Here's a list of some commonly used terms in the search engine marketing industry. WebPRpro strongly supports knowledge sharing, so we offer these definitions to ensure that our users have a good grasp of SEO and SEM terminology to get the most out of our products.

A

ALT Text: also known as alternative text or alt attribute. An HTML tag (ALT tag) used to provide images with a text description in the event images are turned off in a web browser. The images text description is usually visible while “hovering” over the image. This tag is also important for the web access of the visually impaired.

Anchor Text: words used to link to a page, an important signal to search engines to determine a page’s relevance.

Automatic Optimization: search engines identify which ad for an individual advertiser demonstrates the highest CTR (click-through rate) as time progresses, and then optimizes the ad serve, showing that ad more often than other ads in the same Ad Group/Ad Order.

B

Backlinks: all the links pointing at a particular web page. Also called inbound links.

Blogs: a truncated form for “web log.” A blog is a frequently updated journal that is intended for general public consumption. They usually represent the personality of the author or web site. A good source of blogging terms is at [http://www.whatis.techtarget.com] .

Blogosphere: the all encompassing world of blogs, bloggers and blog postings. The blogosphere is a rapidly growing and evolving aspect of the Internet.

C

CAPTCHA: an abbreviation of "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". A CAPTCHA system contains a graphical representation of several letters and a field in which those letters must be entered. The intention is to prevent access to automated systems.

Click Through: when a user clicks on a hypertext link and is taken to the destination of that link.

Click Through Rate: the percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who see the link. Also called CTR.

Competitive Analysis: as used in SEO, the assessment and analysis of strengths and weaknesses of competing web sites, including identifying traffic patterns, major traffic sources, and keyword selection.

Cookie: a message sent to a Web client (usually a browser) by a server. The Web client will store this message as a text file. This message is sent back (unchanged) to the server by the Web client each time it requests a page from that server. Cookies are used for authenticating, session tracking, and for identifying users and maintaining site preferences or preparing customized Web pages for them.

Crawler: automated programs in search engines that gather web site listings by automatically crawling the web. A search engine's crawler (also called a spider or robot) “reads” page text contents and web page coding, and also follows links to other hyperlinked pages on the web pages it crawls. A crawler makes copies of the web pages found and stores these in the search engine's index, or database.

D

Deep Linking: linking that guides, directs and links a click-through searcher (or a search engine crawler) to a very specific and relevant product or category web page from search terms and PPC ads. The concept in search engine optimization of linking to pages other than the site's homepage.

Description Tag: refers to the information contained in the description META tag. This tag is meant to hold the brief description of the web page it is included on.

Directory Search: also known as a search directory. Refers to a directory of web sites contained in an engine that are categorized into topics. The main difference between a search directory and a search engine is in how the listings are obtained. A search directory relies on user input in order to categorize and include a web site. Additionally, a directory usually only includes higher-level pages of a domain.

Domain: refers to a specific web site address.

E

Ecommerce: conducting commercial transactions on the internet where goods, information or services are bought and sold.

External Linking: the act of building properly structured links from third party sites for search engine optimization.

External Referrer: a URL that is outside of a particular website, but refers visitors to that website.

F

FAQ: stands for “Frequently Asked Questions.

H

HTTP: stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol.”

HTTPS: stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.”

I

Index: a search engine’s “index” refers to the amount of documents found by a search engines crawler on the web.

Internal Linking: the act of building properly structured links from within one's own site for search engine optimization. Search engines must be able to index a site in order to include it in search results. If a site is not "indexable", or if a site has experienced a reduction in indexability, it becomes extremely difficult for getting its URLs to be included in search results. 

IP Address: abbreviation for Internet Protocol Address, a unique combination of numbers assigned to individual electronic devices or networks that communicate over the Internet. Basically, it’s a trackable address for any computer, and it can be used to localize results.

K

Keyword: a single word that relates to a specific subject or topic. For example, “glossary” would be a keyword for this document.

Keyword Phrase: a combination of words that a searcher might type into a search field. Includes generic, category keywords; industry-specific terms; product brands; common misspellings and expanded variations (called Keyword Stemming), or multiple words (called Long Tail for their lower CTRs but sometimes better conversion rates). All might be entered as a search query.

Keyword Density: the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used in the body of a page or press release. This is a percentage value determined by the number of words on the page, as opposed to the number of times the specific keyword appears within it. In general, the higher the number of times a keyword appears in a page, the higher its density.

Keyword Tag: refers to the META keywords tag within a web page. This tag is meant to hold approximately 8 – 10 keywords or keyword phrases, separated by commas. These phrases should be either misspellings of the main page topic, or terms that directly reflect the content on the page on which they appear. Keyword tags are sometimes used for internal search results as well as viewed by search engines.

L

Link Popularity: link popularity generally refers to the total number of links pointing to any particular URL. There are typically two types of link popularity: Internal and External. Internal link popularity typically refers to the number of links or pages within a web site that link to a specific URL. External link popularity refers to the number of inbound links from external web sites that are pointing to a specific URL. If you have more “links” than your competitors, you are typically known to have link cardinality or link superiority.

M

META Data: HTML data on a webpage that describe the content on the page and provides keywords. This information is used by search engines to determine what the page is about. The search engines then index the page according to their algorithms.

META Tag: a HTML tag that provides information about a web document. Unlike regular tags, META tags do not provide formatting information for the browser. Instead they provide such information as the author, date of creation or latest update for the page, and keywords which indicate the subject matter.

O

Organic Results: listings on SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) that were not paid for; listings for which search engines do not sell space. Sites appear in organic (also called “natural”) results because a search engine has applied formulas (algorithms) to its search crawler index, combined with editorial decisions and content weighting, that it deems important enough inclusion without payment.

Organic Search 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.

Organic Search Rankings: search engine ranking of web pages found in SERPs.

P
PageRank (PR): the Google technology developed at Stanford University for placing importance on pages and web sites. It is one of hundreds of factors in the algorithm that determines a page’s rankings.

Podcasts: a media file distributed via the Internet for playback on portable media players and personal computers. It can mean both the content and the method of syndication.

R

Rank: how well positioned a particular web page or web site appears in search engine results. Rank and position affect your click-through rates and, ultimately, conversion rates for your landing pages.

S

SEO: acronym for “Search Engine Optimization.” This is the process of editing a web site’s content and code in order to improve visibility within one or more search engines.

SERP: acronym for Search Engine Results Page, the page delivered to a searcher that displays the results of a search query entered into the search field. Displays both paid ad (sponsored) and organic listings in varying positions or rank.

Saturation (Search Engine Saturation): a term relating to the number of URLs included from a specific web site in any given search engine. The higher the saturation level or number of pages indexed into a search engine, the higher the potential traffic levels and rankings.

Search Directory: similar to a search engine, in that they both compile databases of web sites. A directory does not use crawlers in order to obtain entries in its search database. Instead, it relies on user interaction and submissions for the content it contains. Submissions are then categorized by topic and normally alphabetized.

Search Engines: a database of many web pages. Most engines display the number of web pages they hold in their database at any given time. A search engine generally “ranks” or orders the results according to a set of parameters.

Search Engine Marketing: the marketing of one's website through a search engine, whether through paid search or search engine optimization.

Search Engine Rankings: the position a website has on a search results page when a particular keyword is searched for.

Search Engine Results Pages: the pages returned by a search engine when a search query is performed. Generally consists of both paid search and natural search listings.

Secondary Links: links that are indirectly acquired links, such as a story in a major newspaper about a new product your company released.

T

Tier I Search Engines: the top echelon, or top three, search engines that serve the vast majority of searcher queries. Also referred to as Major Engines, Top Tier Engines or GYM, for Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Live Search.

Traffic: refers to the number of visitors a website receives. It can be determined by examination of web logs.

Traffic Analysis: the process of analyzing traffic to a web site to understand what visitors are searching for and what is driving traffic to a site.

U

Unique Visitor: the number of individuals who visit a website, does not include the same person visiting the site more than once.

W

Web Crawler: a program which browses the Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later indexing by a search engine.