Glossary
We have found that most on-line industry terms are misunderstood and foreign to most business people. Therefore, we have provided a glossary of industry terms to help demystify the industry jargon and put these terms into a language you already know, which is the language we will utilize throughout our website.
- Alexa ranking
- Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users. The information is sorted, counted, and computed, until we get the traffic rankings shown in the Alexa service.
- Algorithm
- A formula or set of steps for solving a particular problem. To be an algorithm, a set of rules must be unambiguous and have a clear stopping point. Algorithms can be expressed in any language, from languages like English or French to programming languages like FORTRAN. We use algorithms every day. For example, a recipe for baking a cake is an algorithm. Most programs, with the exception of some artificial intelligence applications, consist of algorithms. Inventing elegant algorithms- algorithms that are simple and require the fewest steps possible-is one of the principal challenges in programming. Every search engine has there own algorithm they use to determine the ranking of the web site.
- Black Hat SEO
- A term that means using spam or illegal methods to achieve high ranking.
- Competition
- The amount of competing web sites that exist for a given keyword.
- Content
- Content is the detailed information that is on the web site. For search engines that index your web site, the content is critical. The ultimate example of a web page with good content would be a page from an encyclopedia. The content must be focused and internally consistent.
- Directories
- These are companies that use categories to provide listings that customers are looking for. You have to submit individually to each directory. Example: Dmoz.org Open Project Directory.
- Doorway / Gateway Pages
- A web site page made specifically to rank well in Search Engines for particular Keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content. These pages have little or no content and are considered spamming.
- Keyword Effectiveness Index
- The KEI is a measure of how effective a keyword is for your web site.
- Keyword Density
- How many times a particular word appears in HTML section. Simply repeating the keyword will not work because some search engines consider grammatical structure in their calculations. Cramming multiple keywords is considered a form of spamming.
- Keyword Occurrence
- How often a Keyword or Keyword phrase occurs in a particular HTML page section.
- Keyword or Keyword phrase
- A word or phrase used by a Search Engines in its search for relevant web pages. It is critical to have the right keywords in your online campaign. As a Webxites customer, we will make sure the keywords are up to date and are actively search by end-user-customers.
- Keyword Prominence
- Prominence is the ratio of the position of one keyword or keyword phrase to the positions of the other keywords in an HTML section of the page. Your most important keywords must appear in the crucial locations on your web pages because search engines like pages where keywords appear in certain locations.
- Link Popularity
- A measure of the quantity and quality of sites that link to your site. A growing number of Search Engines use link popularity in their ranking algorithms.
- Links
- Link text is the clickable text which connects one web page to another. Incoming Links are an important factor in search engine rankings.
- Manual Submission
- Adding a URL to the Search Engines individually by hand. There are several SEO companies that offer automatic submission to thousands of search engines. They are usually priced as a one time fee of $49 dollars. This service does not guarantee placement or quality traffic. Several major search engines do not accept automatic submissions. As a WebXites sponsored customer, we will make sure they are getting qualified traffic so they can get a return on their investment.
- Meta Description
- Description is the text placed in the META tag in the head section of the web site and is used as a short description of the web sites content.
- Meta Tags
- A special HTML tag that provides information about a web page. Unlike normal HTML tags, Meta tags do not affect how the page is displayed, instead, they provide information such as who created the page, how often it is updated, what the page is about, and which Keywords represent the page's content. Search Engines use this information when building their indices.
- Natural or Organic search listings
- These are listing that the search engines use robots crawlers or “spiders” to rank placement. It is often tedious and time consuming to get high ranking with natural/organic results.
- Overture Local Match
- This is a product for advertisers that have a physical storefront or service a specific geographic region. Advertisers provide a description and details about their business and do not need a web site to participate. The advertiser chooses the relevant keywords and defines the geographic region to target their list.
- Organic 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.
- Paid Ad Management
- Online advertising program where listings are guaranteed to appear in response to particular search terms, with higher ranking typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers. Paid placement listings can be purchased from a portal or a search network. Search networks are often set up in an auction environment where keywords and phrases are associated with a cost-per-click (CPC) fee.
- PageRank
- Google has a branded version of popularity it calls PageRank. This service links to your web site to increase your “popularity” and offer search engine spiders or bots more opportunities to index your page.
- Pay per Click (PPC)
- Unlike traditional advertising you only pay when a customer actually clicks on your ad or link. –PPC is where advertisers can pay for clicks from search engines that go to their site. This can be costly, and requires a lot of time to maintain these types of account. Also, with out the proper keywords, many customers can spend funds on improper keywords, and improper placement without getting any return on their investment.
- Popularity
- Popularity is a term used to describe search engines' measurement of your site's importance to the web community. This factors in the number, quality, and type of web pages that include links back to the customer’s web site.
- Portals
- A portal is actually a destination site that aggregates content of different types that the user might be interested in. Portals are companies that deliver the search results from one of the other search engines or directories. Example: AOL actually gives search results from Google.
- Quality
- The quality of your web site affects the directory editor's evaluation of your submission. "Quality" refers to utility or usefulness and comprehensiveness. Terrific web sites are favorably reviewed and may even get "extra credit" in the rankings by being selected as "editor's choice." The quality will also influence other web masters’ decisions to link to your site, which affects “popularity” (see below).
- Search Engines
- Any service such as companies like Google, Yahoo and MSN that provide you with the ability to search the Internet (web) for content; thus, they are the engine behind your search or the search engine. These are Companies that use their own algorithms to rank web sites on the internet.
- Search Engine Marketing
- Since the search engines are the vehicle by which your customers find the content they are seeking on the internet, this simply means internet marketing.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- This simply means that your site is designed with proper content, graphic, layout/architecture, so that the search engines can locate your site for those who are seeking the content that your site provides in an optimal manner.
- Spam
- This is the act of using excessive manipulation to influence Search Engine rankings, often for pages which contain little or no relevant content. There are many SEO promotion companies that will trick search engines into giving you top placement. But these results are only temporary, and the search engines will ban the web sites using these techniques from ever appearing on the search engines again. We at Webxites have years of experience and credibility with the top search engines to ensure our customers achieve quality traffic without manipulation and adverse long term ranking results
- Submission
- The act of supplying a URL (domain name) to a Search Engine in an attempt to make a Search Engine aware of a site or page. Most submission is free. Submission does not guarantee placement, and without WebXites Traffixtreme™, customer usually end up placed very far down the list in their ranking.
- Title
- Title is text placed between the title tags in the HEAD section and is used to identify contents of the web page. It is what you see in the upper left hand corner of the browser that helps identify the web page. Many search engines use it to identify the title of the search listing.
- Yahoo! Yellow Pages
- These consists of a comprehensive database of listings licensed from InfoUSA plus a section of paid listings in the Sponsored Businesses section. The Sponsored Businesses section consists of paid listings from our reseller partners, self-service, and Overture. The Overture products are geographically targeted Local Match and Precision Match listings.
- Yahoo! Local
- This also includes a comprehensive database of listings licensed from InfoUSA, several other data sources, and web content. Yahoo! Local also has a sponsored business section which solely consists of geographically targeted Overture Local Match and Precision Match listings.
