Glossary Of Common Search Engine Terms

Adwords (Google Adwords) - This is the Google Pay Per Click advertising program. See Google Adwords guide

Adsense - This is in effect the opposite side of Google Adwords. It allows website owners to earn revenue by displaying Context based ads provided by Google Adwords advertisers.

Automated Submissions - These services that use software tools to auto submit sites to search engines and directories. I do not use or recommend the use of these type of services.

Black Hat SEO- Using Optimization techniques that are not approved of by the search engines. You can find the  Google guidelines here.

Cloaking- This is were you show a different page to the search engine spider than you do to a normal visitor.

Directory - A directory organises websites usually using categories. Directories are created/maintained by manual submissions and not via an automated search spider. The main
two are the Open Directory (ODP) and the Yahoo Directory. See The Importance of Directories

Doorway Pages Are web pages that have been created for the sole purpose of ranking highly in the search results for one or two search terms. They are usually copies of another page with a few terms changed.

dmoz - Is the largest human edited directory on the Internet and is another name for ODP, Open Directory Project.

Google Consultant - A Consultant/specialist that provides search engine optimization services and PPC services for Google search, Google Adwords and related services.

Hand Submissions - These services submit websites to search engines by manually entering the appropriate details into the URL submission form provided by the search engines and directories.

This is the recommended method of submission but is very time consuming.

Invisible text- By making the text colour the same or near the same colour as the page background the text is not viewable but can be read by the search engines- This was/is an old black hat technique.

Link Popularity - Link popularity is a measure of the number of incoming links and the in some cases link quality to your site.

Overture - This was one of earliest Pay Per Click advertising programs on the web. It has been acquired by Yahoo and re-branded as Yahoo search marketing.

Meta Tag - Information in a web page that is used by search engines and is invisible to the page viewer.

Page Rank - A web site rating system developed by Google. It is a measure of a website’s popularity and was used by Google as part of it’s algorithm. Although Google still measures PR it is not considered to be so important anymore. You need to install the Google toolbar in order to view it or use an online service.

PPC - Pay Per Click. This is an advertising option in which the advertiser pays only when the ad is clicked.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of creating search engine friendly web pages and websites to rank well in the search engines

Search Engine Consultant - A Consultant/specialist that provides search engine optimization services and PPC services.

SEO Consultant - A SEO consultant specializes in web site promotion/marketing aiming to get site found by the search engines and ranked on the top 3 pages of the SERPS for a given set of keywords.

SERP - Search Engine Results Page - The search result listings that are shown when  you do a search.

White Hat SEO - Using  techniques that don’t violate any of the search engine guidelines/TOS (Terms of Service).

Yahoo Publisher Network-Yahoo equivalent of Google Adsense