SEO Terms

Above the fold (ATF): Originally a newspaper term, above the fold means on the top half of the page. Placing a story above the fold makes it more visible. In Web publishing, in which no fold exists, premium placement generally means toward the top of the page, in a position where visitors don’t have to scroll down. Screen resolutions differ, of course, so if you design your page using a resolution of 1280 x 1024, for example, your own fold is way down the page. The higher the resolution, the more material you can put into each “fold” portion of the page, because high resolutions make text and graphics smaller. (In effect, high resolution makes the screen bigger.) For years, I optimized my page design with the assumption that my visitors were viewing the site on a 640 x 480 screen. I now regard that resolution as sufficiently obsolete to upgrade my optimization to 800 x 600 screens, which are still prevalent on laptops. (My apologies to 640 x 480 users, who must scroll vertically and horizontally at my sites.) Keeping all this in mind, and perhaps viewing your pages through different resolutions, try to place your most magnetic content so that it’s visible without scrolling.

Backlink: A link at another site, leading to your site. Also called an incoming link. The number and quality of backlinks represent the most important factor in determining a site’s PageRank. The value of any backlink is determined partly by the PageRank of the linking site, which is determined partly by the quality of its backlinks, and so on.

Bridge page: See doorway page.

Cloaking: A type of search-engine subterfuge in which an indexed Web page is not shown to visitors who click its link in Google (or another search engine). The cloaking works two ways: Visitor content is cloaked from Google, and Google’s indexed content is cloaked from visitors. This serves to give a high PageRank to content that ordinarily would rate a low PageRank. Cloaking is not always illicit. A certain type of cloaking are used to deliver pages tailored to a visitor’s ISP (America Online, for example) or specific Web browser.

Crawler: See spider.

Cross linking: Intentionally or unintentionally, cross linking creates large backlink networks among sites that exist in the same domain or are owned by the same entity. Unintentional cross linking happens when a site generates a large number of pages with identical navigation links or when at least two sites mutually link related content. When cross linking is done intentionally, the Webmaster is seeking to raise the PageRank of the involved sites. Excessive cross linking can backfire. If Google decides that the resulting enhanced PageRank is artificial, any or all of the sites might be expelled from the Web index. Innocent cross linking between two related sites is usually not a problem.

Deepbot: The unofficial name for Google’s monthly spider. Freshbot is the unofficial name of Google’s frequently crawling spider. The official name for both crawlers is Googlebot.

Domain: The first- and second-level address of a Web site. Top-level destinations are defined by the domain extension: .com, .net, .org, .biz, and others. The second level adds a domain name: yoursite.com.

Domain name: The second-level domain address that identifies and brands a site, such as google.com and amazon.com.

Domain name registration: The process of taking ownership of a domain name. Registrations are processed by dozens of registrars approved by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). The cost of domain ownership is no more than $35 per year. (Hosting the domain’s Web site is an additional expense.) Registration takes place online, and the activation of a new domain (or moving a domain from one host to another) generally requires no more than 48 hours.

Doorway page: An entry page to a Web site, sometimes known as a splash page. Doorway pages endure a negative connotation due to illicit techniques that send visitors to an entirely different site than the destination they clicked in Google.

Dynamic content: Web pages generated by an in-site process that depends on input from the visitor. Most dynamic content comes from a database operating behind the scenes, feeding information to a Web page created in response to a visitor’s query. Search engines are among the largest producers of dynamic content; every Google results page, for example, is pulled from the background index in response to a keyword query. Google’s spider generally avoids portions of sites that rely on dynamic page-generation, making it difficult to index the content of those sites.

Entry page: See doorway page.

Fresh crawl: Google’s frequent scan of Web content that occurs between the deep monthly crawls. Google does not publicize the schedule of its intermediate crawls or its target sites. The term “fresh crawl” is an unofficial one used by Webmasters, site optimizers, and other Google obsessives.

Freshbot: The unofficial name for Google’s near-daily spider. Deepbot is the unofficial name of Google’s monthly-crawling spider. The official name for both crawlers is Googlebot.

Googlebot: Google’s Web spider.

Incoming link: See backlink.

Index: In the context of Google, the index is the database of Web content gathered by the Google spider. When Google receives a search query, it matches the query keywords against the index.

Keyword: As an optimization term, a keyword represents a core concept of a site or a page. The site’s content, HTML tagging, and layout strategies are based on effective deployment of keywords, which could also be key phrases. Google matches search results to keywords entered by its users and assigns a PageRank in part on how consistently a site presents its keywords.

Keyword density: A proportional measurement of keywords embedded in a page’s content. High keyword density focuses the page’s subject in a way that Google’s spider understands. The spider can interpret too high a density as spam, which results in a lower PageRank or elimination from the index. Most optimization specialists recommend a density between 5 and 15 percent.

Keyword stuffing: The attempt to gain a higher PageRank (or higher ranking in any search engine) by loading a page’s HTML code or text with keywords. In most cases a visitor can’t see the keywords because they’re buried in HTML tags, camouflaged against the background color of the page, or reduced to a tiny typeface. Keyword stuffing violates Google’s guidelines for Webmasters and can result in expulsion from the index.

Link farm: A site whose only function is to display outgoing links to participating Web sites. Link farms are disreputable versions of legitimate, topical link exchange sites through which visitors gain some content value. Link farms often have no topicality and present no guidelines or standards of submission. Google does not explicitly threaten expulsion for joining link farms, but it discourages their use.

Meta tag: Positioned near the top of an HTML document, the meta tag defines basic identifying characteristics of a Web page. Often, several meta tags are used on each page. In those tags you set the page’s title, description, and keywords.

Mirror site: Mirror sites duplicate content and are used for both legitimate and engine-spamming purposes. Legitimate mirror sites assist in downloading when a great deal of traffic is trying to reach a page or acquire a file. Illicit mirror sites attempt to fill a search results page with multiple destinations owned by a single entity. When Google discovers a mirror site whose only purpose is to dominate a search page, that site risks expulsion.

Optimization: A set of techniques to improve a Web site’s presentation to visitors and its stature in a search engine’s index. As a specific field, search engine optimization has suffered in reputation due to unscrupulous individuals and companies using tactics that degrade the integrity of search results and violate guidelines set by those engines. Generally, any optimization scheme that tricks a search engine also tricks visitors to that site, making online life worse for everyone involved. Pure optimization, though, helps everyone: the Webmaster, the search engine, and the visitor. The true values of optimization are clear content, coherent navigation, wide reputation for quality, and high visibility in search engines.

Outgoing link: A link from your page to another page. Outgoing links don’t build PageRank by volume, as incoming links (backlinks) do. However, Google pays attention to the text elements of outgoing links, and a page’s optimization can be strengthened by consistent placement of key concepts in that text.

Page redirect: A background link that sends site visitors to another site. Page redirects can be used legitimately, as when a site moves from one domain to another. In that scenario, the Webmaster sensibly keeps the old domain active for a while, seamlessly sending visitors to the new location when they click the old one. As an illicit optimization technique, page redirects deflect visitors from the site indexed by Google to another site that would not be able to gain as high a PageRank. This type of redirect, when uncovered by Google, risks the expulsion of both sites from the index.

PageRank: A proprietary measurement of Google’s proprietary ordering of pages in its Web index. PageRank is the most intense point of focus, speculation, observation, and desire in the Webmaster and optimization communities. More than any other single marketing factor, PageRank has the power to determine a site’s visibility. A high PageRank moves a page toward the top of any search results page in Google when that page matches the user’s keywords. Obtaining a PageRank high enough to break a page into the top ten is the primary goal of Google optimization. An approximate version of any page’s PageRank can be checked by displaying the page in Internet Explorer while running the Google Toolbar. Hover your mouse over the PageRank cursor to see the current page’s rank on a 0-to-10 scale.

Robots.txt file: A simple text file that stops Google (and other search engines that recognize the file and its commands) from crawling the site, selected pages in the site, or selected file types in the site.

SE (search engine): A site, such as Google.com, that matches keywords to Web page content.

SEO (search engine optimization): SEO seeks to increase a site’s visibility in search engines and enhance its value to visitors through topical page design, consistent HTML tagging, and focusing content on core keywords.

SERP: Search engine results page. A page of links leading to Web pages that match a searcher’s keywords.

Spam: Generally refers to repeated and irrelevant content. As an optimization term, spam refers to loading a page with keywords or loading a search engine’s index with mirror sites. Google reacts strongly to spamming, and takes harsh measures against Web sites that use spamming techniques to improve PageRank.

Spider: An automated software program that travels from link to link on the Web, collecting content from Web pages. Spiders assemble this vast collection of content into an index, used by search engines to provide relevant sites to searchers. Spiders are also called crawlers, bots (short for robots), or Web bots. Google’s spider appears in Webmaster logs as Googlebot.

Splash page: See doorway page.