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SEO Glossary

Internet Marketing Glossary

  • 301 Redirect
    A way to make one web page redirect the visitor to another page. Whenever you change the web address of a page, apply a 301 redirect to make the old address point to the new one. This ensures that people who have linked to or bookmarked the old address wi
  • ALT Text/Tag or Attribute
    A description of an image in your site's HTML. Unlike humans, search engines read only the ALT text of images, not the images themselves. Add ALT text to images whenever possible.
  • Anchor Text
    The actual text of a link to a web page. On most websites, this text is usually dark blue and underlined, or purple if you've visited the link in the past. Anchor text helps search engines understand what the destination page is about; it describes what y
  • Blog
    A part of your website where you should regularly publish content (e.g. commentary on industry/company topics, descriptions of events, photos, videos, etc.). Each blog post on your website is a new page that a search engine sees, and therefore a new oppor
  • Bookmark
    A link to a website saved for later reference in your web browser or computer. Social bookmarking sites (example: Delicious.com) let users share websites they like with each other. Having links to your site in social bookmarking sites is a sign to crawler
  • Content
    Content is the information contained in text, visual images, audio sounds and video formats providing value to Internet users. In SEM (Search Engine Marketing), unique, relevant content is one of the most important variables in attracting repeat visitors, inbound links to positively impact search engine page rank.
  • Canonical URL
    The canonical URL is the best address on which a user can find a piece of information. Sometimes you might have a situation where the same page content can be accessed at more than one address. Specifying the canonical URL helps search engines understand
  • Conversion Form
    A form through which you collect information about your site visitor. Conversion forms convert traffic into leads. Collecting contact information helps you follow up with these leads.
  • CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
    The part of your code that defines how different elements of your site look (examples: headers, links).
  • Directory
    A web directory or link directory is a web site that specializes in linking to other websites. Directory categorization is usually based on the web site overall rather than one page or a set of keywords. Sites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories. Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness. The two most well-known directories are Yahoo! Directory (which was the first directory developed) and the directory of the Open Directory Project, also known as DMOZ.
  • Domain
    The main web address of your site (example: www.yoursite.com). It's good to renew ownership of your domain for several years. Search engine rankings favor websites with longer registrations because it shows commitment.
  • HTML
    Stands for HyperText Markup Language used to implement web pages. HTML provides web browsers (e.g. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.) with the instructions to display web pages
  • Headings
    Text on your website that is placed inside of a heading tag, such as an H1 or H2. This text is often presented in a larger and stronger font than other text on the page.
  • Inbound Link
    A link from one site into another. A link from another site will improve your SEO, especially if that site has a high PageRank.
  • Indexed Pages
    The pages of your website that are stored by search engines.
  • Internal Link
    A link from one page to another on the same website, such as from your homepage to your products page.
  • Javascript
    A scripting language that allows website administrators to apply various effects or changes to the content of their website as users browse it. Search engines often have difficulty reading content that is inside of Javascript, but they are getting better
  • Keyword
    A word that a user enters in search. Each web page should be optimized with the goal of drawing in visitors who have searched specific keywords.
  • Link Building
    The activity and process of getting more inbound links to your website for improved search engine rankings.
  • Long Tail Keyword
    An uncommon or infrequently searched keyword, typically with two or more words in the phrase. Small businesses should consider targeting long tail keywords, as they are lower difficulty and often have more qualified searchers. Common keywords such as soft
  • Meta Description
    A brief description of fewer than 160 characters of the contents of a page and why someone would want to visit it. This is often displayed on search engine results pages below the page title as a sample of the content on the page.
  • Meta Keywords
    Previously used by search engines in the 90s and early 00s to help determine what a web page was about, the meta keywords tag is no longer used by any major search engines.
  • Metadata
    Data that tells search engines what your website is about.
  • mozRank
    A logarithmic ranking provided by SEOmoz from 0-10.0 of the number and quality of inbound links pointing to a certain website or page on that website. A 10.0 is the best linked-to page on the internet, and a 0 has no recognized inbound links.
  • Nofollow
    When a link from one site does not pass SEO credit to another. Do not use nofollow when linking to internal pages in your website. Use it when linking to external pages that you don't want to endorse.
  • PageRank
    PageRank is a value that Google assigns for pages and websites that it indexes, based on all the factors in its algorithm. Google does release an external PageRank scoring pages from 1:10 that you can check for any website, but this external number is not the same as the internal PageRank Google uses to determine search engine results. All independent search engines have their own version of PageRank. Potentially interesting fact: PageRank was named for Google’s Larry Page and it is calculated at the page level: pun fun!
  • Page Title
    The name you give your web page, which is seen at the top your browser window. Page titles should contain keywords related to your business. Words at the beginning of your page title are more highly weighted than words at the end.
  • Panda
    Refers to a series of updates released by Google to its search engine ranking algorithm that are intended to discourage people who create large amounts of mediocre content in an attempt to claim many keyword rankings without generating much value for user
  • PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
    Advertising method in which an advertiser puts an ad in an online advertising venue and pays that venue each time a visitor clicks on his/her ad. Google AdWords is the classic example of this.
  • Ranking Factor
    One element of how a search engine determines where to rank a certain page, such as the number of inbound links to a page or the contents of the title tag on that page.
  • Referrer String
    A piece of information sent by a user's browser when they navigate from page to page on the web. It includes information on where they came from previously, which helps webmasters understand how users are finding their website.
  • RSS Feed
    RSS stands for really simple syndication. It is a subscription-based way to get updates on new content from a web source. Set up an RSS feed for your website or blog to help your followers stay updated when you release new content.
  • SEO
    Stands for Search Engine Optimization which uses tools and techniques to enhance the position of a website in the search results from a particular keyword or key phrase
  • SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page)
    The page that you are sent to after you run a query in a search engine. It typically has 10 results on it, but this may vary depending on the query and search engine in question.
  • Sitemap
    A special document created by a webmaster or a piece of software that provides a map of all the pages on a website to make it easier for a search engine to index that website.
  • Social Media
    Online media created by and shared among individuals. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter are popular social media websites. Links from many social media sites now appear in searches. It's important to have links to your site spread througho
  • Spider
    A computer program that browses the internet and collects information about websites.
  • Traffic
    Visitors to a website that can be measured and tracked are often referred to as traffic. Types of traffic include referral traffic search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing) including paid traffic generally purchased on a PPC basis, and traffic which results from clicks on the non-paid search results, otherwise known as organic or natural search results.. Other types of traffic include direct where the user types the website address directly into the browser address window and referral traffic originating from other websites linked to the visited website.
  • The Fold
    The “fold“ is the point on your website where the page gets cut off by the bottom of a user's monitor or browser window. Anything below the fold can be scrolled to, but isn't seen right away. Search engines place some priority on content above the fold, s
  • Title
    The title of a page on your website, which is enclosed in a title HTML tag, inside of the head section of the page. It appears in search engine results and at the top of a user's web browser when they are on that page.
  • Traffic Rank
    The ranking of how much traffic your site gets compared to all other sites on the internet. You can check your traffic rank on Alexa.
  • URL
    Uniform Resource Locator. These are the letters and symbols that make up the address of specific Web pages. This page’s URL is http://directom.com/dom/semresources/internetmarketingtermglossary/.
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