SEM Terminology Part 2

This is the second and final part in our two parter on terminology for SEO. Through out the month we will be referring to the terminology listed here so read up and then we can get started.

Web Site Terms

Anchor Text: The click-able text used in hyperlinks. Search engines use this text to determine the keywords associated with the page it links to.

Contextual Advertisement: Advertisements that are found within the content on a web page is contextual. Text links found in the middle of an article or pop-ups found by hovering on keywords located in articles are two examples of contextual advertisements.

Doorway Page: A page built solely for increased search engine ranking. Doorway pages are crafted for a handful of keyword terms and may or may not bounce the user to the main site.

META Tags: HTML header information found on every page. The META tags are not printed to the screen and are mainly used by search engines to aid the spider in pinpointing what a page’s content is. Title, Description, and Keywords are the most common META tags.

Metric: A metric is standard of measurement. When we say traffic metrics these are standards of measurement for traffic such as unique visitors, hits, etc. Metrics concern themselves with factual objective measurements, quantity is a big one.

noindex: noindex is an HTML tag typically found in the header section. It tells search engine spiders and other bots not to index the current Web page.

PPA: Pay per Action is an advertising arrangement when an advertiser has to pay every time a visitor converts (buys a product or service from the advertiser). In this arrangement an ad is placed on a site and no money is given until the ad is clicked and the visitors actually buys.

PPC: Pay per Click is an advertising arrangement were advertisers pay every time their ad is clicked. PPC is a popular medium for advertising on search engines such as Google and Yahoo!

PFI: Pay for inclusion is the practice of paying money to be included into a search engine or directory. The Yahoo! directory is a good example of this.

spider trap: A spider trap is a continuous loop on a dynamic site that keeps a spider trapped. Unintentional spider traps can keep search engine spiders from indexing your site. However, some times spider traps are intentional. Spider traps can be used to keep unwanted bots out, such as Web site downloaders who ignore robots.txt.

stickiness: Stickiness is anything found in or on a Web site that encourages visitors to keep coming back and to stay for long periods of time.

text link: A text link can be either short for hypertext link or is a paid for advertisement that includes no graphics. Often times text links are paid for by an advertiser to act as advertising and to provide a link back to their site for SEO purposes.

Social Marketing Terms

sock puppet: A sock puppet is an online identity which either hides the true identity of the user or is used to build several online identities for the same user. This is a common practice on forums, review/rating sites, and blog. The multiple identities can give credence to the main identity and can be used to attack opponents.

social marketing: Marketing that utilizes word of mouth campaigns and the like through a social site is considered social marketing.

social media: A broad array of Web technologies that allow users to share information with each other. Wikis, forums, reader reviews, rating sites, blogs, bookmarking sites, meeting sites, and the like are examples of social media.

UGC: User Generated Content, content that is created by a Web site’s audience as opposed to the staff of the site.

Web 2.0: A broad term that encompasses all aspects of the next generation of Web sites that provide a means to tap into the collective intelligence of the audience.

Thats about it, well at least the major ones. DrDave SEOmoz.org posted a huge appendix of terms and some of his are better defined that what I have here. Until tomorrow, happy hosting.