SEO GLossary

A-B Split - A method of random sampling that splits a list of names into two equal groups on an every-other-name basis. One group acts as a control group and the other as a test panel.
Marketing & SEO Terms - A to F
Agent Name Delivery - See CLOAKING. Algorithm - The sum of all factors that determine how a web page will rank in the search results pages of a search engine.Alt tag - A tag that provides alternative text for the visually impaired.Alt text - The text that appears when you put your mouse on top of an image or a picture.AltaVista - A popular search engine. Anchor Text - Also known as Link Text, the text of a link or hyperlink.AOL - A popular web portal currently using Google for search. ArchitextSpider - The name of the Excite.com spider. Ask Jeeves - A meta search engine. Avatar - A digital image that represents who you are in cyberspace. B2B - Business to business.B2C - Business to consumer.Backbone - The top level in a hierarchical network. Bandwidth - The amount of data transferred from one server to another. Most hosting providers set limits on the amount of data transferred, or bandwidth.Banner Burnout - Also called banner fatigue. Occurs when the consumer has seen the banner too often and no longer notices. Also used to refer to consumers who have grown accustomed to banner ads that they no longer notice the content of banners.BBS - Bulletin Board System.Below the fold - Content of a web page that is not seen by the consumer unless the consumer scrolls down.Beta - The testing stage of a commercial software.Blind Link - A link, either text or banner, that misleads the consumer. A common example is the "Choose your favorite color" banner.Blind Traffic - Low quality traffic generated by misleading banners or misleading spam. Blind traffic by nature is not targeted traffic. Blog - Online journal. The term BLOG comes from web log.bps - Bits-Per-Second.Button - A small, clickable graphic.Cache - A snapshot of a web page.CAD - Computer Aided Design.CGI - Common Gateway Interface.Clustering - In search engine search results pages, clustering is limiting each represented website to one or two listings.Conversion ratio - Of all visitors to your site, how many actually make a purchase? Devide total visitors by number of visitors who make a purchase, and you've got your conversion ratio.CPC - Cost Per Click.CPM - Cost per 1,000 impressions.Crawler - The part of a search engine which surfs the web.CSS - Cascading Style Sheets.CTR - Click Through Ratio.Dead Link - A link to a URL that no longer exists.Deep Linking - A link to a web page other than your index page.Description - The description of a web site in a web directory or SE. Human-edited web directories usually compose a description by after reviewing the site. Crawlers may use the description embedded in the page's code. For example:DNS - Domain Name System.Domain - A domain is made up of two parts: The TLD, or Top Level Domain, is the suffix. For example, .com, .net, .org, or .ca. The second part is the midlevel domain, which is, in our case, "quality-web-hosting".Doorway Page - A web page designed to draw in Internet traffic from search engines, and then direct this traffic to another website.DreamWeaver - A WYSIWYG HTML editor.Dynamic Content - Most URLs ending with .asp, .cfm, .cgi or .shtml are serving dynamic content. Dynamic content pages are generated as a result of some action by the user. For example, search results are generated by a search engine in response to a query. Search results pages are dynamic content pages.Dynamic IP Address - An IP address that changes each time you log onto the Internet. Most dial-up connections.Entry Page - The page by which a visitor enters your website.
EPV - Earnings Per Visitor.
Exit Page - The page where a vistor exits your website.
Fast - The company that owned AllTheWeb.comFAQ - Frequently Asked Questions.Favicon - The small icon displayed in IE next to the URL in the address bar. www.favicon.comFilter Words - Words such as is, am, were, was, the, for, do, ETC, that search engines deem irrelevant for indexing purposes.FTP - File Transfer Protocol.FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. In reference to the marketing technique of destoying confidence in your competitor's product or services. Example: Most other hosting companies are actually just 12 year old Ukrainian boys trying to scam you out of your hard earned money.

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format.
Gigabyte - 1,024 megabytes.
GNU - GNU's Not Unix. It is pronounced "guh-NEW".
Google - A highly popular search engine.
Guerilla Marketing - Blimp mentality marketing. Marketing which focusses on getting exposure as opposed to building a brand name. Also, a euphemism used by spammers to describe their marketing tactics.
Hit - A single access request made to the server.
HTML - HyperText Markup Language.
HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
HTTPS - Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.
Meta Editor - An editor rank used by the Open Directory Project.
ODP - The Open Directory Project.
Open Directory Project - A web directory owned by AOL, and staffed by volunteers.
Outbound Link - A link from a page of your site to another site.
Overture - A pay per click search engine.

PageRank - A system used by Google to assign rank to web pages.
Page Views - The number of times distinct pages of a website are served.
Portal Site - A full service website. Usually refers to any high traffic website that provides news, email, search, and some form of entertainment. Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL are portal sites.
Primary Drives - The basic human drives: Hunger, thirst, sex, and pain avoidance.
Query - The execution of a search on a search engine.
rdf - Resource Description Framework.
Referrer - The URL of the web page from which a unique visitor came.
Robot - See crawler.
robots.txt - A text file stored in the top level directory of a web site to give direction to search engine crawlers.
ROI - Return On Investment.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization/Optimizer.
SERP - Search Engine (Search) Results Page.
Slurp - The name of Inktomi's crawler.
Static IP Address - An IP address that does not change each time the user logs onto the Internet. An example would be an AT & T Broadband IP. See Dynamic IP Address.
SSI - Server Side Includes.
Stemming - Word variations. For example, if I entered the query "swim", a search engine that supports stemming might return results that include "swimming" or "swims".
Stop Word - 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.
Tag Line - The closing line of an advertisement. The tag line should include a memorable phrase which summarizes the product and/or brand's USP.
Testimonial Ad - An ad which uses the testimony of a product user.

Unique Visitor - An instance of a unique site connecting to your server.
URL - Universal Resource Locator.
USP - Unique Selling Proposition. Sometimes mistakenly defined as Unique Selling Point. The Unique Selling Proposition concept was first developed by Rosser Reeves of the Ted Bates Agency. It states that in order for advertising to be effective, it must address three elements:
· 1. It must offer a special benefit to the consumer.
· 2. The benefit must be available only from the advertised brand.
· 3. The benefit must be convincing to the degree that it pulls consumers away from competing brands toward the advertised brand.
Virtual Server - A hosting account wherein several websites are hosted on the same server.
Warez - Commercial software stripped of copyright protection. Bootleg software.
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get.
Web Ring - A group of sites which link to each other. These sites often place "Forward" and "Backward" links in the page footer for navigation between the sites.
Yahoo! - A popular Internet portal. Includes a web directory.
Zeal - A web directory which allows users to contribute non-commercial sites for free. Also allows plenty of deeplinks.
Zeitgeist - Search patterns and trends according to Google.
Zip - A format for compressed files used with Windows.
Zone Pricing - A pricing strategy whereby a product is priced differently in various geographic locations. Used often when shipping costs are a major consideration.