| Don't worry! You will NOT be tested on this material!!
The great thing is, you don't have to be an expert about Web Positioning,
we at InTheTop30.com are CERTIFIED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION EXPERTS. However,
in all fairness to our customers, we feel that you can't fully understand
the process unless you know what it is that we do on your behalf. Web Positioning
has a language all its own, and we have taken some of those common terms
and created a glossary for quick reference. If you have come across a word
on our site that you don't understand and is not defined here, simply send
an email to InTheTop30.com and we will reply as soon as possible with
a definition!
algorithm
The challenge with web positioning is that every site
wants to be at the top and every search engine wants to list results that
are more relevant than competing search engine lists. Consequently, each
search engine creates its own algorithm or criteria which describe how
they wish keywords to be placed on the web page and with what frequency.
Boolean Logic
Boolean logic refers to the logical relationship among
search terms, and is named for the British mathematician George Boole.
On Internet Search Engines, this refers to the construction of logical
relationships among search terms using the three logical operators: OR,
AND and NOT. On our Links Page there is more
information on where you can find tutorials that will instruct you how
to use Boolean logic.
doorway pages
There are instances where search engines themselves
are limited in their capabilities of indexing pages which have certain
query strings, cgi coding or even sites built using frames. Doorway pages
are developed using straight HTML, which is easily read by the robots
and spiders, sent by search engines to catalogue data gathered from pages
on the Internet. Therefore, the creation of doorway pages makes it easier
for the robots to read through and compare the architecture of a web page
against their criteria. These pages are highly optimized to satisfy the
stringent criteria that the major search engines require from their high-ranking
sites. These pages must change frequently to keep up with the ever-changing
criteria the search engines have established.
HTML
Hypertext Mark-Up Language is a collection of platform-independent
styles (indicated by markup tags) that define the various components of
a World Wide Web document. In other words it is the code language that
is used to build a web page. Various tags or codes written out in a particular
order command the words and images to compose a particular layout. In
order to view the HTML code of this page, go to the top menu bar of your
browser and either click View --> Source (Internet Explorer) or View
--> Page Source (Netscape).
indexing
Once your site is submitted and reviewed by a "robot",
the search engine will then decide if the site is worthy of being indexed
(added to their database). Once indexed, the search engine has now given
your site the opportunity to be found on the search result list for a
specific keyword or phrase found within the content of your site. If your
site is not indexed, essentially the search engine does not know your
site exists. It will not be found anywhere on the result list no matter
how relevant it is to what the user is searching for. If your site is
indexed, depending on the search engine's current ranking criteria, your
site may (or may not) appear on a list. Most studies show that users rarely
look beyond the top 30 (usually three pages of) listed sites.
Internet Service Provider
Internet Service Provider is a company that sells access
to the internet via telephone or cable line to your home or office. Not
unlike Cable TV service, this is most often a service billed to you on
a monthly basis. If you own a Web Site that is accessible through the
World Wide Web, then you have hired an ISP to house your site's data on
one of their servers. If the URL of your site is the "address",
then the ISP's server is the physical "building" where you Web
site resides.
keyword density
Keyword density refers to how many times your site's
keywords appear in relationship to the other words on your web page. A
well optimized site will have a high keyword density, but not too high
as to be considered spamming.
keyword frequency
Frequency is how often a keyword appears on the page
or in an area on the page. In general, the more times a keyword appears
on the page, the more relevant it will be to that search. Careful consideration
needs to be taken, however, since many engines will penalize you for keyword
"spamming" if they feel you were excessive, or repeated your
keyword too many times within a page or area of the page. In general though,
successful optimization requires that your keyword appear in the document
in as many different areas as possible, and as many times as is recommended
in order to meet a particular Search Engine's criteria.
keyword phrase
A single word may produce an overwhelming number of
results (with varying relevancy) to a user's particular interest. By searching
for a keyword phrase, or more than one word at a time, the results are
narrowed and may match the user's interest more specifically. At least
80% of searches on average will be for two or more keywords. Analyzing
the possibilities for connecting multiple keywords into phrases is an
important factor in the optimization strategy.
keyword prominence
Keyword prominence refers to placing keywords at the
beginning or top of the area of the page that is being optimized. In general,
a keyword that appears closer to the top of the page or area will be more
relevant. However, sometimes it helps to have a keyword in the middle
of an area, or even toward the end of the area. Keyword prominence is
carefully calculated against a particular Search Engine's present algorithm.
keyword proximity
This refers to the placement of keywords on a Web page
in relation to each other or, in some cases, in relation to other words
with a similar meaning as the queried keyword. For search engines that
grade a keyword match by keyword proximity, the connected phrase "web
positioning" will outrank a citation that mentions "web site
positioning" assuming that you are searching only for the phrase
"web positioning". Therefore, always try to group words together
that might be searched on as a single phrase by a user.
keyword relevancy
Keyword relevancy refers to how relevant your site
is based on the word being searched on. A high relevancy percentage is
valuable to the search engines as it ensures that the site is most relevant
to the user's search, therefore gaining a high ranking on the result list.
An example of keyword relevancy is if you chose to optimize a site which
sells hardware for the keyword phrase "power tools" as opposed
to something irrelevant, like "Britney Spears". Read
about law suits filed over this very issue!
keyword strategy
The "art" of finding the BEST keywords which
pertain to your business, organization or service, which can help you
achieve the greatest amounts of traffic in the most efficient way. A careful
balance between choosing keywords that are popular enough to be searched
on but not too popular to produce millions of competing results is the
key. If you target the wrong keywords all the optimization in the world
won't pull in customers!
keywords
Words associated with your business, service, or organization
which are mentioned throughout one's site the body text visible on the
page. Keywords can also be found in the META tags which are not seen by
the average visitor, but are seen by indexing robots which catalog how
many times and where a keyword resides within a Web page. That calculation
is then used to make a judgement as to whether or not that site is to
be indexed on that particular Search Engine.
Link Analysis
Link analysis is one of the best ways to measure your
website's popularity. Simply put, link popularity refers to the total
number of links from your Web site TO other related sites OR links to
your site FROM other related sites. The philosophy behind why Search Engines
value sites that have many links stems from the idea that those sites
have more to offer their visitors. A site with 10 related links, to a
Search Engine, is just like having 11 related sites all rolled into one!
META tags
META tags are elements that make up the actual structure
of a web page. Some examples of these elements are heads, tables, paragraphs,
and lists. Think of it this way: you use HTML tags to mark the elements
of a file for your browser. Elements can contain plain text, images, animation
or many other things.
robots
Synonym of "spiders". Search engines use
automated "robots" to review sites. These robots strip out all
the HTML coding and catalog every written word within the content of the
page (excluding words like "if", "and", "but")
and calculate the number of times frequently used words appear and where
they appear on the page.
Search Directories
Search Directories are web sites at which a user can
either type a word or phrase into a text field and be presented with a
list of other web sites pertaining to that particular topic. Users can
also find web sites on Search Directories by clicking through a series
of categorically linked topics arranged by human editors. Search Directories
rely on human editors to decide which web sites should appear within their
index based on the look and functionality of the site. Most Search Directories
require webmasters and SEO professionals to submit according to which
of their preset categories the site would be most appropriate to be found
under.
Search Engine Optimization
(SEO)
Web Positioning is the technique of optimizing the
pages of your site to meet the criteria that each Search Engine has devised.
Exactly meeting that criteria ensures high placement. To complicate things,
each search engine periodically changes its criteria. Sites that don't
continually optimize their pages to match these changing criteria will
suddenly fall to the bottom of the list, and possibly off the list completely.
Search Engines
Search Engines are web sites which employ complex search
technology, enabling a user to type in a keyword or phrase into a text
field and be presented with a list of web sites or pages which contain
that particular word or phrase within its contents. Search Engines use
robots or spiders to gather data from the internet and compare that data
against mathematical algorithms in order to determine which sites are
permitted to be listed among the results for particular keyword searches.
spamming
Spamming the search engines (or spamdexing) is the
practice of using unethical or unprofessional techniques to try to improve
search engine rankings. Spamming comes in many forms, but is most often
defined as "stuffing keywords" or using invisible text of one's
chosen keywords repeated excessively. This is often accomplished as text
on the pages of a web site which is the same color as the background so
as to appear invisible to the viewer. In some cases, by aggressively spamming
the Search Engines, a site runs the risk of being banned from that Search
Engine's database altogether. InTheTop30.com uses only ethical practices
and does not in any way use techniques which are considered spamming.
InTheTop30.com will not copy the text or HTML from another competitor's
web site, nor use other popular keywords in your META tags that don't
have anything to do with your Web site. InTheTop30.com advocates the acceptable
use of search engine optimization techniques and will do everything in
our power to position your site without using practices which compromise
your standings with the search engines.
spiders
Synonym of "robots". Search Engines use automated
"spiders" to review sites. These robots strip out all the HTML
coding and catalog every written word within the content of the page (excluding
words like "if", "and", "but") and calculate
the number of times frequently used words appear and where they appear
on the page.
submit
Submitting your web page(s) to a Search Engine means
you are requesting that the Search Engine review your site for possible
listing on their search lists. Without submitting, there is no guarantee
that the robot will ever 'find' your site at random among the millions
of pages.
weekly reports
InTheTop30.com produces weekly reports for it's clients
which shows, among other data, all the high positions on all your keywords
for the search engines you have chosen to pursue. The report is uploaded
on Friday of each week and is refreshed each subsequent week with up-to-the
minute findings. These reports are comprehensive and easy to understand,
and provide you with links to the search engines so that you can see for
yourself the results for each search. The reports are uploaded to our
site (www.inthetop30.com) and secured on a page that is only disclosed
to you, our client. A link to your report will then be emailed to you,
once the report has been refreshed. Each week's report will remain online
until it is refreshed with the following week's report. You may print
this report or send the link via email to your co-workers.
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