Common search engine optimisation definitions and explanations. A useful beginners guide to SEO .

Algorithm

A computer program used by search engines such as Google to decide what pages to display for a given search query.

Alt text

Short for alternative text. The tag attached to an image that describes what it is. Used if a graphic can't be displayed and by web browsers for the visually impaired.

Anchor text

The visible text of a link.

Authority websites

Websites that search engines consider experts in a field. Links from these sites to your websites are very valuable.

Back links

Any link to a page on a wes bite from any other website.

Blog

An interactive website where the blogger posts articles (in chronological order) and readers can leave comments.

Cloaking

The process of showing one page to visitors and an alternative version of the page to search engines. This technique will get you banned by the search engines when they find out (and they will!)

Crawler (spider, bot, Google bot)

A search engine program that crawls the internet, indexing any page it comes across.

Duplicate content

Content that has been copied from another web page. You will probably not get banned for using duplicate content, but your site will not be trusted and you will receive a low ranking.

Free for all (FFA)

Sometimes known as link farms. A website that gathers website URLs and links them all together so that the overall effect is that any wes bite in the farm has hundreds of links to it. Google will ban sites that use link farms.

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)

The programming language used to create many websites. Search engines love it!

Keywords, key phrases

The words people use to search for something on the internet (a search engine query)

Keyword density

The number of times a keyword is used on a web page. If this is too low, the page will not be noticed by the search engines. If it is too high, the page will be penalised by the search engines for keyword stuffing.

Keyword research

Keyword research is the process of identifying the keywords and phrases are are likely to get you noticed by the search engines and therefore result in more visitors to your website..

Keyword stuffing

Using too many keywords on a web page.

Link

An element of a web page which, when clicked, will take the visitor to another part of the web page, another part of the website, or a completely different website.

Link building

Link building is the process of building quality links to your website for the purpose of increasing its popularity in the search engines.

Link farm

Sometimes known as free for all (FFA) websites. A website that gathers website URLs and links them all together so that the overall effect is that any wes bite in the farm has hundreds of links to it. Google will ban sites that use link farms.

Meta tags

Programming statements used in the Head section of HTML code that provide information about the page. They are visible to search engines, but not human visitors.

Natural search engine results

The search engine results pages (SERPS). A listing here is not sponsored or paid for in any way and therefore is a cheap form of focused advertising.

Page rank (PR)

A numerical value between 0 and 10 assigned to a web page by a search engine that describes it's popularity and authority. The BBC News website will have a page rank of 9 or 10 whereas a new site on the internet will have a page rank of zero.

Pay per click (PPC)

A form of internet advertising where advertisers pay search engines such as Google and Yahoo every time a visitor clicks on their sponsored listing. These advertisements are displayed on the SERPS and other websites that are willing to publish the advertisements.

Reciprocal link

Two websites that link to each other. These are not regarded by the search engines as high value links.

Search engine

Computer programs that people can use to search for information on the internet. Google, MSN and Yahoo are the big ones but there are many others.

Search engine marketing (SEM)

The process of researching keywords, optimising a wes bite for these keywords building in bound links to achieve maximum exposure of a website on the internet. Search engine optimisation is an important part of SEM the the overall marketing strategy can also include pay per click (PPC) advertising.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Ways of increasing the number of visitors to a website by making adjustments to a website's text and code, and implementing a link building strategy. Often know as organic SEO.

SERP

Search engine results page.

Site map

A web page that contains a list of links to every other page on the website. An XML site map can also be created and stored in the websites root directory to help search engine spiders to find all the pages on a website.

Social bookmaking

Where users of social media sites bookmark pages that can be browsed by others with similar interests.

Social media

Specialist website that enable users to share information and views. Facebook is the most well known. But there are many others appearing such as Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg etc.

Spam

Anything that is unwanted or unwelcome on the internet - eg unwanted emails.

Spider (crawler, bot, Google bot)

A search engine program that crawls the internet, attempting to index any page it comes across.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator - otherwise known as your website's address eg www.thinkingcapseo.co.uk