Glossary of Search Engines

Absolute URL:
The full Internet address of a page or other World Wide Web resource. The absolute URL includes a protocol, such as "http," network location, and optional path and file name. (Example: http://gobyus.com/ is an absolute URL).

Alt Tag:
The alternative text that the browser displays when the visitor does not want to or cannot see the pictures in a web page. Using alt tags containing keywords can improve the search engine ranking of the page for those keywords.

Bandwidth:
Measures the amount of information that can be transmitted over a network, normally measured in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). Simple HTML web pages do not require a large amount of bandwidth.

Banned:
When pages are removed from a search engine's index specifically because the search engine has deemed them to be spamming or violating some type of rules.

Bits and bytes:
Bit stands for binary digit: 0 or 1. A byte is made up of 8 bits.

Bookmark:
Storing your favorite sites on the Internet.

Browser:
A program that lets users download World Wide Web pages and view them on their computers. Most browsers display graphics and formatted pages and let you click to hyperlinks to jump form web page to another.

Cloaking:
Refers to any of several means to serve up a different page to the search-engine spider than will be seen by human users. It can be an illegitimate attempt to mislead search engines regarding the content on a particular web site.

Cost Per Click (CPC):
System where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their web page.

Crawler (robot or spider):
A component of a search engine that search the Web, storing the URLs and indexing keywords and text of each page encountered.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheet):
A standard for specifying the appearance of text and other elements on web page.

Dead link:
An internet link which doesn't lead to a page or site, probably because the server is down or the page has moved or no longer exists. Most search engines have techniques for removing such pages from their listings automatically, but as the internet continues to increase in size, it becomes more and more difficult for a search engine to check all the pages in the index regularly.

Directory:
A server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing Internet Web pages, returning lists of pages matching user queries.

Domain name:
An individual's or company's unique address on the Internet. A domain name is made up of an identifying name followed by a period and a multiple-letter extension such as .com, .eu, .org, .net or a country code such as .sk, .co.uk or others.

Doorway page (entry page, gateway page, bridge page):
A page which has been specially created in order to get a high ranking in the search engines. If you click through to a doorway page from a search engine result page, in most cases you will be redirected to another web page. Doorway pages are easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings, so search engines exclude such web site from the search engine listings.

Download:
To retrieve an application or file from another computer through a network connection or modem.

DNS (Domain Name Server):
DNS refers to a database of Internet names and addresses which translates the names to the official Internet Protocol numbers.

Dynamic Content:
Information in web pages which changes automatically, based on database or user information. Search engines will index dynamic content in the same way as static content unless the URL includes a ? mark. However, if the URL does include a ? mark, many search engines will ignore the URL.

Email Address:
The address used to sent and receive email.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions):
FAQs are documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject.

Flash:
Interactive animation on web site displayed by a browser plug-in.

Frames:
An HTML technique for combining two or more separate HTML documents within a single web browser screen.

Freeware:
Software that is available for download and unlimited use without charge.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol):
A common method of moving files between two Internet sites for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files.

GIF:
This acronym stands for Graphic Interchange Format, a commonly used file compression format developed by CompuServe for transferring graphics files to and from online services.

Hidden Text:
Text that is visible to the search engines but is invisible to humans. It is mainly accomplished by using text in the same color as the background color of the page. It is primarily used for the purpose of including extra keywords in the page.

Homepage:
The first page retrieved when accessing a Web site

HTML Document:
A document written in Hypertext Markup Language.

Hypertext:
A document that contains links to other documents.

Index:
The component of a search engine or directory used for data storage, update and retrieval.

Indexing:
The process of converting a collection of data into a database suitable for easy search and retrieval.

Internet:
A group of networks worldwide, using a common protocol, the Internet Protocol (IP), such that data can be transmitted seamlessly.

IP Number (Internet Protocol Number):
A unique number consisting of four parts separated by dots. Every machine on the Internet has an IP number.

Impression:
A single viewing of a page.

Javascript:
This is a programming language, that can be integrated into web pages .It is used mainly to create dynamic, interactive web pages.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group):
Is an image compression format used to transfer color photographs and images over computer networks.

Keyword:
A significant word or combination of words used as a search term.

Keyword density:
Means how often a keyword appears in a web page. In general, higher the number of times a keyword appears in a page, higher its search engine ranking, but be carefull, repeating a keyword too often in a web page can lead to that page being penalized.

Keyword spamming (keyword stuffing):
Is considered to be a unethical Search engine optimization (SEO) technique. Keyword stuffing is when you load a Web page up with keywords in the Meta tags or on the Web page's content. The common techniques today for keyword stuffing are repeating the same word over and over again in the Meta tags and also on the page with text that's the same color as the background, also known as invisible or hidden text.

Link (hyperlink):
A dynamic element in an electronic document or web page that links to another place in the same document or to an entirely different document.

Link popularity:
The number of sites which link to a particular site. Many search engines use link popularity as a factor in determining the search engine ranking of a web site.

Mailing list:
A list of email addresses to which messages are sent.

Manual submission:
The process of submitting web sites or web pages to search engines and directories for inclusion in their databases.

Menu:
Options displayed on a computer screen and selected by the user to navigate the web page.

Meta description tag:
The tag present in the header of a web page which is used to provide a short description of the contents of the page. Some search engines will display the text present in the Meta description tag when the page appears in the results of a search.However, some search engines ignore the Meta description tag.

Meta keywords tag:
The tag present in the header of a web page which is used to provide alternative words for the words used in the body of the page. Some search engines ignore the Meta keywords tag.

Meta Refresh Tag:
The tag present in the header of a web page which is used to display a different page after a few seconds. If a page displays another page too soon, most search engines will either ignore the current page and index the second page or penalize the current page for spamming.

Meta Search:
A query is submitted to more than one search engine or directory, and results are reported from all the engines.

Meta Search Engine:
A server that passes queries on to many search engines and directories, then summarizes the results.

Meta tags:
Information placed in the HTML header of a Web page, providing information that is not visible to browsers.

MIME:
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, a protocol for allowing email messages to contain various types of media (text, images...).

Mirror Sites:
Multiple copies of web sites or web pages, often on different servers. The process of registering these multiple copies with search engines is often treated as spamindexing.

Multiple Titles:
It used to be possible to repeat the HTML title tag in the header section of a web page several times to improve search engine positioning. Most search engines now detect this trick.

Online
: A general term for when one computer is interacting directly with another computer.

PHP:
PHP is an web scripting language. The PHP code can be inserted into the HTML of web page. Because the PHP code is transformed into HTML before the page is loaded, users cannot view the PHP code on a page.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics):
Is a graphics format specifically designed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG enable compression of images without any loss of quality, including high-resolution images. Another important feature of PNG is that anyone may create software that works with PNG images without paying any fees.

Query:
A word, a phrase or a group of words, possibly combined with other syntax used to pass instructions to a search engine or a directory in order to locate web pages.

Referral:
A new member of the ad network referred directly by a current member through link.

Refresh:
To reload the same web page.

Robot (Spider):
A software that visits web sites and indexes the pages present in those sites. Search engines use spiders to build up their databases.

Robots.txt:
: A text file present in the root directory of a site which is used to control which pages are indexed by a robot. Only robots which comply with the Robots exclusion standard will follow the instructions contained in this file.

Relevancy:
The degree to which a document or web page provides the information the user is looking for.

Re-submission:
Repeating the search engine registration process one or more times for the same page or web site. Some search engines will de-list sites for repeated re-submission. Occasional re-submission of changed pages is usually not a problem.

Search engines:
Are computer programs designed to help users of the Internet locate information on the World Wide Web. It collects and indexes Internet resources (web pages, images...) and provides a keyword search system allowing the user to identify and retrieve resources.

Search engine optimization:
A set of practices that attempts to make a website more attractive to search engines, thereby encouraging higher rankings.

Search engine placement (search engine positioning):
The practice of trying to ensure that a web site obtains a high rank in the search engines.

Search engine submission (search engine registration):
Refers to the act of getting your web site listed with search engines.

Search term:
A single word or group of words used in a search engine document query. It also refers to the strategic keywords used to optimize web page content.

Spamming (Spamindexing):
Using any search engine ranking technique which causes a degradation in the quality of the results produced by the search engines. Examples: repetition of a keyword in a page, using keywords which are unrelated to the contents of the site, using hidden text and others. Most search engines will penalize a page which uses spamming.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer):
A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.

Stop word:
Words ignored in a query because they are so commonly used that they can't contribute to relevancy. Includes conjunctions, prepositions, and articles such as and, the and others.

Title:
The contents of the Title tag is generally displayed by the browser at the top of the browser window. Title text is important because it normally forms the link to the page from the search engine listings, and because the search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing the page. Having keywords in the Title tag of a page can significantly increase the search engine ranking of the page for those keywords.

Tutorial:
Computer-assisted instruction, usually divided into sections, on how to use a certain kind of software.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator):
An Internet address representing a site or file on the World Wide Web. If you know the URL of a web site, you can go to that web page.

Unique visitor:
A real visitor to a Website. Web servers record the IP addresses of each visitor, and this is used to determine the number of real people who have visited a web site.

Webmaster:
The individual responsible for the management of a web site.

Web page:
A page in a World Wide Web.

Web site:
A virtual location online designated by a unique URL. A web site is made up of one or more web pages.

World Wide Web:
The World Wide Web, or simply the web, refers to a system of Internet servers that support documents formatted using HTML. These documents or webpages are served to any of the various web browsers using HTTP.

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Glossary of Search Engines