SEO Industry Jargon
Credit must be given where credit is due. These definitions or brief snippets of definitions of SEO terms come from www.seo-dictionary.com Actually, credit will be given to the useful website since the links to the fuller definitions of the words go straight to the site and potentially make it some ad revenue. You’re welcome www.seo-dictionary.com!
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| Above the fold | A term traditionally used to describe the top portion of a newspaper. In email … |
| Absolute link | A link which shows the full URL of the page being linked at. Some … |
| AdCenter | Microsoft’s cost per click ad network. While it has a few cool features (including … |
| AdSense | Google’s contextual advertising network. Publishers large and small may automatically publish relevant advertisements near … |
| AdWords | Google’s advertisement and link auction network. Most of Google’s ads … |
| Affiliate Marketing | Affiliate marketing programs allows merchants to expand their market reach and mindshare by paying … |
| Age | Some social networks or search systems may take site age, page age, user account … |
| AJAX | Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is a technique which allows a web page to request … |
| Alexa | Alexa - the web information company - is a search engine that provides … |
| algorithm | The proprietary formula (mathematical equation) that a search engine uses to calculate the relevance … |
| AlltheWeb | Search engine which was created by Fast, then bought by Overture, which was bought … |
| Alt Attribute | Blind people and most major search engines are not able to easily distinguish what … |
| Alt tag | Alt tag refers to the text that is associated with an image. This originated … |
| AltaVista | Search engine bought out by Overture prior to Overture being bought by Yahoo. AltaVista … |
| Amazon | The largest internet retailing website. Amazon.com is rich in consumer generated media. Amazon also … |
| Anchor text | Anchor text is the text that you click on to activate and follow a … |
| Authority | A document (page) pointed to by several hubs (experts). An authority page is … |
Ad Click: A measurement of a user clicking on an advertisement unit on a Web site (banner, button, or text link).
Ad Click Rate: The percentage measurement of users who click on a clickable advertisement (banner, button, or text link).
Ad Impression: Number of times an ad is served to the user’s browser, and presumably seen by visitors.
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| Backlink | A link to your site from another website. A natural backlink is a good … |
| Bad neighborhood | A bad neighborhood can be a couple of things: 1. Linking to sites who use … |
| Bad Request | The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The … |
| Banned | Isolated and ignored by search engines. Those site operators who attempt to gain position … |
| Best of the web | Best of the Web (Inktomi database no longer active as of October 2002). … |
| Blog | Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a … |
| Blog and Ping | An online marketing term applied to a system that utilizes blogs and pings (short … |
| Blogroll | Found on blogs it is a list of links to other blogs and … |
| Boolean search | A search allowing the inclusion or exclusion of documents containing certain words through the … |
| Bridge | An entry into a site other than the homepage. It may be a legitimate … |
Banner: A graphical image (GIF or JPEG files) on a web site used as an advertising unit. The most common banner ads measure 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall.
Beyond the banner: Online advertising units not involving standard GIF & JPEG banner ads. The ad units could be interstitials, streaming video ads, etc.
Bid rules: prescribed instructions or boundaries set to react to conditions set up for bidding for keywords
Browser: A software that allows a user to view Web sites. Typical browsers are Netscape and Internet Explorer.
Button ad: A graphical advertising unit, smaller than a banner ad, typically measuring 120 x 90 pixels.
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| Click-through-rate | The number of clicks on a link, as a percentage of the number of … |
| Cloaking | Cloaking is a method by which specific content is served up to the search … |
| Clustering | In search engine search results pages, clustering is limiting each represented website to one … |
| Content-rich Doorway | A doorway page dressed up with graphics, navigation, and linked to from a site … |
| Contextual Link Inventory | Contextual Link Inventory or CLI is text-link advertising that is displayed based on the … |
| Conversion rate | The key metric to evaluate the effectiveness of a conversion effort (accepting a free … |
| Cost-per-thousand | A common term from traditional media advertising; online it refers to the cost per … |
| Crawl Page | A document consisting of links to other pages, provided for the sole purpose of … |
Cache: memory used to temporarily store the most frequently requested content/files/pages in order to speed its delivery to the user. A cache file can be saved locally, on the user’s browser or on the user’s network.
Cache Ad Impression: The delivery of an advertisement unit to a browser from local cache or a proxy server’s cache. When a user requests a page that contains a cached ad, the ad is obtained from the cache and displayed.
Click-through: The measurement of a user responding to an advertisement unit by clicking on the ad causing a re-direct to the advertiser’s destination, either another Web location or another frame or page within the advertisement.
Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of Web visitors who click on a clickable advertisement (banner, button, or text link).
Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.
Cost-Per-Action (CPA): Advertising payment model based on specific actions of the user in response to an ad. Actions may include a sales transaction, a customer acquisition, or a click.
CPM (Cost per thousand): A term to describe the cost of 1,000 ad impressions.
Customer Acquisition Cost: The cost associated with acquiring a new customer.
Cost-per-click (CPC): Advertisement payment model based on the number of clicks received or per click-through.
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| Deep linking | Deep linking, on the World Wide Web, is making a hyperlink that points to … |
| Delisting | The removal of a site from search engine results. … |
| Description Meta Tag | A meta tag describing the content of the web page. Used by some search … |
| Directory | A search site whose index is compiled by human editors (as opposed to web … |
| DNS Propagation | When a new domain name is registered (or an existing one is transferred to … |
| Domain Name Server | Computer that translates human-friendly URLs (words)into computer-friendly IP addresses. This process occurs every time … |
| Doorway | A document with a small amount of text (usually coherent but sometimes gibberish) intended … |
| Doorway page | An entry into a site other than the homepage. It may be a legitimate … |
Day Parting: or sometimes referred to “ad scheduling” where you set what “part of the day” you would like your advertisement to run due to some historical behavior pattern that suggests it’s best to run during set hours during the day.
Dynamic Ad Placement: The process by which an ad is served into a page based on a user’s request, demographics, specific interests or usage history.
Dynamic Rotation: The process where advertisement units are delivered based on a rotating or random basis so that users are exposed to different ads and ads are served in different pages of the site.
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EMRA search result that precisely matches a user’s search term. …
E-mail campaign: An advertising campaign distributed via e-mail. Not to be mistaken with e-mail spam, e-mail campaigns can be based on an opt-in email or opt-out email campaigns.
E-newsletter: An electronic newsletter or magazine, delivered via a Web site.
Frequency: The number of times an ad is delivered to the same browser in a single session or time period.
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| Feed Aggregator | In Internet technology it is software or a hosted application that collects feeds from … |
| Fuzzy search | A search that will find matches even when words are only partially spelled or … |
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| Gateway | An entry into a site other than the homepage. It may be a legitimate … |
| A search engine that enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features … | |
| Graphical Search Inventory | Non-text-based advertising that is displayed based on the relevance of surrounding content. Includes banners, … |
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| Hallway | A crawl page that only links to doorway pages. … |
| Hits | This generally means all requests from a webserver including requests by a web browser … |
| Home Directory | The directory in which your site’s main index page is located. usually named /public_html/, … |
| HTML | HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of markup symbols or codes inserted in … |
| Hub | A document that links out to many other documents devoted to a single topic. … |
HTML banner: A banner ad using HTML elements, often including interactive forms, instead of (or in addition to) standard graphical elements.
Hybrid Pricing model: This is usually an advertising payment model whereby there are a combination of two or more online marketing payment models, such as a combination of a CPM pricing model and a performance-based pricing model.
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IndexA search site’s database, consisting of all the site content it has recorded. A …
Incentivized traffic: Visitors who have received some form of compensation for visiting a site.
Interactive Advertising: Refers to all types of advertising through the Web, wireless and interactive television advertising. Interactive advertising can include banners, site sponsorships, e-mail campaigns, search engine marketing, classified ads and interactive television commercials
Interstitials: Also known as transition ads, intermercial ads, splash pages and Flash pages is an basically an ad that appears between two content pages.
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Jump PageAn entry into a site other than the homepage. It may be a legitimate …
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| Keyword | The word(s) or phrase(s) a person types into a search box. Also refers to … |
| Keyword Density | A formula to determine whether keywords are being overused on a page. The … |
| Keywords Meta Tag | An HTML tag that lists all of the main keywords and key phrases that … |
| Klog | Short for knowledge blog, klog is a type of blog usually used as an … |
Keyword Marketing: Commonly used in search engine marketing where advertisers can purchase keywords from search engines companies to be listed as sponsored listings when a user is searching fro that particular keywords or keyphrase. Besides search engine companies, many Web sites also allow keywords to be purchased in order to direct the hyperlink opportunity to the advertiser’s site or to serve an ad related to the user’s search.
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| Landing Page | The page a visitor arrives at when clicking through to a site, typically from … |
| Link popularity | The number and quality of links on other sites pointed to a Web page. Search … |
| Link Text | A word or phrase that is linked (”hot”), wich means the text that’s used … |
| Listings | The results appearing on a search engine results page. … |
| Load | In networking, load refers to the amount of data (traffic) being carried by the … |
| Long Tail | The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first … |
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| Meta Description Tag | Contains a description of the page, which a search engine may consider or display … |
| Meta Keywords Tag | Contains keywords for the page, which a search engine may consider at its discretion. … |
| Meta Robots Tag | Instructs visiting spiders not to index the page, and/or not to follow its links … |
| Meta Search Engine | A search engine that gathers the results of other search engines, rather than gathering … |
| Meta Search Engine | An application (website or software) that takes a search term and queries several search … |
| Meta Tags | Special HTML tags containing instructions for spiders or a user’s browser. Many tags are … |
| MFA | Made-for-advertising page. A broad class of pages,in my opinion, as some of them … |
| Mirroring | Multiple copies of web sites or web pages, often on different servers using different … |
| Moved Permanently | 301 or Moved Permanently - The file has been moved permanently to a new … |
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| Natural Listings | Web page listings that appear in a search engine’s results, based on the engine’s … |
| Not Implemented | The server does not support the functionality required to fulfill the request. This is … |
No Follow A great post about this html attribute from the guru himself Matt Cutts from Google!
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| Off page SEO | Off Page SEO refers to the text and “inbound” linking from OTHER web site … |
| On page SEO | On page SEO simply refers to the text and content on your web site … |
| One Way Link | One way link is a term used among webmasters for link building methods. It … |
| Outbound Link | A link from your website to another site or page, regardless of whether the … |
Opt-in: Refers to the act of a user giving a company permission to use his/her information to market the company’s products and services.
Opt-in e-mail: Describes an e-mail address that a user has voluntarily given to a site, and signed up to receive commercial e-mail about products and services from the company or from the company’s marketing partners.
Opt-out e-mail: An e-mail address of a user that is acquired from a Web site when the site owner states that it plans to market its products and services to the user via e-mails unless the user specifically asks to be removed from the company’s mailing list.
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| PageRank | As defined by Google “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web … |
| Paid Inclusion | An exchange in which a site owner pays to have pages (or entire sites) … |
| Paid Listings | Directory listings where the results display only advertisers who have paid for inclusion, and … |
| Paid Placement | Any search results program where the order or assuredness of a listing’s appearance depends … |
| Paid Placement | Paying for a link to be included on a search results page, usually at … |
| Pay-For-Performance | Same as Pay-Per-Click, but with a positive spin … |
| Pay-Per-Click | See Cost-Per-Click. … |
| Payment gateway | A payment gateway is a service provided by a billing processor, which allows credit … |
| PHP | The PHP Hypertext Preprocessor allows web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with … |
| Poison words | Poison words are words that may have a negative influence on your site’s ranking. … |
| Position | Where a listing appears in search results, relative to the first listing. For example, … |
| Precision | The degree in which a search engine lists documents matching a query. The more … |
Pay-per-click: Similar to cost per click, this is an advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay for advertisements only when users click on the online ad or e-mail message.
Permission Marketing: Refers to a marketing campaign when an individual has given a company permission to market its products and services, usually through e-mails, to the individual. Please refer to opt-in e-mail.
Pop-up ad: An ad that displays in a separate new window on top of a current window that the user is seeing.
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| Query | The words or phrases a person types into a search box. Also refers to … |
| Query-By-Example | A search where a user instructs an engine to find more documents that are … |
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| Rank | Where a listing appears in search results, relative to the first listing. For example, … |
| Re-inclusion request | A re-inclusion request is a request to a search engine to let sites or … |
| Recall | Related to precision, this is the degree in which a search engine returns all … |
| Reciprocal Link | A situation where two sites link to and from each other, though not necessarily … |
| Redirect | A tactic used to send a user to a different page from the one … |
| Registration | A request to be included in the database (index) of a search engine or … |
| Relevancy | The extent to which the searchers who find your page(s) are interested in what … |
| Results Page | The page(s) that display the results of a search. … |
| Return On Investment | Return on Investment associate with a particular marketing activity. The immediate return is usually … |
| Rich Internet Application | Rich Internet Applications are Web-based applications that function as traditional desktop applications however Web … |
| Robots file | A text file placed in a site’s root directory, built with specific syntax, instructing … |
| ROI | Return on Investment associate with a particular marketing activity. The immediate return is usually … |
Rich media: A term used to describe enhanced technology online ad format that usually incorporates animation, sound, video, and/or interactivity.
ROI: Stands for “return on investment.”
Run-of-network (RON): Ad buying option in which ad placements may appear on any pages on sites within an online publishing network. The advertiser usually forgoes premium positioning in exchange for more advertising weight at a lower CPM.
Run-of-site (ROS): Ad buying option in which ad placements may appear across an entire site. This type of placement option would be usually be at a lower cost to the advertiser than the purchase of specific site sub-sections.
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| Sandbox | Allegedly used by one large search engine as a probation period for new sites. … |
| Search Engine | A site or software that enables users to search a database of web pages, … |
| Search engine friendly | A web page designed and optimized for high search engine rankings. Such pages are … |
| Search Engine Marketing | Any marketing activity involving a search site, including advertising on search result pages, paying … |
| Search Engine Optimization | Planning and adjusting the content of a web page in order to improve its … |
| Search Engine Results Page | The page(s) that display the results of a search. … |
| Search term family | A search term family indicates a group of search terms (or keywords) that are … |
| SEM | Any marketing activity involving a search site, including advertising on search result pages, paying … |
| Semantic Web | An extension of the current Web that provides an easier way to find, … |
| SEMPO | Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. A non-profit organization promoting awareness and interest in search … |
| SEO | Planning and adjusting the content of a web page in order to improve its … |
| SERP | The page(s) that display the results of a search. … |
| Shopping Search Engine | A search engine that specializes in delivering product prices and comparative information. … |
| Site map | A site map (or sitemap) is a web page that lists the pages on … |
| SOA | An application architecture in which all functions, or services, are defined using a description … |
| SOAP | Short for Simple Object Access Protocol, a lightweight XML-based messaging protocol used to … |
| Spam | Any search engine marketing technique that is inconsistent with a search engine’s intention to … |
| Spam Indexing | Any search engine marketing technique that is inconsistent with a search engine’s intention to … |
| Spamdex | Spamdexing is any of various methods to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources … |
| Spider | Software developed and run by a search engine or other research entity that surfs … |
| Splog | Short for spam blog, it’s a slang term used to describe blogs that are … |
| Status Found | The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection might be … |
| Status OK | Status 200 - The file request was successful. For example, a page or image … |
| Status Unauthorized | The request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing … |
| Stemming | Word variations. For example, if I entered the query “swim”, a search engine that … |
| Stop words | Stop words are words that occur very often and which do not convey any … |
Submission A request to be included in the database (index) of a search engine or …
Skyscraper ad: An online ad unit that is significantly taller than the 120×240 vertical banner. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau guidelines recommend two sizes of skyscrapers: 120 X 600 and 160 x 600.
Sponsorship: is when an advertisers pays to sponsor either content, usually within a section of a Web site or within an e-mail newsletter. Sponsorships are usually involving beyond-the-banner placements. When associated with specific content, sponsorship can provide a more targeted audience than run-of-site ad buys.
Static ad placement/Static rotation: An ad placement where the ad will remain on a Web page for a specified period of time.
Superstitials®: An interstitial ad format developed by Unicast which is fully pre-cached before playing. Specs are 550 x 480 pixels (2/3 of screen), up to 100K file size and up to 20 seconds in length
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| Tag Cloud | A tag cloud is a stylized way of visually representing occurrences of words used … |
| Technorati | An Internet search engine that indexes and searches blogs. Technorati tracks blogs and other … |
| Text Link Advertising | Paid advertising that is formatted as plain text on a web page, often set … |
| Traffic | The load on a communications device or system. One of the principal jobs of … |
| TSETSB | The search engine that spam built.. Pejorative name for Google, which became immensely popular … |
Text ad: Online advertisement using text-based hyperlinks. Text ad are useful when targeting audience with slow internet connections and those who have text-only browsers.
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| URI | URI is short for uniform resource identifier. It’s basicly any deeplink, since it’s a … |
| USP | Unique Selling Proposition. Sometimes mistakenly defined as Unique Selling Point.The reason why somebody should … |
Can’t believe they don’t have URL here….hmmmm…..
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Vertical markets: Vendors often define vertical markets as groups of customers who provide development and marketing efficiencies, for example, a set of customers having the same product needs are often defined as a “vertical.” A good example is the market for manufacturing software. Other broad examples of vertical markets are: insurance, real estate, banking, heavy manufacturing, retail, transportation, hospitals, and government.
Viral Marketing: Any form of advertising and/or marketing techniques that “spreads” like a virus by getting passed on from consumer to consumer and market to market.
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| Walled Garden | On the Internet, a walled garden refers to a browsing environment that controls … |
| Webafied | A term used to refer to any application that has been enabled for Web … |
| Website Promotion | Website promotion is the continuing process to promote a website to bring more visitors … |
| Wiki | A collaborative Web site comprises the perpetual collective work of many authors. Similar to … |
| WYSIWYG | What You See Is What You Get - Acronym associated with various HTML editors … |
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| XHTML | XHTML is the next generation of HTML and is a hybrid between HTML and … |
| XHTML Modules | XHTML modules provide means for subsetting and extending XHTML. They are used for creating … |
| XML | The eXtensible Markup Language, used to format and structure information within documents. … |
| XML Feed | A paid inclusion method of submitting a site’s pages to search engines, via an … |
| XML Feed | A simplified version of HTML that allows data to be sent to search engines … |
OK, if they have plenty of X entries, why don’t they have any V entries, eh?
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Y no Y?
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Zilch, Zippo….hmmmmm, maybe they got tired? Actually there were a lot of terms they didn’t put in their dictionary.
I’ll have to update this over time, but I wanted to just have a basic dictionary for now. Check back later for a better one…maybe better than this!?



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