Many people are overwhelmed with abbreviations and new media terms. Below follows an explanation of a number of popular and often-used terms related to search engine marketing. This list is constantly being updated.
Registration: (Zie Submission)
Algorithm: A combination of rules that a search engine uses to position a website in its result lists when a search is performed. No search engine reveals to the outside world exactly how its algorithms work. This protects them from their competition and prevents spam indexing.
Backlinks: All the links to a specific web page. Also called "inbound links".
Banning: WWeb pages that are removed from the index of a search engine due to spam indexing and/or because these web pages do not satisfy the guidelines.
Cloaking: In search engine marketing terms, this is the action that ensures that search engines take up the content of a URL that is different from that which the surfer sees displayed. This can be done using different techniques. Different search engines have clear rules against prohibited cloaking. Those who violate these rules run the risk of their web pages being punished and in the worst case of being banned from the index of the search engines. Allowable cloaking usually occurs when these search engines also offer PPC. All who offer cloaking services should be able to present their permitted method to access the search engines. If not, one must be able to explain what the risks of prohibited cloaking are.
Content: The content of a website.
Conversion: The relationship between the visitors of a website and the actions undertaken is considered a conversion. This includes sales made or a request for more information, and is often expressed as a percentage. If a website has 50 visitors and 10 of them take action, the site has a 20% conversion.
CPC/Cost Per Click: The system in which advertisers pay an agreed amount for each click that someone makes on a link that takes them to their website.
CPM: : The system in which advertisers pay an agreed amount for the number of times their advertisement is seen by a consumer, regardless of the further action taken by the consumer. It is intensively used in the case of printed material, sending information and direct marketing, as well as in the online sales of banner advertisements. CPM stands for "cost per thousand", since the advertisements are often sold in blocks of 1,000.
Crawler: A search engine component that collects lists by automatically "crawling" or searching through the web. A search engine crawler (also called a "spider" or "robot"), follows the links to web pages. It makes copies of the web pages found and stores these in the search engine index.
Delisting:This is when pages are removed from a search engine index. This can happen when they are banned or for another reason, such as a fault in the search engine system.
Directories: A type of search engine in which the lists are gathered by human effort instead of via automatic "crawlers". In directories, the websites are checked, summarised in approximately 25 words and placed in a given category.
GetawayPage / Doorway Page: A web page made with the hope of scoring well in the free search engine lists for a specific period of time, but one that in itself does not provide much information to the visitor. Instead, visitors often will only see something enticing on the page that leads them to other pages (i.e. click here to enter), or they are automatically quickly taken past the page. In the case of cloaking, the visitor will not even see the page. Several search engines have rules against "doorway" pages, while in general they are allowed by paid programmes. They are also called "bridge" pages, "gateway" pages and "jump" pages.
Graphical Search Inventory: Banners and other types of advertising units that can be synchronised with keywords. These consist of pop-ups, browser toolbars and rich media.
Index: The collection of information a search engine has that searchers can query against. With crawler-based search engines, the index typically consists of copies of all the web pages they have found from crawling the web. With human-powered directories, the index contains the summaries of all web sites that have been categorised.
Landing Page: The specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a search engine listing. Marketers attempt to improve conversion rates by creatively testing various landing pages. This encompasses the entire user experience including navigation, layout and copy. Source: Did-It.com.
Link Popularity: A raw count of how "popular" a page is based on the number of backlinks it has. It does not factor in link context or link quality, which are also important elements in how search engines make use of links to impact rankings.
Link Text: The text that is included in a link. Example: search engine is a link that contains the text "search engine".
Listings: The information that appears in a search engine as the result of a search.
Meta Search Engine: A search engine that uses the lists of two or more different search engines instead of conducting its own search.
Meta Tags: : Information placed on a web page that is not intended to be seen by the visitor but rather to send information to search engines, browser software and other applications.
Meta Description Tag: Gives the authors of a web page the ability to define how their pages must be described in the search engine lists. Not all search engines use this tag.
Meta Keywords Tag: Gives the authors of a web page the ability to add text to their pages in order to score better in the search engine lists. Not all search engines use this tag.
Meta Robots Tag: Gives the authors of a web page the ability to suppress the indexing of their web pages by search engines, which is especially useful for those that cannot create robots.txt files. The Robots Exclusion page provides official details.
Optimisation: Making a website search-engine-friendly, so that each search engine finds the website, assesses it positively and places it at the top of the results when a search is made.
Organic Listings: : Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings). Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine has deemed it editorially important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Paid inclusion content is also often considered "organic" even though it is paid for. This is because that content usually appears intermixed with unpaid organic results.
Outbound Links: : links on a given web page that lead to other web pages, regardless of whether they remain linked to the same website or lead to other websites.
PPC/Pay Per Click: Stands for "pay-per-click" and means the same as "cost-per-click".
Paid Inclusion: An advertising program in which, for the payment of a fee, pages are guaranteed inclusion in the index of the search engines. This paid addition, however, provides no guarantee concerning the organic ranking. For example, Looksmart is a directory that indexes pages and sites based not on position but on relevance. Sellers pay to be included in the directory on a CPC (Cost per Click) or Cost-per-URL basis, without being guaranteed a specific ranking.
Paid Listings: The lists that search engines sell to advertisers, usually by paid placement or paid inclusion programmes. These are the opposite of organic scores, which are not sold.
Pay-for-Performance: A name popularised by a number of search engines as a synonym for pay-per-click. Advertisers pay only for the advertisements that generate clicks and traffic. This is in contrast to CPM-based advertisements in which the advertisements themselves cost money, even if they produce no clicks.
Query: See search term.
Ranking/Positie: : The ranking a specific web page or website has in a search engine. For example, a web page about apples can be high on the lists as the result of a search on the word "apples". Nevertheless, the "rank" indicates its precise position, whether on the first page of the results, the second page or perhaps the 200th page. As alternative, one could also say to be first among all the results, or be ranked 12th or generally 111th. All things considered, the fact that a page is mentioned only means that it can be found within a search engine as the result of a search, not that it automatically scores well for this search. This is also called positioning.
Reciprocal Link: An exchange of links between two websites.
Registration: See submission.
Results Page: The page that is displayed after a user enters a "search" is called the "results page". It is sometimes also called the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Robot: See crawler.
Robots.txt: A file used to prevent the indexing of web pages by the search engines.
ROI: Abbreviation for "Return on investment" and refers to the percentage of profit or revenue resulting from a specific activity. For example, one can measure the ROI of a paid campaign by comparing the total amount allocated to the campaign (€ 200) to the amount of revenue produced (€ 1.000). In this case the ROI is 500%.
Top positions: sites located at the top of the result lists when a search is executed.
Spam:Regardless of the search engines, a marketing method that search engines consider as harmful and thus as unable to provide relevant, qualitative results. Some search engines have written guidelines concerning what they consider to be spamming. In the end, any activity can be considered by a given search engine to be harmful and as spam, regardless of whether there are published guidelines. An example of spam is nonsensical doorway pages that are designed to satisfy algorithmsin an unethical way. This is only one example. Determining what is and is not spam is not always easy due to the fact that different search engines have different standards. A specific search engine can have different standards concerning what is allowed depending on whether the content is gathered in an organic way or via paid inclusion. Spam is also called spamdexing.
SEA: Search Engine Advertising
SEM: Search Engine Marketing
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
SERPS: See result page
Shopping Search: Shopping with shopping search engines allows customers to search for products and prices in a search environment. Shopping sites can pay to be present on a number of "shopping" search engines.
Spider: See crawler
Submission: The transaction that includes a URL in the index of a search engines. Unless done by paid registration, in general this addition means nothing. Moreover, the addition of the URL does not help your scores in a crawler-based search engine unless specific SEO efforts were made. This registration can be done manually (i.e. you fill in an online form to accomplish the addition) or it can be automated via a software application. (See alsoRegistration).
Usability: : A measurement of how easy it is to use something. This can be a piece of software, hardware or a website. In general this is defined in terms of the needs of the user. Often graphics designers as well as technical people must take account of usability. Usability describes the complete spectrum of that which affects the success of a website.
XML Feeds: A form of paid registration in which a search engine is fed information on pages via XML, rather than collecting this information by crawling through actual pages. Sellers can pay to have their pages added to a spider-based search index, or do so yearly per URL or on a CPC (Cost Per Click) basis that is based on an XML document that represents each page on the client site. New media types are being introduced for paid inclusion, including graphics, video, audio, and rich media.
Search Engines: : Each Internet service designed to provide Internet users/surfers the ability to find information on the Internet via this database.
Search Terms: : (search) words entered by someone into a search engine to obtain sites as a result.