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SEM Glossary of Terms
Favicon - A small icon that
some browsers display next to a bookmark when the site
is viewed. It is placed in the root of a website and
named "favicon.ico".
FFA - Free For All links.
These are places that allow anyone to add a link.
Frames - An HTML tag construct
for making a website appear to have multiple windows
within one browser. A frame with links can remain static
while clicks cause a different frame to be updated.
Most serious websites stay away from frame usage because
of browser compatibility problems and search engine
problems. Most search engines will not index a framed
site.
Frequency Cap - The maximum
number of times or length of times a site visitor will
be shown the same or related advertisements.
Freshbot - Googles webcrawler/spider
has two modes of operation. One is a "deepcrawler"
that indexes the entire web once or twice a month. The
second mode is a spider that downloads high ranking
or frequently updated pages approximatly every 24 to
72 hours. That daily mode is called "freshbot"
to reflect the "fresh" tag Google puts next
to recently updated pages in search results.
Gateway Domain Names - A
domain name who's purpose is to direct traffic to a
main site. The Gateway domain often will have major
keywords in the domain name to catch surfers searching
for a related subject.
GG - Google Guy is a Webmasterworld
Representative.
Guerilla Marketing - Highly
aggressive marketing.
Gulliver - Spider of the
Northern Light search engine. Once a popular web destination
it has become all but extinct.
Heading Tag - An HTML tag
of 6 sizes. Search engines can rank a keyword higher
if it appears in a larger heading.
HiddenText/Tiny Text - Placing
same color characters on the same color background causes
them to be hidden. This technique was popular for awhile,
but search engines quickly caught on and began banning
sites for it.
Hit - A request for a file
on a web server. Most often these can be graphic files
and documents. In more modern lingo, website owners
refer to HIT referrers as a request for documents only,
while system administrators, who are chiefly concerned
about server performance, refer to it as any file request.
Hotbot - A search engine
owned by Wired Digital, a division of Lycos. Hotbot
uses the Inktomi search service to present results.
It also uses the Direct Hit service to help rank pages
based upon click through counts.
HTML - HyperText Markup Language.
The programming language of tag commands used in web
pages.
HTTP - Hypertext Transfer
Protocol.
HTTPS - Hypertext Transfer
Protocol Secure.
Image Map - A system of associating
parts of an image with hyper links. For example a picture
of the earth could have a hyper link associated with
various locations. Selecting that location might take
you to information about that location.
IP Address - Whenever you
connect to the internet, you are giving a unique 4 number
Internet Protocol Address (IP Address). Your IP address
is how data from your computer to a website is how data
finds its way back and forth.
Your IP address may change each time you attach to your
ISP. If your IP address stays the same from connection
to connection, you are said to have a static IP address.
If it changes each time you connect, you are said to
have a Dynamic IP Address.
IP addresses can be important in the context of search
engine submission because some search engines have been
known to ignore submissions from any one IP over a certain
limit.
IP Delivery - Refers to the
process of delivering customized content based upon
the users IP address. This allows web sites to protect
their proprietary code designed to rank high on search
engines.
IP Spoofing - A technique
of connecting to a web site and reporting an IP address
different than the one you are actually connected too.
This is a highly unethical tactic and may break some
computer and technology laws. In the context of search
engines, IP Spoofing involves redirecting or fooling
a search engine into indexing one site, while actually
delivering content from another site. It can also include
falsely redirecting a user to some other site after
innocently clicking on a link.
ISP - Internet Service Provider.
The name designed by a Madison Avenue advertising and
marketing firm for internet point of access sellers.
Java - A computer language
designed to be delivered from websites to a users browser.
Small programs are transferred to the user, and then
executed on the users system.
Javascript - A language embedded
within HTML that is executed after a page of HTML is
transferred to a users browser. Many search engines
will ignore Java and JavaScript commands.
Keyword - A singular word
or phrase that is typed into a search engine search
query. Keyword mainly refers to popular words which
relate to any one website. For example web site about
real estate could focus on keywords such as House, or
phrases such as Home for Sale.
Keyword Buys - Some search
engines tie keywords to advertising sales. When a user
searches for a particular keyword, the results page
often have a banner advertisement displayed buy advertisers
that purchased the keyword.
Keyword Density - A percentage
measure of how many times a keyword is repeated within
text of a page. For example, if a page contains 100
words and ten of those words are "house",
then "house" is said to have a 10% keyword
density. There are programs that will rate keyword density
by singular words or by groups of words, "new home
for sale".
Keyword Phrase - Refers to
two or more keywords combined to form a search query.
A favorite restaurant of mine is a two keyword phrase:
Pizza Hut.
Keyword Research - Doing
research on a single keyword to find it's relatives
and related keywords. This is often done to find the
highest producing keywords.
Keyword Stuffing - The process
of loading a page up with keywords in the META tags
or main HTML body.
Linkage - A count of the
number of links pointing (inbound links) at a website.
Many search engines now count linkage in their algorithms.
Link Farm - Free For All
links. These are places that allow anyone to add a link.
Linkage Popularity - A count
of the number of links pointing (inbound links) at a
website. Many search engines now count linkage in their
algorithms.
LinkRot - A reference to
when urls are removed and the url goes 404.
Logger - A program that logs
web page views. Most often a logger will also track
referrals.
LookSmart - One of the largest
directories on the Internet.
Lycos - A large search engine.
Owns Wired Digital which owns the HotBot search engine.
Also owns Tripod free home page site. Primary search
results are returned from the ODP. With follow up by
their own proprietary spider.
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