Glossary of SEO Terms Found On This Site

Alt attribute
The text that can be placed into an image tag that will display when the image cannot load, and will
also display when the user rolls over the image in some browsers.

This feature is useful for users with browsers that do not support images (e.g. there are a number of
'reading' browsers for blind people that make use of the alt attribute), or when there is a server issue
that means the image cannot load.

Make sure the text in your image alt attributes is descriptive and useful, as well as relatively brief.

Anchor text (aka Hyperlink text)
The text surrounded by anchor tags that links to another page or part of a page, e.g. this is anchor
text because it is hyperlinked.

It is useful to both users and search engines to make your anchor text informative and relevant to the
target, e.g. if you are linking to content about hyperlinks, it is more beneficial to your SEO to use the
anchor text 'what is a hyperlink' than 'click here for more information'.

Backlink (aka Inbound link)
A link from another website to your site. Search engines use backlinks to help rank sites and
determine their authority on a subject.

Backlinks should be relevant (i.e. from sites that are on the same or similar subject as yours, not a
completely unrelated subject), and authoritative (i.e. high quality sites lend more authority to your
site, whereas low quality sites won't).

Google PageRank is an indication of the number and quality of backlinks your site has. You can
check your PageRank at www.prchecker.com.

Breadcrumb trail
A form of navigation that allows the user to see where they are in a website's hierarchy.

Usually consists of a string of text links near the top of the page which shows the user how deep into
the site they have gone, and allows them to click back to higher areas of the site, e.g.

Home > Resources > SEO Glossary

Major search engines such as Google recommend using breadcrumb trails to improve usability, and
also because they enable search engine robots increased accessibility to all pages of a site.

Crawl
Term given to the action of search engine robots when they visit a website to read its content.

Directory
A website that consists of a list of other websites, usually organised by subject, and usually with
some sort of description and/or rating of each site.

For SEO purposes, it is beneficial to get your site listed in the major directories, including DMOZ,
Yahoo, Best of the Web, etc. It is usually free to submit your site to directories, but acceptance is
normally based on quality of content, and is therefore not guaranteed.

Doorway page (aka Gateway page)
A page that has been optimised for a particular search term that redirects the user to another site,
often without their knowledge, but sometimes through the use of on-page links.

Doorway pages are designed specifically for search engines rather than humans. They 'fool' search
engines into thinking the page is an authority on a given subject, and then funnel users through to a
different site.

This illicit practice is a violation of the Google Webmaster Guidelines, and should not be used by any
legitimate website.

Flash
A form of coding that allows animated content to be displayed on a website, often used to display
animated images, galleries, drop-down menus, etc.

Flash content was previously un-readable to most search engine robots. While most robots can now
read text content within Flash coding, they cannot direct users to the appropriate content within the
Flash object. Flash should therefore be used very sparingly in any optimised website.

Gateway page
see Doorway page

HTML
HyperText Markup Language. The coding used to display most web pages.

Hyperlink (aka Link)
A piece of HTML coding that directs the user from one place to another on the web (e.g. another
page on the same site, another page on a different site, or a particular place on a page), by way of
the user clicking on the link. They hyperlink itself can take the form of a piece of text, an image, or
another linked object.

Hyperlink text
see Anchor text

Inbound link
see Backlink

Index
The term given to the cataloguing of web pages by search engines.

Javascript
A form of coding used to display animated content on some websites. As with Flash coding, search
engine robots may have trouble reading text content presented with Javascript coding. Google's
advice is to place the same content from the Javascript in a no script tag, ensuring the text content
is duplicated exactly.

Key phrase
A search term made up of multiple keywords.

Keyword (aka Search term)
Any single word that a user enters as a search engine query. Search engines return pages in their
results based on their perceived relevance to the keyword searched.

Link
see Hyperlink

Meta tag
Part of the HTML coding in a webpage. Meta tags, such as meta title, meta keywords, and meta
description, are behind-the-scenes information that supply information to users and search engines
about the page's content, and are hugely important in terms of SEO.

Meta description
A meta tag that provides a short description of a page's content. This content is not displayed on the
web page itself, but is commonly used by search engines such as Google as a snippet in its results
pages.

While the meta description tag content may not be used by search engines to determine relevance
or position, it should still be optimised because it often acts as a 'free advertisement' in the SERPs.

The copy in a meta description tag should be unique, informative and compelling, as well as brief, i.e.
no more than 145 characters.

Meta keywords
A meta tag that provides search engines with information about the content of a page. The content of
the meta keywords tag is a list of keywords or key phrases, usually separated by commas. The
content is not displayed on the page itself but is visible to search engine robots who visit the page.

Search engines now place little or no emphasis on the meta keywords tag due to their abuse in the
early days of SEO by spammers. However, it may still be useful to optimise it for some search
engines, especially the minor engines.

Meta keyword tags should be unique to each page, should contain ONLY keywords or key phrases
present on the page itself, and should be limited to approximately five or ten keywords, or 256
characters.

Meta title
A meta tag that contains the page title, e.g. the text shown in the bar at the top of the browser
window when viewing a web page.

Often regarded as the most important piece of content on a page in terms of SEO, it is very
important that a site's meta title tags are optimised, ensuring they are unique, descriptive and
relatively brief, i.e. no more than 65 characters.

Natural search
see Organic search

Organic search (aka Natural search)
Term that refers to the search results that appear on the SERPs without payment, i.e. not the
'sponsored listings' or advertisements that sometimes appear at the top and sides of the organic
search results.

SEO focuses purely on improving results for organic or natural search. PPC, or Pay Per Click
advertising, deals with the paid or sponsored search results.

Organic search is so called because it is not possible to pay to achieve better results - the only way
to do this is naturally, i.e. by improving the page's ranking using various SEO techniques.

PageRank
Google's own trademarked ranking system. Google awards web pages a PageRank score from zero
to ten (ten being the best), based on its perceived importance of the page. Importance is derived from
a number of factors, but particularly the number, quality and relevance of inbound links to the page.

You can find out the PageRank for a page by going to www.prchecker.com.

Paid search
see PPC

PPC (aka Paid search)
Acronym for Pay Per Click. A form of online advertising where adverts are displayed above or
alongside the natural search listings, and position is determined by how much the advertiser has
paid.

PPC ads are displayed for relevant keywords, chosen by the advertiser, and the advertiser usually
bids for the top position for their particular keywords. The top bidder receives the highest position,
and so on down to the lowest bidder. The advertiser only pays when their ad is clicked on by a user,
hence 'pay per click'.

Relevance
The relative importance of a web page, as perceived by the search engine, for any given search term.
This is determined by way of a complex algorithm that takes into account the page's content,
accessibility, and popularity as defined by the number and quality of links, both inbound and
outbound.

Robot (aka Spider)
A program developed and used by search engines to crawl and index pages on the web. The robot
'reads' the content of the page as it crawls, and a complex algorithm is then used to rank and index
the page.

Search engines try to develop robots that read web pages in much the same way as humans do, so
that they can reward sites which offer a good user experience and valuable content with higher
positions.

Robots.txt file
A text file within the root directory of a website that instructs search engine robots to crawl or not
crawl certain parts of the site. Useful for instructing robots not to crawl certain parts of a site that
could otherwise negatively impact the site's SEO.

Search Engine
A website that allows users to search for relevant pages on the web, using a text query.

Search engines catalogue pages on the web by crawling their content and indexing them alongside
certain keywords or key phrases. When a user enters a search term into the search engine, the
engine returns a list of web pages from its index that match the search term, usually together with a
short piece of descriptive text and a link to the page.

The order of the results is based on each page's perceived importance by the search engine,
calculated by way of an algorithm that takes into account that a number of factors, including the
page's accessibility, content and popularity.

SEO
Acronym for Search Engine Optimisation (US: Search Engine Optimization). The process of
optimising a website to ensure that it is displayed as high as possible in the SERPs for a particular
search term or terms.

SEO is a multi-disciplined process that encompasses technical optimisation, content optimisation
and link building. Using various strategies and tactics, SEO can influence the ranking of a website by
the search engines, resulting in that site being displayed higher in the search results.

Search term
see Keyword.

SERP
Acronym for Search Engine Results Page.

Snippet
The description of a web page that is shown on a search result page. Typically the meta description
field (if present), or a selection of relevant text from the website or Open Directory Project listing.

Spider
see Robot

For any terms not listed here, try the SEO glossary at www.seoglossary.com.