Glossary of SEM terms
Adwords - A system to advertise on Google & partner sites on a CPC (cost per click) basis.
Agent Name - Synonymous with "User-Agent". This is the name of a spider or browser as defined by the owner.
Algorithm - A mathematical formulae which is used in order to rank websites and web pages.
Altavista - One of the first large scale search engines.
Back Link - A link from one website to another.
Bridge Page - Similar to "Doorway Page", this is a specifically designed entry point for a website.
Click-Through - A click on a link that leads to another website.
Click-Tracking - The use of scripts in order to track inbound and outbound links.
Cloaking - Delivering different content to specific crawlers/spiders. This is generally used to trick spiders into seeing optimized content.
Comment Tag - A tag in HTML that is invisible unless viewed through the source code.
Counter - A program or script that counts hits/visits to a page.
CPA - Cost per Action. Where you pay for a specified action such as a purchase.
CPC - Cost per Click. With this you are charged for every click your link on someone's website receives.
CPL - Cost per Lead. Where you pay for a lead i.e. is someone does something.
CPM - Cost per Thousand. Where you pay for each 1000 impressions.
Crawler - A program that goes through websites and gathers information for the crawler's creator.
Cross Linking - Multiple sites linking to each other.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. Used to manipulate and easily manage the design of a website.
CTR - Click Through Rate. The ratio of impressions shown to the number of clicks.
Dead Link - A link that produces a 404 error, page not found.
Directory - A website that list other websites in their various categories.
Domain - Name for a website e.g. www.sembasics.com.
Dynamic Page - A page that generates content "on-the-fly" as a user requests the page.
Error Log File - A server log file which records errors encountered.
Google Everflux - This denotes the continuous changes in the Google search results pages.
FFA Free For All - This is a links page with nothing but links added by visitors.
Freshbot - This is the name for the Google crawlers that are known to add pages to the Google index more promptly than others.
Google - The largest and currently the #1 search engine.
Google Bot - The crawlers which index pages into Google.
Gulliver - The name of the web crawler for Northern Light.
Header Tag - An HTML tag which is commonly used for page headers.
Hidden Text - Text which is invisible to the human eye because it is the same color as the background.
Hit - An instance of a graphic or file being loaded on a webpage.
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language. The languages used to format webpages.
HTML Link - A link from one page to another.
Inbound Link - A link from another website to your website.
Inktomi - A database of search results used to power multiple search engines.
IP Address - A unique number which identifies a computer or system.
IP Spoofing - An illegal process of faking an IP address.
JavaScript - An embedded client side scripting language.
Keyword - A single word used to help identify the purpose of a website.
Keyword Density - The percentage density of a given keyword or phrase.
Keyword Stuffing - Stuffing a page with numerous keywords for the sole purpose of confusing search engines.
Link Farm - A series of websites linking to each other in order to increase rankings.
Meta Search - Searching multiple databases and combining results.
Meta Tags - A tag used for behind the scenes purposes, such as providing content to non human visitors.
Northern Light - An older search engines, once very popular.
Open Directory Project - A large directory of websites run by volunteers. Their database is used by many website across the internet.
Optimization - Fine tuning a website or webpage with the ultimate goal being to ascertain a higher position in all or a specific search engine's results.
Outbound Link - Linking from your website to another website.
Page View - The number of times a page was loaded.
PopUp - The opening of a new window above the previous window.
PFI - Pay For Inclusion. This is where a site must pay to be listed at all.
Pop Under - A pop-up that loads under a page so that it is only viewable when the current page is closed.
PR - Google's Page Rank. The higher the rank the better position your website or page will have in their results.
Query - A search phrase submitted to search engines.
Reciprocal Link - Where 2 sites exchange links.
Referrer - The page from which a user has come.
Refresh Tag - A tag which defines when and to where a page will refresh.
Robot - Generally the name given to a spider / crawler. Anything that is not a human visitor.
Robots.txt - A file created to direct the search engine spiders in specific directions of the website.
Scooter - The search crawler of Altavista.
Search Engine - A site which searches the web for sites which are relevant for a given search query.
SERP - A search engine results page.
Slurp - The Inktomi search crawler.
Spider - A program that visits and downloads specific informaiton from a webpage.
Submission - Submitting a site to a search engine or directory.
Traffic - The visitors and page views on a website.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator. The address at which a specific resource can be found.
