This refers to the name of the crawler, spider or bot (from a search engine) which is currently visiting your site to update their index.

A mathematical calculation used to solve a problem or make a decision. Search Engine’s use algorithms to determine where websites appear for specific search queries.

The Alt Attribute is most commonly used to enter a text description of an image. This is often used for making websites more accessible if users are unable to download graphics or for those with disabilities who use assistive technology. It is also used for SEO purposes as search engines cannot see images.

One of the many factors which search engine algorithms take into account when deciding how a particular site or page to ranks. A site maybe considered either a topical authority i.e. contain content relevant to one particular subject, or a general authority i.e. contain content relevant to many subjects e.g. Wikipedia

The practice of using automated software to submit your web pages to search engines. NB some search engines attempted to prevent this practice by including submission codes (shown as a graphic) which need to be keyed at the time of submission.

See Also: Bulk Submission Services

Term ‘bait and switch’ was originally coined for a tactic utilised by unscrupulous retailers, who would draw customers in with a very low price for a given product, but then tell them that the low-price product was unavailable and attempt to sell them a higher priced alternative. In online marketing this refers to the somewhat dubious practice of creating content which is spidered by search engines and indexed, then switching the content to something else. Or, in a social media context creating content which various people link to, then switching the content once the links are in place.

When a search engine prevents your content from appearing in any search engine results pages. When this happens via Google this is sometimes referred to as the sandbox.

See Also: Sandbox

Targeting of advertising based on previous behaviour. This can be witnessed on when searches are conducted via Google in quick succession.

A term coined for unethical SEO. Essentially this is the practice of optimising a site with a view to deliberately mislead a search engine in order to rank well for search terms. Black hat methods include ‘cloaking’ and ‘keyword stuffing’

See Also: Cloaking, Keyword Stuffing

Major search engines continually evolve their algorithms in order to keep one step ahead of unscrupulous SEO’s and to attempt to improve the relevance of their results. One such element is block level analysis. Block level analysis attempts to weight links according to where they appear on the page, and weight them accordingly. As such a link from the content block could be considered as more likely to be a true recommendation than a link from a text link advertisement block.

Refers to the written content on a web page as opposed to graphics, navigation, menus etc

Short for Robot. A bot is an agent sent out by a search engine to catalogue websites for indexing purposes.

See Also: Crawler, Robot, Spiders, Web Crawler

Also referred to as a doorway page or a gateway page. Refers to a page whose sole purpose is SEO. It contains keyword rich copy and a link into a website.

See Also: Doorway Page, Gateway Page

Services which submit your web pages to search engines.

See Also: Automated Submiting

A black hat technique which allows spiders or bots to see different content to human visitors, in order to manipulate search engine results. Understandably this practice is deemed unacceptable by search engines and offending websites may find themselves banned.

See Also: Black Hat SEO, Unethical SEO

See de-listing

See Also: Sandbox

De-listing means that your site is removed from a search engines index – the effect of which means you will not appear in the results pages for that particular search engine. This may be either temporary or permanent. Sites can be de-listed for many reasons, however if your site has been manually de-listed then you may have to submit a re-inclusion request to be re-indexed.

See Also: De-Indexed, Sandbox

A link which points to a web page or server which is unavailable. Commonly this results in a 404 error.

See Also: HTTP 404

A link which leads directly to a page within a site rather than simply leading to the site’s homepage.

Deep link ratio is a metric which is calculated by dividing the number of deep links, by the total number of links to your site.

The process of submitting the URLs of all of the pages of a given web site. This is considered bad practice by some search engines as the search engine spiders or bots should be able to find all of the pages on the site by following links from the home page.

Effectively an online version of a paper based directory. Directories typically manually catalogue web sites based on their niche / business type. Like the paper based variants, some charge for inclusion. It’s acknowledged that all directories are not born equal. Search engines are more likely to place weight on links from DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory. If a directory does not exercise editorial control over listings – i.e. if they will include any site which pays for a listing, then these links will not count favourably in terms of SEO. However, it should be noted, that strictly speaking you should be including your site in directories because you believe your customers may find you via the directory, not because you hope it might assist you in your SEO efforts.

See Also: DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory, Link building

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. It is acknowledged that a link from DMOZ will carry weight in terms of SEO. To submit a site follow this link: http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

See Also: Directory, Yahoo! Directory, Link Building

Also referred to as a bridge page or a gateway page. Refers to a page whose sole purpose is SEO. It contains keyword rich copy and a link into a website.

See Also: Bridge Page, Gateway Page

The opposite of Black Hat SEO – often called White Hat SEO, this type of optimisation follows the guidelines from the search engines themselves and typically  focuses on creating quality content which will assist the site in ranking for key terms.

See Also: White Hat SEO,  Black Hat SEO, Unethical SEO

An outbound link from one website to another.

As it sounds fresh content, is simply new content. In order to keep visitors coming back to your site, and to assist in SEO it is important to regularly update your web site with fresh content.

Also referred to as a bridge page or a doorway page. Refers to a page whose sole purpose is SEO. It contains keyword rich copy and a link into a website.

See Also: Bridge Page, Doorway Page

Also referred to as Link Juice this refers to the reflected glory some pages will receive if they are linked to other pages with lots of high quality links. This is because Google’s algorithm sees pages with high quality links as being an authority.

See Also: Link Juice

Web pages will end up in Google’s Supplemental Index if Google’s algorithm judges them to be made up of largely duplicate content and / or they have a lower trust score. Pages in the supplemental index may still rank in search results, but only if Google finds relatively few results in its main index which are relevant to the search query which the user has entered.

XML files that list all of a site’s URLs for indexing purposes.

Somewhere in between White Hat and Black Hat SEO (often incorporating techniques from both).

See Also: Black Hat SEO, White Hat SEO

See hidden text

See Also: Black Hat SEO

A Blackhat SEO technique that involves inserting text which only Search Engine spiders can see (often this is achieved by placing text which is the same colour as the background colour on the page). Whilst this may result in better rankings in the short term, Search Engines are wise to this technique and sites employing it are likely to be penalised.

See Also: Black Hat SEO

See links

Another term for Back Links

See Also: Back Links

A link which leads to a page with the same website. These links can be used for navigation, and are also used by search engines to crawl and subsequently index sites.

The number of times a keyword appears on a given web page. Density is calculated by dividing the total number of times a keyword appears divided by the total number of words on the page. Keyword density assists the search engine spiders in identifying the page’s content for ranking purposes. However if the keyword density is too high the spider is likely to interpret this as spam which may result in poor rankings or even deindexing.

See Also: Keyword Stuffing

Keyword prominence refers to the position of a keyword in a given web page. The higher up the page a keyword appears, the more relevant it will appear to a search engine spider. Similarly, the location of keywords within individual HTML tags e.g. title tags and heading tags will add weight to a given keyword’s prominence.

Simply means a given web page is rich in good quality keywords without compromising usability / readability of the page for human users (as opposed to spiders)

The practice of placing excessive keywords into a web page with no regard for usability / readability in a vain attempt to rank well. This is frowned upon by search engines and can lead to penalties.

See Also: Keyword density

Link bait is content which has been specifically created to generate (or bait) links from other sites.

See Also: Links

It is widely acknowledged that search engine algorithms take into account the number of links to a site when determining how sites should rank in the results pages. As such building links from other quality sites is a technique which site owners / employees undertake to try to improve their rankings. These links should be generated naturally based on quality content – links should not be bought or sold.

See Also: Directory, DMOZ,  Paid Links, Yahoo! Directory

Link Churn is a measure (normally expressed as a percentage) which illustrates the rate at which a site loses links over time. For example a site started out with 100 links, and over the course of a year they lost 10 they would have a churn rate of 10%.

A site which freely links to other sites without any regard for the relevancy or quality of these links. These types of sites can be deemed as ‘bad neighbourhoods’ by search engines, and having these types of sites linking to yours can actually damage your rankings.

See Also: Paid Links

This refers to the reflected glory some pages will receive if they are linked to other pages with lots of high quality links. This is because Google’s algorithm sees pages with high quality links as being an authority.

See Also Google Juice

Refers to the number of sites which link to a given site – the more sites that link to it – the greater the link popularity.

See Also: Link Building

It is widely acknowledged that search engine algorithms take into account the number of links to a site when determining how sites should rank in the results pages. The phrase Link Spam refers to links which have been set up purely to improve search engine ranking, but have no particular use or relevance to human users.

See Also: Link Building

A clickable image or piece of text which takes the user to another web page.

Server files which hold details on where your visitors were referred from e.g. other sites, search engines, or whether they typed your web address directly into your browser. If your visitors were referred from a search engine these files also include the search query which the user entered to find your site.

Submitting your site to a search engine manually rather than using a submission tool or service. In an ideal world you will not need to submit your site to search engines at all, as they should be able to find and crawl your site by following links from other sites.

This is a tag which should contain a sentence or two (NB no more than 155 characters) which describes the content on a given web page.

See Also: Meta Tag

This tag can be used to highlight keywords and phrases that the page is targeting. However as many people spammed these tags in an endeavour to influence ranking, search engines lend little weight to this tag.

See Also: Meta Tag

Many people group the following tags together and refer to them as meta tags -  meta description, meta keywords, page title.

See Also:  Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Page Title

The largely pointless practice of cramming tags full of keywords which are unrelated to a site’s content. Because of abuse of these tags in the past, most search engines give little or no weight to the contents of meta tags when determining rank.

A site which mirrors or duplicates the content of another site. This is a blackhat technique, however as search engines rarely index duplicate content now it rarely works, and you may face a penalty from the search engines if you are discovered employing this tactic.

See Also: Replica

Sometimes known as ‘Organic Search Results’. Refers to the results which are provided via a search engine which are not paid for. Normally search engines will make a differentiation by putting any paid listings under a heading which reads ‘Sponsored Results’ or similar. Whereas a company will be charged when users click on their paid listings, when a user clicks through an natural listing the company is not charged.

See Also: Organic Search Results

Nofollow is an attribute used to tell search engines not to pass any authority to the site which they are linking to. As search engine algorithms view links as ‘votes’ by nofollowing a link, sites effectively are not ‘voting’ or passing on any authority via this link. Nofollow is commonly used on user-generated content sites such as blog comments to discourage spamming.

As the phrase suggests, this refers to web content which is relevant to a particular theme or topic.

Sometimes known as ‘Natural Search Results’. Refers to the results which are provided via a search engine which are not paid for. Normally search engines will make a differentiation by putting any paid listings under a heading which reads ‘Sponsored Results’ or similar. Whereas a company will be charged when users click on their paid listings, when a user clicks through an organic listing the company is not charged.

See Also: Natural Search Results

A link from one website to another. Whilst some sites are unwilling to link out to other sites; outbound links can assist search engines in understanding what your site is about, and may make other sites more likely to link to you.

This tag should be used to describe the contents of the web page. Ideally it should be unique, descriptive and no more than 70 characters in length.

See Also: Meta Tag

The dubious technique of stealing high ranking content from one site and placing it on to another with the aim of manipulating search engine results. This is a black hat technique and may result in receiving a penalty.

PageRank is an algorithm utilised by Google to access the importance of a web page.

Paid inclusion differs from a paid link in that the site has editorial control over whether or not they link to you. So effectively you pay for them to review your site, and if it passes editorial guidelines then you will be included, if your site does not, it will not be included. Yahoo! are perhaps best known for this.

See Also: Paid Links

The practice of purchasing links i.e. paying other to link to you, rather than acquiring links based on the merit of your content. The practice of buying and selling links is frowned upon by search engines as it undermines their algorithms which take into account the number of links a given site has in determining ranking. Google in particularly have been known to de-index where they believe links have been bought or sold.

See Also: Link Building

Search engines have been known to levy penalties or even go so far as to de-index sites which they believe are employing dubious tactics to manipulate their ranking in the search engine results.

See Also: Banned,  De-Listed

As the name suggests, reciprocal links are links placed on a site on the condition that the site which they are linking to, links back. Clearly within given niches there will be a degree of reciprocal links which occur naturally; however excessive reciprocal linking, particularly to low quality, unrelated sites may actually harm rankings.

In the event that a site has been penalised by a search engine, they may make the necessary amendments to their site and then submit a reinclusion request. However it is worth noting that reinclusion is entirely at the discretion of the search engine.

A site which replicates the content of another site. This is a blackhat technique, however as search engines rarely index duplicate content now it rarely works, and you may face a penalty from the search engines if you are discovered employing this tactic.

See Also: Mirror Site

A Robot or bot is an agent sent out by a search engine to catalogue websites for indexing purposes.

See Also: Bot, Crawler, Spider, Web Crawler

A text file which tells search engines which can be used to control the actions of search engine spiders and/or deny access to specific files.

When a Google prevents your content from appearing in any search engine results pages.

Stands for ‘search engine optimisation / optimization’ and/or ‘search engine optimiser / optimizer’ (if you are referring to an individual as an SEO).

The results page which is displayed by a search engine in response to the search query entered by the user.

Spamdexing is a blackhat method (or set of methods) used to manipulate the relevancy of a site indexed by a search engine. An example of a spamdexing technique is repeating certain phrases in order to dupe a search engine’s algorithm into thinking a particular page contains content or resources that are relevant to the repeated phrase.

See Also: Spam

Spamglish refers to the language commonly used on spammy sites – it’s often keyword rich, but to the point where the copy is meaningless to the reader. This phrase is also coined for spam emails which contain similarly nonsensical language.

See Also: Spam, Spamdexing

A spider is an agent sent out by a search engine to catalogue websites for indexing purposes.

See Also: Bot, Crawler, Robot, Web Crawler

Web pages which either intentionally or unintentionally cause a spider or bot to make an infinite number of requests – e.g. a calendar where there is always a link to the next day.

See Also: Bot, Crawler, Robot, Web Crawler

Stemming is a process in which an algorithm reduces a word to its root or stem. For example a stemming algorithm will identify that the words “running”, “runner”, “runs”, all stem from the word “run”. Search engines use algorithms like this to identify a range of associated words related to a users search phrase.

A stop character is a character within a URL that tells a search engine that page being crawled is dynamic. Examples of stop characters are question marks or ampersands.

Stop words are commonly used words such as ‘the’. If they are included within a query, search engines will ignore them, as they are used too frequently to have any bearing on the relevancy of the results.

Refers to the process of submitting a website to a search engine for indexing.

Refers to web pages which rank lower (normally due to having low trust rank – this may be due to duplicate content, low levels of links etc) and are therefore placed in supplemental indices.

In the context of SEO, the theme of a web page is the primary focus of the keywords.

See Page Title

Refers to search engine algorithms which place more weight on links given out from highly trusted web pages from trusted sources such as educational institutions, governments etc

See Blackhat SEO

Refers to how well ranked a site is for particularly relevant search terms.

A web crawler is an agent sent out by a search engine to catalogue websites for indexing purposes.

See Aslo: Bot, Crawler, Robot, Spider,

The opposite of Black Hat SEO – often called ethical SEO, this type of optimisation follows the guidelines from the search engines themselves and typically  focuses on creating quality content which will assist the site in ranking for key terms.

See Also: Black Hat SEO, Ethical SEO

The Yahoo Directory was originally utilised for search until they switched to crawler-based listings for their results in 2002. It is widely acknowledged that search engine algorithms do place value on the Yahoo! Directory. See https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro

See Also: Directory, DMOZ, Link Building