SEO Technical Terms Alphabetically - K

Ø  Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

o    KPIs help organizations achieve organizational goals through the definition and measurement of progress. The key indicators are agreed upon by an organization and are indicators which can be measured that will reflect success factors. The KPIs selected must reflect the organization's goals, they must be key to its success, and they must be measurable. Key performance indicators usually are long-term considerations for an organization." 

Ø  Key phrase (or keyword phrase)

o    Combination of keyword is called keyword phrase.

Ø  Keyword

o     A word that a search engine user might use to find relevant web page(s). If a keyword doesn't appear anywhere in the text of your web page, it's highly unlikely your page will appear in the search results (unless of course you have bid on that keyword in a pay-per-click search engine). 

Ø  Keyword density

o    The number of occurrences that a given keyword appears on a web page. The more times that a given word appears on your page (within reason), the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a search. 

Ø  Keyword Matching

o    Keyword matching is the process of selecting and providing advertising or information that match the user's search query.

There are four types of keyword matching including:

Broad Match
Exact Match
Phrase Match
Negative Keyword  

Ø  Keyword popularity

o    The number of occurrences of searches done by Internet users of a given keyword during a period of time. Both WordTracker.com and Overture's Keyword Selector Tool (http://inventory.overture.com) provide keyword popularity numbers. 

Ø  Keyword prominence

o    The location (i.e. placement) of a given keyword in the HTML source code of a web page. The higher up in the page a particular word is, the more prominent it is and thus the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a search engine user. Consequently, it's best to have your first paragraph be chock full of important keywords rather than superfluous marketingspeak. This concept also applies to the location of important keywords within individual HTML tags, such as heading tags, title tags, or hyperlink text. So get in the habit of starting off your title tags with a good keyword rather than "Welcome to." 

Ø  Keyword research

o    Determining the words and phrases that people use to find something, then compiling them into a list for use on web pages, etc. 

Ø  Keyword stuffing

o    Placing excessive amounts of keywords into the page copy and the HTML in such a way that it detracts from the readability and usability of a given page for the purpose of boosting the page's rankings in the search engines. This includes hiding keywords on the page by making the text the same color as the background, hiding keywords in comment tags, overfilling alt tags with long strings of keywords, etc. Keyword stuffing is just another shady way of gaming the search engines and, as such, its use should be strongly discouraged. 

Ø  Keyword-rich

o    When a given page or bit of text is chock full of good keywords rather than a bunch of meaningless words (e.g. "welcome", "click here") or irrelevant words (e.g. "solution"). 

SEO Technical Terms Alphabetically - J

Ø  Java applets

o    Small programs written in the Java programming language that can be embedded into web pages. Applet programs run on the Internet user's computer rather than the web server's computer. Search engines can not run Java applets. Consequently, if navigation or content is embedded in a Java applet, it will be invisible to the search engines and will not get indexed. Java source code gets compiled into executable code called "bytecode." 

Ø  JavaScripts

o    programs written in the JavaScript programming language. JavaScripts run on the Internet user's computer rather than the web server's computer. Search engines can not run JavaScripts. Consequently, if navigation or content is embedded in a JavaScript. 

Ø  Jump Page Ad

o    A microsite reached by clicking a button or banner. The jump page itself can list several topics, which can link to your site. 

Ø  junk pages

o    meaningless documents that serve no purpose other than to spam the search engines with keyword stuffed pages in hopes a visitor might click on an adsense ad .

SEO Technical Terms Alphabetically - I

Ø  Impression

o    The number of times your search ad is served to users by search engines. 

Ø  Inbound links (IBL)

o    Links that point to your site from sites other than your own. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site's PageRank (PR). 

Ø  Index

o    A search engine's database in which it stores textual content from every web page that its spider visits. 

Ø  Inktomi

o    First introduced in September 1995, Inktomi Corporation from California was a key player in the search engine market where it pioneered online search technologies. It initially provided software to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) but then went onto power other well-known web search tools such as HotBot, Looksmart, MSN, regional search engines and others.

It ultimately displaced Alta Vista when Inktomi started using a distributed network technology (instead of operating everything on one machine) that enabled them to index more than 1.3 million documents on the web at that time.

Inktomi was the first to launch a paid inclusion service that meant websites would receive regular and frequent re-indexing for a fee. It also invented a proxy cache for ISP web traffic called “Traffic Server”.

During its short life, Inktomi acquired many businesses including Webspective, Infoseek, eScene Networks and FastForward Networks. Once the Internet bubble had burst in 2000, many of its acquisitions were sold off due to the financial collapse of most of its customer base.

Yahoo! purchased Inktomi in 2003 which remains central to its search engine database today.  

Ø  Inlinks

o    A synonym for back links. Popularized by Yahoo! 

Ø  Insertion Order (I/O)

o    A contract that specifies the details of your search advertising campaign, including placements options, keywords, ad creative, landing page, pricing, geo-targeting, and language options. 

Ø  Internal Links

o    An Internal Link is a hypertext link that points to another page within the same website. Internal links can be used as a form of navigation for people, directing them to pages within the website. Links assist with creating good information architecture within the site.

Search engines also use internal text links to crawl pages within a website. The way internal links are structured will impact the way in which search engine bots spider and subsequently index pages.  

Ø  Internet

o    Sometimes called "The Net", the Internet is a publicly accessible worldwide system of computer networks that enable people to send and receive information from other computers. The Internet uses the TCP/IP network protocols to facilitate data transmission.

There are three levels of hierarchy including backbone networks, mid-level networks and stub networks. These include commercial (.com or .co), university (.ac or .edu) and other research networks (.org, .net).

The origins of the Internet began in 1962 where a government agency called RAND was commissioned by the US Air Force to develop a military research network that could survive a nuclear attack. Packet Switching was invented as a way of sending data.

The first email program was created in 1972. The TCP/IP Protocol was developed in 1973 and by 1983 it became the core Internet protocol.

The same year of 1983 saw the development of the Domain Name System (DNS) by the University of Wisconsin. The domain name system made it easier for people to access other servers rather than having to remember the corresponding long IP numbers.

In 1992 the World Wide Web was released by CERN and the Internet Society was chartered who controls the Internet. The first graphical user interface to the WWW called “Mosaic for X” was released.

By 1996, most Internet traffic was carried by independent ISPs. The Internet Society is building a new TCP/IP that will allow billions of addresses rather than the limited supply that we have today.  

Ø  Internet Explorer

o    Introduced in 1995, Internet Explorer is a web browser produced by Microsoft. It is also known as Explorer, IE, Microsoft Internet Explorer or MSIE. Internet Explorer is the most widely used browser in the world to view information on the World Wide Web (WWW).

This browser didn’t get popular until version 3 was released in 1996 which supported CSS, ActiveX controls, Java applets, inline multimedia and the PICS system for content metadata.

Version 8 is currently in development where further improvements will be made to the security of the browser. There will also be more support for CSS 2.1 specifications.

Over the years (particularly in the early releases) Internet Explorer has been subject to harsh criticisms including its security architecture and its lack of support of open standards.  

Ø  Interstitial Ad

o    An ad page that appears for a short period of time before the user-requested page is displayed. Also known as a transition ad, splash page, or Flash page. 

Ø  Inventory

o    Advertising space available for purchase on a website. Based on projections, inventory may be specified as number of impressions or as a share of voice. Also known as ad avail. 

Ø  Invisible Web

o    a term that refers to the vast amount of information on the web that is not indexed by the search engines. Coined in 1994 by Dr. Jill Ellsworth. 

Ø  IP Address

o    IP Address stands for “Internet Protocol Address” and is sometimes referred to as “IP” or “Internet Address”. It is expressed as a four-part series of numbers separated by periods that identifies every sender and receiver of network data. The numbers represent the domain, the network, the subnetwork and the host computer. For example: 127.0.0.10 with each number ranging from 0 through to 255.

Each server or device connected to the Internet is assigned a unique permanent (static) or temporary (dynamic) IP address. The IP Address sometimes translates into a specific domain name.  

Ø  ISP - Internet Service Provider

o    ISP is an abbreviation for Internet Service Provider. An ISP provides a range of Internet related services to customers including Internet connectivity, email, website hosting, domain name registration and hosting.

Usually provided for a monthly fee, an ISP can be a commercial business, a university, a government organization, a school or any other entity that provides access to the Internet to members or subscribers.  

SEO Technical Terms Alphabetically - H

Ø  Hallway page

o    a page that serves as an index to a group of pages that you would like the search engine spiders to find. Once a search engine spider indexes the hallway page, it should also follow all the links on that hallway page and in turn index those pages as well.  

Ø  Heading tag

o    An HTML tag that is often used to denote a page or section heading on a web page. Search engines pay special attention to text that is marked with a heading tag, as such text is set off from the rest of the page content as being more important. 

Ø  Hidden keywords

o    Keywords that are placed in the HTML source in such a way that these words are not viewable by human visitors looking at the rendered web page.  

Ø  Hidden Text - SEO Spam Tactic

o    Hidden Text is a SEO spam tactic to hide contextual html text from human visitors to a webpage, however making it available to search engines to spider the text.

The theory is that if you place more relevant html text content on the page rich with targeted keywords, then it will assist the page gaining ranking within search engine results. Some website owners do like text content on their page because they believe it negatively affects their brand and user web experience. So, they hide the text in the hope that the page will still rank for targeted keywords.

Hidden Text is an illegal technique as search engines consider it search engine spam. By undertaking this practice, it will eventually harm natural search performance of a website.

Google Quality Guidelines specify to “Avoid hidden text or hidden links”.

Ø  Hijacking of Websites

o    Hijacking of websites is a practice that makes search engines believe that a specific website resides at another URL. It is a form of search engine spam and cloaking. The reason why this method is undertaken by spammers is to increase rankings in search engine result pages. Webpage Hijacking is an illegal spam tactic.

When spiders crawl websites and they discover two pages with the same content, the search engine will decide which is the main url while the other is not indexed. Spammers will use tactics to ensure that their page is the one that is chosen by the search engine.

An example of website hijacking is where there are two pages with exactly the same content but at different addresses – company.com (the real site) and company.net (the rogue site). Spammers use tactics to ensure their site ranks above the real site.

Ø  Hits

o    A download of a file from a web server. Hits do not correlate with web page visits. Every graphic on a web page counts as a hit. Thus, a single access of a web page with 20 unique graphics on it register as 21 hits - 20 for the graphics and 1 for the HTML page. Web metrics guru Jim Sterne says hits "stand for How Idiots Track Success." People who talk in terms of hits are usually either ignorant or are trying to snow their boss into thinking the website is doing better than it really is. 

Ø  Homepage

o    A homepage is the main page of a website. Like a cover of a book or the front of a store, its function is to welcome people and to inform them of the overall purpose of the website. The homepage offers an index of navigation that organizes content and leads to other parts of the website.

The homepage usually accumulates the most PageRank score since its url is usually where other sites link to the most. The url of a homepage usually ends in a domain name extension such as .com, .org, .edu, etc.

Other terms used to describe a homepage are front page, main web page and webserver directory index.

It’s interesting to note that in some countries such as Japan, Korea and Germany, the term “homepage” usually refers to the whole website, not just the first page.

Even though the home page is designed to be the entry point of the website, people can go directly to other pages within the site without ever seeing the front page.
  

Ø  HTML

o    Stands for HyperText Markup Language. The programming language used to mark up web content and display it in a formatted manner. It's up to the web browser software, e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape, to render HTML source. 

Ø  HTML Source

o    The raw, unrendered programming code. It can be accessed in Internet Explorer by going to the "View" menu then selecting "Source". 

Ø  HTTP 301 – Status Code Definition

o    The 301 status code means the URI requested has “Moved Permanently” and has been assigned a new URI. Any future requests should use one of the returned URIs.

It is best practice to use 301 Redirects when multiple copies of the same document reside on different URIs. This will ensure that duplicate content is removed from the site and each and every unique page will only have one URL.  

Ø  HTTP 302 – Status Code Definition

o    The 302 status code means that the document requested is “Found” however temporarily resides under a different URL. Since a permanent redirect has not been used, the client should continue to use the original requested URL for future requests.  

Ø  HTTP 400 – Status Code Definition

o    The 400 status code means a “Bad Request” stating that the server is not able to understand the document request due to a malformed syntax. The user is required to modify its request prior to repeating it.  

Ø  HTTP 401 – Status Code Definition

o    The 401 status code means “Unauthorized”. This server requests user authentication prior to fulfilling the document request.  

Ø  HTTP 403 – Status Code Definition

o    The 403 status code means “Forbidden”. The server understood the request, however is refusing to fulfill it. The webmaster may wish to alert the user why their request has been denied. If the organization does not wish to provide this reason then a 404 (Not Found) status code can be displayed instead.  

Ø  HTTP 404 – Status Code Definition

o    The response error message “404” represents a document “Not Found”. This means that the client was able to communicate with the server, however could not find the requested document. Alternatively, the server could be configured to not fulfill the request and not provide a reason why.  

Ø  HTTP 410 – Status Code Definition

o    Similar to a 404 Not Found error message, the 410 status code states that the requested document is “intentionally gone”, is no longer available and there is no forwarding address.

The 410 status code is usually used for limited display documents such as promotional information. It is up to the discretion of the web master to determine at what point to remove the 410 status message.  

Ø  HTTP 500 – Status Code Definition

o    The 500 status code error message states that there was an internal server error which has prevented the document from being fulfilled.  

Ø  HTTP 501 – Status Code Definition

o    The 501 status code message is displayed when the server does not recognize the document request method. The server is not capable of fulfilling this request and states the request was “Not Implemented”.  

Ø  HTTP – Hypertext Markup Language

o    HTTP stands for hypertext markup language and is the main markup language for creation of web pages. It defines how data is structured and informs the web browser how the page is to be displayed with the use of formatting text and images.

Some of the page elements that can be coded with HTML include Page Titles, Text (paragraphs, lines and phrases), Lists (unordered, ordered and definition lists), Tables, Forms, Basic HTML Data Types (character data, colors, lengths, content types, etc) and much more.

The source html code of any webpage is available by simply clicking “Page Source” in a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer.

HTML is not a programming language and therefore is quite static in nature. It is considered to be a subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language).

Tim Berners Lee first described HTML and it was publicly available in 1991 via a document called “HTML Tags”.

HTML became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000) and its specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) of which commercial software vendors offer input.

Ø  Hubs

o    Hubs are a range of centralized websites linking to many related topical Authority websites. Characteristics of a hub are:

1. Many outbound links to sites (typically Authority sites) that contain relevant content

2. The content on the hub site is highly focused

A site can either be a hub, an authority, both, or neither. An authority or hub site will get preferential treatment by a search engine algorithm that incorporates “topic distillation”.

SEO Technical Terms Alphabetically - G

    Ø  GAP - Google Advertising Professional

o    Google Advertising Professional is a free program, offered by Google, for professionals wishing to manage multiple Google Adwords clients.

For More: Google Advertising Professional

Ø  Gateway page

o    Also called a "doorway page" or a "bridge page". A gateway page is a low quality web page that contains very little content and exists solely for the purpose of driving traffic to another page. This is done through spamdexing, spamming the index of a search engine. Gateway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings.
 

Ø  Geo-Targeting

o    Advertising that is distributed based on geographic location. Online advertising allows for targeting of countries, states, cities and suburbs (in some markets).  

Ø  Google

o    Google is the world's number one search engine with a 50.8% market share, ahead of Yahoo! 23.6% and Live Search 8.4% (Dec 2006).Google was founded by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. At the time of the company’s initial public offering in August 2004 $1.67 billion was raised, making Google worth $23 billion. Google’s success should be attributed to its unique algorithmic ranking system PageRank – a system that assigns a score to a web page based on the number of links to that page. Based in Mountain View, California the company now employs 13,748 people. The company has a relaxed corporate atmosphere that is illustrated in the companies philosophy "Don't be evil".Central to Google's profitability is Google Adwords launched in 2000. Google Adwords are text-based contextual ads relevant to keyword searches. In 2006 the company earned $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues about 90 times the revenue from other Google ventures.Google has acquired several start-up companies over the past few years including:

Ø  Pyra Labs creators of Blogger in 1999

Ø  Upstartle, creators of Writely in 2006.

Ø  Measure Map, a weblog statistics application in 2006.

Ø  YouTube for a huge $1.65 billion in stock in 2006.

Ø  JotSpot a developer of wiki technology in 2006.

Ø  DoubleClick purchased for $3.1 billion in 2007.

Ø  Postini an enterprise messaging security company in 2007.

Current Google applications include: Web search, Image Search, Google News,Google Product Search, Google Groups, Google Maps, Gmail, AdWords, Google Video, Google Checkout and Google Earth.

Ø  Google AdSense

            o    Paid ads webmasters may place on their websites.

Ø  Google Analytics

o    Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offering detailed visitor statistics. The tool can be used to track all the usual site activities: visits, page views, pages per visit, bounce rates and average time on site etc. But it can also be used to specifically track Adsense traffic – therefore helping webmasters to optimize Adwords adverts based on where visitors come from, time on site, click path and geographic location. Modeled on Urchin’s analytics tool, after Google purchased Urchin Software Group in 2005, Google Analytics was first rolled out in late 2005. The response was overwhelming and Google had to suspend sign ups only a few days later. After a short period using a lottery type of invitation system – the tool made generally available in August 2006.

Features Include:

*Updates in less than one hour
*Users can add up to 50 websites
*Integration with Google Adwords
*User friendly interface - Dashboard format

Ø  Google bombing

o    Google Bombing is when a group of sites such as blogs join forces to link to an unflattering page about a company such that this page rises to the top of the search results in Google. Google bombing takes advantage of the power of hyperlink text and of PageRank. For example, if a group of sites with high PageRank all link to a page about XYZ Company's inappropriate behavior with hyperlink text of "XYZ Company sucks" then the linked page can shoot to the top of Google's search results for the term "XYZ Company."  

Ø  Google Bowling

o    Google Bowling is a black hat SEO technique used to knock competitors down or out of search engine results.It is a form of SEO sabotage that is conducted by pointing hundreds of questionable links from low quality sites at a competitor's site so they end up banned or penalized by Google.Generally newer sites are more susceptible to Google Bowling as older sites are better established with a range of existing high quality links.

Ø  Google Checkout

o    Google's online payment processing service, Google Checkout, was designed to simplify the online purchase/payment process.It works by allowing users to store their credit card and shipping details on their Google Account. Therefore minimizing the amount of information they need to input at the point of purchase. Purchases can be made at the click of a button.

Features include: 

* Fraud protection
* The ability to track purchases
* Easy transactions

Ø  Google Dance

o    The Google Dance refers to when Google indexes are updated. This period of time often results in fluctuations in the index size and some noticeable changes in search engine result positions.The term Google Dance was adopted as while an update is being processed the position of a website in Google seems to "dance" as it fluctuates. The fluctuation is due to each of Google's nine datacenters being updated out of sync - meaning for a time the results are different.

Ø  Google Juice

o    Internet slang to refer to the substance which flows between web pages via their hyperlinks. Pages with lots of links pointing to them acquire much 'Google Juice' and pages which link to highly 'juicy' pages acquire some reflected 'Google Juice'. 

Ø  Google Labs

o    Google Labs is the home to Google's latest innovations and beta products. It is a testing ground for new services in development.A number of popular products are graduates of Google Labs including: Google Reader, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Video, Personalized Search, Google Desktop and iGoogle.

Current Google Labs products include:

* Google Code Search
* Google Transit
* Google Music Trends
* Accessible Search
* Google Extensions for Firefox
* Google Trends
* Google Mars
* Google Page Creator
* Google Dashboard Widgets for Mac
* Google Web Accelerator
* Google Ride Finder
* Google Suggest
* Product Search for Mobile
* Google Sets

Ø  Google Pack

o    Free software specifically selected by Google. There are no trial versions or spyware and it's ready to use in just a few clicks.

Currently includes:

      - Google Earth
- Spyware Doctor
- Google Photos Screensaver
- Star Office
- Norton Security Scan
- Google Desktop
- Google Talk
- Picasa
- Adobe Reader
- Firefox with Google Toolbar
- Skype
- Real Player

Ø  Google Supplemental Index

o    Google's Supplemental Index, is a secondary database containing Supplemental Results – pages deemed to be of less importance by Google’s algorithm or are less trusted.The primary measure of a pages importance is the number and quality of links pointing to that page. Pages in the Supplemental Index can still rank in search results, but this will depend on the number of pages in the main index relevant to the search.

Some reasons pages may be in the Google Supplemental Index:

* Duplicate content
* Low PageRank
* Lack of trust
* A site with a large number of pages
* Page freshness
* Excessively long URLs

As of July 2007 Google discontinued the practice of placing a “Supplemental Result” tag on search results making it near impossible to tell whether a result is in the supplemental index or the main one.
 

Ø  Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer

o    Google Toolbar is Internet browser add on available for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Features for Internet Explorer Google Toolbar include:

- Search Settings Notifier
- Pop-up blocker
- Address bar browse by name
- Google search box
- Google Suggest
- A SpellCheck
- AutoLink & AutoFill
- PageRank display
- Google Account sign-in
- Google Bookmarks ]

Ø  Google Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox

o    Google Toolbar is Internet browser add on available for both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Features for Mozilla Firefox Google Toolbar include:

- Access to Google Docs & Spreadsheets
- Customize the layout options
- Handle mailto: links with Gmail.
- Google search box
- Google Suggest
- A SpellCheck
- AutoLink & AutoFill
- PageRank display
- Google Account sign-in
- Google Bookmarks

Ø  Google Traffic Estimator

o    Google Traffic Estimator is a tool that indicates the number of clicks to expect on Google Adwords ads for particular keywords. The tool can be used to indicate search volume, average cost per click, estimated ad positions, estimated clicks per day and estimated cost per day.
Google Traffic Estimator does not provide a numeric estimate of the number of search queries, instead it offers only a visual estimation of search volume in a small graphic.

Ø  Google Trends

o    Google Trends is a tool from Google Labs. It allows you to see how Google search volumes for a particular keyword have changed over a period of time. It shows the popularity of search terms from the beginning of 2004 onwards. Google Trends data is presented in a line graph. The horizontal axis represents time and the vertical axis shows how often a term is searched for. Data can be broken down further by region, city and language. You can also compare multiple search terms.

Ø  Google XML Sitemap

o    Google Sitemaps are XML files that list the URLs available on a site. The aim is to help site owners notify search engines about the URLs on a website that are available for indexing. Webmasters can include information about each URL, such as when it was last updated and its importance in the context of the site. You should try to make all pages on your site easily accessible to search engines without the use of google sitemaps. But there are situations when your site might benefit from Sitemaps Protocol like for instance if your site is built in rich AJAX or Flash, or if you have a large database driven site that isn’t well linked.

Ø  Googlebot

o    Googlebot is a search bot used by Google. It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google search engine.If a webmaster wishes to restrict the information on their site available to a Googlebot, or other well-behaved spider, they can do so by with the appropriate directives in a robots.txt file. 

Ø  Googleware

o    The assortment of tools produced by google that can be used to search, report, play, research

Includes (but is not limited to):

      Blogsearch
Google Analytics
Adwords
Adsense
Google Video
Google Scholar
Google News
Google search
Froogle
Google Maps
Google Images
Google Earth 

Ø  Googlewhack

o    A Google search query consisting of two words, that returns a single result. 

Ø  Grey Hat SEO

o    SEO using both Black Hat and White Hat techniques. 

Ø  Seth Godin

            o     Seth Godin is a author, blogger and internet entrepreneur. Godin founded Yoyodyne, one of the first online marketing companies in 1995, the company was sold to Yahoo! in 1998. He is the author of several bestselling books. Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com Top 100 bestseller for a year. Ideavirus is one of the most popular ebooks ever written with over 1,000,000 people downloading the book. Recently Godin founded the website Squidoo. Godin holds an MBA from Stanford.