted traffic, which can result in high conversion rates. Gaining knowledge of the general trends and habits of searchers, and having experience of the complexities of search term selection, can make the difference between search engine promotion failure or success.
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SEM
definition: Search Engine Marketing.
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SEMPO
definition: Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.
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SEO
definition: is the abbreviation for 'Search Engine Optimization'. SEO is normally used to describe the process of manipulating a website's pages in order for them to rank higher in search engine indices. Successful SEO can result in a site, which features prominently in a major search engine such as Google or MSN, delivering a significant amount of new visitors. SEO can contribute to the overall success of your website marketing. The process of SEO can involve changing a web page's content and html code so that a search engine 'spider' can find specific information more easily. Additionally, SEO occasionally involves the re-coding of a websites linking architecture. SEO combined with a set of targeted 'Key Phrases' (search terms people are using in search engines) can result in your website gaining high positioning for your most popular products or services. Furthermore, SEO can help target users focused to your area of expertise, enhancing user experience and eliminating excess unwanted click-throughs. SEO is a key element in the online marketing of a website as it can help potential visitors find the information they are searching for before discovering a competitor's site. SEO can also be known as 'Search Engine Positioning' or SEOR 'Search Engine Optimization & Registration'.
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SEO Writing
definition: is specialized copywriting that entails weaving keywords and keyphrases into marketing or informational copy. The purpose of search engine optimization copywriting is to gain prime positioning for the desired keyphrases, as well as increase page conversion rates.
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SEP
definition: Search Engine Placement is the art of increasing a site's visibility within the search engine results. Search engine placement is achieved by a combination of on-page SEO, link building and ensuring the site is included in the correct search engine databases to reach the target market. It may also involve other strategies such as Pay Per Click campaigns or Trusted Feeds. Simply increasing occurrences of key phrases will not, in itself, lead to higher rankings. Search engine placement techniques are constantly evolving as new search engines emerge to target different markets and new inclusion methods are introduced.
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SERP
definition: is otherwise known as the Search Engines Results Page. This is the page that users see after typing their search query into an engine. Since conversion starts at the SERP, it is an important job of the search marketer to obtain strong call-to-action listings that entice the click.
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SERPs
definition: Search Engine Results Pages
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Server Side Includes or SSI
definition: is an easy server-side scripting language used almost exclusively for the Web. As its name implies, its primary use is including the contents of a file into another, via a Web Server. If you need to find out whether you're using them, search for the files with .shtml or .shtm extension.
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SEU
definition: Search Engine Usability.
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Share of Voice
definition: a relative portion of inventory available to a single advertiser within a defined market sector over a specified time period.
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Site Depth
definition: the number of pages contained within a web site. Sites with more depth have a higher number of pages.
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Site Architecture
definition: In terms of SEO / SEM, it refers to the entire framework that supports your website content and thus defines the way search engine spiders index it. Site architecture consists of the navigation structure of your website, the page layout and the structure of various elements on your page, your file and directory system and the types of files you use.
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Site Map
definition: this is a web page that links to all pages found on your website in an intelligent and coherent manner. Such a page is excellent resource in getting a search engine to spider all pages found within a website.
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Site Stickiness
definition: these are visits grouped by the time that visitors stay. It is a sign of how well a site's content captures the visitor's attention.
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Site Submission
definition: this is the actual process by which a site is directly submitted to a search engine for inclusion into their database. Some search engines charge a certain amount for 'guaranteed inclusion' into their search index.
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Skyscraper
definition: a tall, thin ad unit that runs down the side of a web page. A skyscraper can be 120 x 600 pixels or160 x 600 pixels.
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Slow Pages
definition: these are pages with a prolonged download time. Pages are slow when they have large files. Web CEO Auditor will give you the list of files with their respective sizes so you can see which files are too large.
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Slurp
definition: search engine spider used by Inktomi.
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Social Media Marketing
definition: is the process of promoting a site, business or brand through social media channels by engaging and interacting with existing consumers or potential consumers. Social media channels may include blogging systems, social bookmarking sites, photo and video sharing sites and other technologies which support social interaction on the web.i.
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Spam
definition: any search engine optimisation method a search engine deems to be unethical. Some people say that Spam is word made up by the search engines to cover up their inability to detect sites using tactics they are un happy with.
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Spamdexing
definition: the alteration or creation of a document with intent to deceive an electronic catalog or filing system. Any technique that increases the potential position of a site at the expense of the quality of the search engine's database can also be regarded as spamdexing - also known as spamming or spoofing.
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Spider
definition: a program that automatically fetches web pages and feeds them to search engines. (It's called a "spider" because it crawls around the web.) Because most web pages contain links to and from other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it recognizes a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines have many spiders working simultaneously. Also known as a crawler. Spider that part of a search engine which surfs the web, storing the URLs and indexing the keywords and text of each page it finds. Please refer to the Search Engine Watch SpiderSpotting Chart for details of individual spiders.
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Spidering Search Engine
definition: is one that uses machines to fetch Websites and record its pages. The database of over 2 billion Web pages in Google's search index was gathered together using Google machines and GoogleBot (Google's so-called "spider" or Web crawler technology).
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Splash Page
definition: while being similar to a doorway page, the purpose of a splash page is more artistic - a grand entry way to a website. The use of a splash page is poor design and not good for proper search engine optimization.
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Sponsorship
definition: Sponsorship is typically a customized payment model where an advertiser agrees to pay a website a fixed amount for preferred placement throughout the site.
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SQL
definition: Structured Query Language.
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Stemming
definition: a function of some search engines and directories which allows results to be returned from some or all keywords based on the same stem as the keyword entered as a search term. For example, when stemming is switched on, a search for the word "dance" will return matches for any word whose stem is "danc-", matching the keywords "dance", "dancer" and "dancing".
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Stop Word
definition: a word which is ignored in a query because the word is so commonly used that it makes no contribution to relevancy. Examples are common net words such as computer and web, and general words like get, I, me, the and you.
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STYLE
definition: HTML tag contained in the <HEAD> area that defines a particular set of parameters to be applied to a web page's contents.
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Sub-Category
definition: Directories are typically divided into top-level categories that contain sub-categories or lower level categories. Directories often run several category levels deep.
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Subheadline
definition: like headlines, subheadlines provide quick-scan benefits and instant information. Subheadlines typically begin inner paragraphs, highlighting the following paragraph's main points and benefits. Subheadlines, like headlines, can also be inscribed using HTML Heading tags. When keyphrases appear in the subheadline, positioning for those keyphrases may be improved.
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Submission
definition: is a process of entering a URL and other information about a site in a special form and submitting this form to a search engine so it includes your site in its index. In the early stages of Web building, submission to a search engine was the only way of telling them about a site's existence, and getting them to visit and register it. New technologies made it possible for the search engines to crawl the Web regularly, and, as a result, cross-linking of the Web sites became a more important factor for a site's inclusion. There are several small search engines having crawlers with limited functionality. These search engines do not regularly spider the Web. They accept submissions as their primary method of inclusion of new sites. These are the majority of search engines in our auto-submission section. If you want traffic from these search engines, you should submit to them. There are two main questions that need answering when talking about submissions: 1) how many pages you need to submit and 2) how often you will need to resubmit. We recommend that you submit only the main page to a directory and a few most important and keyword-optimized pages to a search engine. You do not need to resubmit pages unless you are sure they were not indexed after the first submission. If you have made important changes to the some of the pages' content, you can resubmit these pages.
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Submission Service
definition: any agent which submits your site to many search engines and directories. Useful to get listed with many of the minor search engines, but don't rely on such services to get listed with the major search engines. Many of these services are automatic and run from web sites. Others run off line. Some are free. Beware of supplying your email address to the so called FFA (free for all) services - you may receive lots of spam.
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Submissions
definition: the act of submitting your site to the add URL page on a search engine. Also the act of submitting your site to a directory.
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Submitting Your URLs
definition: this is the process of telling a search engine or directory about your web pages. The URLs that you submit are placed into a queue for later crawling or human review. If you have backlinks pointing to your web pages, there is usually no need to submit your URLs to the search engines because their crawlers will find the pages on their own and index them. You do need to submit your URLs to directories however because they use humans instead of robots to visit the sites that you submit and evaluate them.
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Syndication
definition: an option that allows you to extend your reach by distributing ads to additional partner sites.
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T

Target Audience
definition: the intended audience for an ad, usually defined in terms of specific demographics (age, income, etc.), product purchase behavior, product usage, or media usage.
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Targeted Traffic
definition: visitors to your web site that are interested in your particular product or service.
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Text Ad
definition: an ad designed for text delivery, with concise, action-oriented copy and a link to your website. Because they are not accompanied by graphics, text links are easy to create and improve page download time. Also known as a sponsored link.
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Text Optimisation
definition: is the process of constructing a website page that will be seen by search engines specifically to promote the relevancy of a certain key phrase. Good text optimisation should not utilise random key phrases, but should maximise the value of existing content, such as specific informational topics or product information.
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Time on Error
definition: this is the total time that your server had the Alert status (in minutes). This number is a grand total of all the intervals your server was not reachable by all the tests conducted. If several tests failed round about the same time, the interval includes the earliest and the latest time your server was not working. For example, if the ping test failed at 11.25 a.m. then was successful again at 12.20 a.m. , and the test connection over HTTP also failed at 11.30 a.m. and then was back at 12.21 a.m. , the 'Time on Error' report would reflect the interval between 11.25 a.m. and 12.21 a.m.
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Timeouts
definition: this parameter indicates the number of time-outs. The number of times your server failed to respond. This includes all the time-outs recorded by all the Site Monitoring tests within the selected period.
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Title
definition: the text contained between the start and end HTML tags of the same name. This text is associated with (but not displayed in) the web page containing these tags, and is displayed in a special position (usually at the top of the window) by the web browser. Title text is important because it normally forms the link to the page from the search engine listings, and because the search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing the page. Don't confuse this text with heading text within the web page which often looks like the title. Usually this will be rendered either using the HTML heading tags or just rendered with a large font size.
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TITLE Tag
definition: Syntax: <title>Web Page Title</title> An HTML tag in the Head tag defines the title of a particular Web page. The content of the Title tag displays in the browser's title bar found at the top of the browser's window. Search engines use the Title tag to provide a link to the site. The text in the Title tag is one of the most important elements for the search engines' algorithms. Do not use more than one Title tag, because some search engines strongly disapprove of this and may penalize you for that.
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Titles with Keyword
definition: this number tells you how many web pages have your keyword in their titles. It helps you estimate how many web pages have been optimized for your target keyword because Titles are very important for SEO. If the number of optimized Titles is low compared with the competition, this is a great advantage.
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TLD
definition: Top Level Domain
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Token
definition: a tracer or tag attached by the receiving server to the address (URL) of a page requested by a user. A token lasts only through a continuous series of requests by a user, regardless of the length of the interval between requests. Tokens can be used to count unique users.
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Top-10 Ranking
definition: a web page that is listed in the first 10 search results for a search query. Top-10 in Google also means on the first page using the standard search criteria.
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Top-Level Page
definition: Some search engines call your default page (usually something like index.html, index.htm, default.asp etc.) your top-level page. When they say "submit only your top-level page", it means that they probably have a spider that will find the rest of your pages from there. It's always a good idea to have a link from your top-level page to your sitemap.
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Traffic
definition: is the term used to describe the amount of visitors that view web pages. When talking to an seo company they will often use terms such as targeted traffic and qualified traffic - this is the art of attracting visitors to your site who have an interest in the sites theme.
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Traffic Sites
definition: are sites built solely with the purpose of obtaining rankings in search engines. They generally consist of nothing but doorway pages and are designed to snare search engine traffic and pass it on to the main web site. Unscrupulous search engine optimizers often use many traffic sites which are extensively cross-linked to manipulate link popularity. This technique is also known as 'domain spamming' and is forbidden by all search engine terms of use. The use of this technique is a sure way of earning a ban from the index. Google is growing increasingly adept at identifying clusters of traffic sites which use this technique to hoard link popularity, and removing them from its index.
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U

Unique User
definition: a single individual or browser who accesses a site or is served unique content and/or ads. Unique users can be identified by user registration or cookies. Also known as a unique visitor.
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Unique Visitor
definition: a real visitor to a web site. Web servers record the IP addresses of each visitor, and this is used to determine the number of real people who have visited a web site. If for example, someone visits twenty pages within a web site, the server will count only one unique visitor (because the page accesses are all associated with the same IP address) but twenty page accesses.
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Universe
definition: the total population of the audience you're measuring.
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Unsubscribe Rate
definition: is the number of prospects which have unsubscribed from further mail distributions after receiving your commercial email marketing letter.
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Uptime
definition: shows the server uptime (by percent). Uptime is the percentage of time your server was reachable during a selected period.
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URL
definition: is short for Uniform Resource Locator. This is an address used to specify a unique Internet resource. The beginning of the address points to the type of resource or scheme, for example http: for Web pages, ftp: for file transfers, telnet: for computer login sessions or mailto: for e-mail addresses. File URLs contain information on the method of access (scheme), the server accessed and the path of a file.
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Usability
definition: quite simply, usability is making your site easy for your customers to find the exact information they need when they need it. Anything that makes the process slower (like Flash animation served to a dial-up customer) inhibits usability. Conversely, easy, intuitive navigation and strong, informative text enhance usability.
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User Agent
definition: is a kind of Web browser: Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, Opera, Netscape, or the program that you use to view websites. It retrieves content from remote Web servers and displays it on your computer. Web user agents range from Web browsers to search engine crawlers ("spiders"), as well as mobile phones, screen readers and braille browsers used by people with physical disabilities.
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V

Viral Marketing
definition: is the rapid adoption of a product or passing of an offer to friends and family through word-of-mouth (or word-of-email) networks. Viral marketing phenomenon facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message to everyone they know or believe to be appropriate recipients.
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Visibility
definition: refers to website popularity within the search engine results and in the World Wide Web itself. To achieve good search engine visibility a combination of on-page SEO methods and link building are used. It may also involve other strategies such as Pay Per Click campaigns and ensuring the site is included in the correct search engine databases and directories.
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Visit
definition: A measure of visitor activity on a Web page. A visit is a single session starting the moment a visitor enters your site to the moment she leaves. For example, if the report tells you had 2,600 visits on a certain day, it means the users came to your Web site 2,600 times. More technically, a visit is a sequence of requests during a session, all made by the same visitor identified by a cookie file (or IP address, user agent and other browser settings that can help to recognize the visitor). The session begins when the visitor moves to your Web page from a page located at a different domain - i.e. the referrer is an external Web page - and ends when the visitor leaves your Web page for another external Web page. There is no time limit for the session continuing if the external referrer is identified. Sometimes, the external referrer is not defined. This often happens when a visitor's firewall or special software program cloaks referrer information. So, if the referrer is unknown, such a visitor's session is considered new after 15 minutes inactivity. A visitor may come to your site several times a day. All these will count as visits, whereas only his first visit during the day (or other selected period of time) is included in the 'Visitors' number.
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Visitor
definition: = Unique Visitor. Measure of Visitor activity that counts only the first action of a visitor in a selected period of time. Unique visitor tracking is mainly based on cookie technology. If the visitor's browser does not support cookies, an alternative visitor identification procedure is used. The visitor is identified by IP address, user agent, browser language settings, etc. Take a simplified example. Imagine having only one visitor to our site. This visitor arrives at the home page. After the tracking script has run and the Web CEO HitLens variables have been passed to the tracking system, HitLens makes a record of this visitor: one visitor, one visit, and one page view. If the visitor then goes to another page of our site, only the page views count increases: one visitor, one visit, and two page views. The visitor leaves the site, comes back after a few hours on the same day, and views only the home page. The tracking system will update the information about this visitor as follows: one visitor, two visits, and three page views. Next day, the visitor returns to your site and browses three pages. The tracking system will log on that day: one visitor, one visit, three page views. You will see these stats exactly as described if you run daily HitLens reports for our imaginary site.
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Visitor Tracking System
definition: A Web counter is a piece of JavaScript that allows you to measure and almost instantaneously report on site visitors. Typically, a visitor tracking system consists of the following links: Web page with the tracking script in it -- Visitor's browser accessing the Web page: it reads the tracking JavaScript and follows instructions -- Tracking server triggered the moment the Web page is accessed by a visitor's browser and where the data about the Web page visit are primarily transmitted to and temporarily stored -- Database server where the data is then distributed, collected, processed, and permanently stored -- End user's computer accessing the database server. If you employ this technology, you need to place a small (invisible to visitors) JavaScript in every Web page so it is tracked. The tracking JavaScript tells the browser to request a 1x1 pixel image hosted on a Web CEO tracking server. Each time a Web page is viewed, the browser requests the image at a different URL. This prevents caching of the image -- the browser needs to request the image when it loads a page, and as a result, data for each page is transferred to the tracking server. The tracking script also inserts a cookie file in your visitors' browsers, so the system will recognize visitors when they come back to the site - this is for tracking unique visitors. This process takes much longer to read about than to happen in real life. Normally, only a few seconds (though it depends on many technical factors relating to the quality of the Internet connection) before the Web statistics become available for reporting.
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Vortal Site
definition: built around one theme or subject.
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W

W3
definition: World Wide Web
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W3C
definition: World Wide Web Consortium
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Web Analytics
definition: is the measurement of the behavior of visitors to a website. In a commercial context, it especially refers to the measurement of which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase.
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Web Marketing
definition: is a marketing channel that comes with the popularity of the World Wide Web. As millions surf on the Web, businesses discover that they can reach this audience at a fraction of the traditional print and media marketing.
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Web Page
definition: a single document on the World Wide Web specified by a unique address or URL and that may contain text, hyperlinks, and graphics. A Web page is a part of a group of hypertext documents that form a Web site. Web pages are usually created with HTML. The Web page is returned by the server in response to the URL request.
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Web Server
definition: is special computer that receives requests for Web pages and can "serve" them to the requesting side.
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Website (or Web site)
definition: is a collection of Web pages, typically bound to a particular domain name or subdomain on the World Wide Web on the Internet. A website is identified uniquely by its domain name, e.g. www.webceo.com.
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Wiki
definition: is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows for linking among any number of pages.
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World Wide Web ("WWW" or simply the "Web")
definition: is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet.
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X

XHTML
definition: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language.
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XML
definition: Extensible Markup Language (file.xml).
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Y