SEM Glossary
Search Engine Marketing may be a complicated discipline, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't understand it. Industry jargon, technical language and confusing abbreviations often muddle people's understanding of search engine marketing. Never be afraid to ask your search marketer to explain something if you don't understand. Here, we've put together a SEM Glossary full of search marketing terms and definitions. At E-Power Marketing, we strive to educate our clients about SEM, creating a shared sense of understanding about what it is we do.
301 Redirect: A permanent, search engine friendly redirect. A 301 redirect tells the search engines to update the old URL with a new URL.
302 Redirect: A temporary, non-search friendly redirect. A 302 redirect tells the search engines this URL is only replacing the old URL temporarily, therefore the search engines will not update their index with the new URL.
Accessibility: The level of ease in which someone with different abilities, especially vision impairments can use a Website. Providing accurate alt tags for images improves the Website's accessibility.
Ad Scheduling: Also known as day parting, ad scheduling allows an advertiser using a pay per click search engine to control the day and time their ads appear. Some pay per click search engines also allow you to control your bids during a certain time of day.
Affiliate Marketing: An affiliate is a Website owner or individual advertiser that will help promote your site for a commission. Commissions are usually based on actions such as referrals or sales.
Algorithm: A programming formula that establishes how a search engine indexes a Website's content and how the results are displayed for users.
ALT tag: Tag placed on images with text describing the picture or image. Aides in accessibility and search engine results.
Anchor Text: Also called Link Text. This is the visible text used to link to a page. Anchor text is a crucial component to success on the search engines, because it tells search engines what the linked page is about. It is beneficial to include relevant keywords within your anchor text.
Backlinks: Links from other Web pages that point to your Website, or in-bound links. Search engines give better search visibility to sites that have many quality, relevant in-bound links. You can check a Website's backlinks on search engines by querying "links: domain.com."
Black Hat SEO: Search Engine Optimization techniques considered unethical or shady. While these techniques can cause a site to rank higher than the Website deserves, they don't improve the user's experience of the Website. Black Hat SEO techniques go against search engine guidelines and can result in penalties or getting banned from search engines.
Blog: An online journal that is updated on an ongoing basis. Blog posts are usually categorized and archived. Blogs typically feature Feeds for interested readers to subscribe. Many Blogs allow visitors to comment on postings, which can be moderated. When actively used for providing informative content surrounding your focus, Blogs can be a valuable tool in achieving success on search engines. Popular Blogging platforms include: Blogger, WordPress, Moveable Type and Squarespace.
Blogger: Free Blogging platform from Google offering the capability to place your Blog content on your own Website or on a .blogspot subdomain. Easy to use, and recommended for beginner Bloggers.
Bot: See Search Crawler
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who enter a Website only to immediately leave, without viewing any pages. High bounce rates indicate the page does not contain what the visitor was looking for or there are problems with the page itself.
Broad Match: Keyword matching option used within PPC advertising. Broad match will show your ad to those looking for similar or relevant keywords that you already target.
Cache: Search engines crawl the Web and store copies of the Web pages they crawl, which are stored in cache. While searching on search engines such as Google, you are actually searching the cache versions within the index which may not be the current live page.
Canonicalization: Organizing multiple options (URLs) into one option to focus all efforts around. If your Website links to both the www and non-www version of your Website, you have to standardize all links into one canonical URL. Utilizing both the www and non-www causes your Website to appear as 2 Websites and that looks spammy to search engines.
Click Through: When you click an ad and it causes you to redirect to another Web page.
Click Through Rate: A term used by Pay Per Click Search Engines such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter. CTR (Click Through Rate) is the number of clicks your ad gets divided by the number of times your ad is shown (known as Impressions). The CTR is usually a strong indicator of a campaign's performance and relevance to the end user.
CMS: See Content Management System
Content Management System: Tool used to empower non-technical personnel to update and edit Website content. CMS's however tend to have drawbacks and cause problems with search engines such as generating multiple URLs for the same page and limitations on what can and cannot be edited. There are too many CMS's available to list here. Some common content management systems include WordPress, Drupal, Elxis, Typo and Ektron.
Content Network: Also known as contextual targeting, these networks serve paid advertising via text, image and video ads on Websites that offer similar content to what you are advertising. Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter offer a content network via a cost per click or cost per thousand (CPM) targeting method.
Content Optimization: Revising the content on a Website in order to use target key phrases properly. When content is effectively optimized, it will help your Website rank higher for pertinent keywords and will also engage your customers better.
Conversion Funnel: Will show you how effective your Website is at "funneling" visitors throughout the conversion process. Allows you to see if visitors are taking the expected path to a completed conversion. An example would be a conversion funnel monitoring the ecommerce checkout process.
Conversion Rate: The rate of visitors or prospects who take a desired action on your site. Desired action steps can involve purchases, leads, contact form completions, newsletters or email sign ups, registration for White Papers, etc. Example: If 100 visitors come to your site and 3 signup for your monthly newsletter than your conversion rate would be 3%.
Conversion Tracking: Conversion tracking – allows you to track various actions or goals on your Website like leads, purchases, signups, contacts, etc. Conversion tracking is usually coupled with an analytics system like Google Analytics, WebTrends or Omniture.
Cost Per Click: The amount advertisers are charged for every click that a paid search platform such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN AdCenter send them
Cost Per Lead: The cost to capture a new lead. The total cost of a marketing program divided by the number of leads achieved.
Cost Per Thousand: A pricing option used by paid search platforms such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN AdCenter. It is the cost paid per thousand Impressions.
CPC: See Cost Per Click
CPM: An acronym for Cost Per Thousand Impressions (M= Roman numeral for 1000). See Cost Per Thousand.
Crawler: See Search Crawler
Cross Linking: Linking to other pages within your own Website. For example, if you were to link key phrases on your Home page to relevant pages within your Website, that would be cross linking.
CSS: See Style Sheet.
CTR: See Click Through Rate
Directories: A Website that groups other Websites into categories and provides searchers with site descriptions. Some directories are free to submit to, while others, such as the Yahoo Directory and Business.com are paid.
DNS Alignment: If you own multiple domains pointing to the same Website the Administrative Contact, Technical Contact and Name Servers must all match for all domains. If not aligned, search engines may view the multiple domains as separate, redundant Websites, and thus hurt your search visibility.
Domain: A specific Website address. Ex. http://www.epowermark.com
Duplicate Content: Content that is redundant or close to being identical between Web pages or Websites. Search engines try to minimize the size of their search indexes as much as possible, thus limiting the amount of duplicate content they will display in search results. Search engines will filter out duplicate content and dilute the search visibility to Websites that contain duplicate content. Many Content Management Systems and Dynamic Platforms create duplicate content as new URLs are generated for the same Web page. This practice can hurt search visibility.
Exact Match: Keyword matching option used within PPC advertising. Exact match is the most targeted match type. Exact match will only show your ad to those who have entered in your exact keyword. No variations allowed.
External Link Popularity: The number and quality of backlinks pointing to your Website. A Website with a large amount of quality backlinks will have high link popularity.
Flash: Macromedia Flash is popular technology for adding animation, video and interactivity to Websites. As Flash components lack text, search engines have some difficulties in reading content and following links within Flash.
Forum: Online discussion boards. Users discuss topics in "threads". Many people use forums to gather information, discuss products and services, and can be used by brands to gauge customer viewpoints and the public's perceptions of their company and competition.
Frames: HTML technique which allows multiple pages to be seen within a single browser window. You can tell you're on a Website with frames when one part of the page is controlled by a scroll bar and another part isn't. Search engines are not able to properly follow content and links within frames.
Geo-Targeting: When an advertisement is displayed only in certain locations. This technique is utilized by paid search platforms such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN AdCenter. Geo-targeting allows you to specify who will see your ads based on the location of the searcher. If you want to sell your services or products to a localized market, Geo-targeting is the method to use.
Google AdSense: Websites can display relevant Google ads and share in the revenue. The ads should correlate to the information on your Website.
Google AdWords: A program that allows users to advertise on Google and its ad partners such as AOL, New York Times and countless others, regardless of budgets. AdWords ads are displayed via text above or on the side of non-paid search results on Google. AdWords also appear on search and content sites in the growing Google Network via text, image or video ads. Pricing methods include CPC or CPM.
Google Analytics: Free traffic reporting software, allowing you to monitor traffic to your Website as well as detailed analytics including Bounce Rate, Conversions, Search Referral Traffic and much more. By monitoring your traffic data, you can work to increase your Website's ROI through deep analysis.
Google Search Network: Part of the Google (advertising) Network where your ads may be shown on Blogs, personal Websites, email and other Google programs. This is an optional feature within the Google AdWords program.
Google Sitelinks: Sometimes Google displays links on the first search result that go to interior pages within a Website. Google generates Sitelinks according to popular pages on your Website and the architecture of the Website. There is no way to customize what links are used or when Google Sitelinks appear within search results. Typically Google Sitelinks is displayed for company-specific searches.
Google Webmaster Tools: Analysis and trouble-shooting tool provided by Google for webmasters to control and view detailed reports about their Website's performance and diagnose problems the search engine has with their Web pages.
Guerilla Marketing: See Viral Marketing
Impression: How many times your ad is shown by search engines.
Inbound Links: See Backlinks
Index: A search engine crawler reads Web pages. Also see Search Index.
Indexability: How well the search engines can index or crawl your Website.
Interlinking: See Cross Linking
Internal Link Popularity: How well a Web page is interlinked within your Website. A Website that is interlinked with consistent link text and architecture will have high internal link popularity.
IP Address: "Internet Protocol Address", "IP" or "Internet Address". It is written as a series of numbers in four parts, separated by periods that identifies the senders and receivers of network data. The numbers in the address correspond to the domain, the network, the subnetwork and the host computer. Each server or device with an Internet connection is given an IP address.
JavaScript: Simple scripting language used frequently on Websites to add attractiveness and interactivity. Search engines do not index well the content and links programmed within JavaScript.
Key Phrase: See Keyword
Keyword: Words commonly used to search for what your Website offers. The keywords for this page would be "search engine marketing glossary".
Keyword Insertion: Term used within the PPC advertising field allowing for dynamic insertion of a target keyword either into the headline or description of your ad text. This will prominently bold the keyword allowing for greater visibility and higher Click Thru Rates.
Keyword Matching: Term used within PPC advertising allowing you to distinguish which searches will see your ad. Common match type options are Broad, Phrase, Exact and Negative.
Landing Page: The Web page at which a searcher arrives after clicking on a link in the Search Results or from an advertisement. The more tailored a Landing Page is to a specific query, the better results you will see.
Lead Generation: Methods for generating potential customer contacts interested in your products or services.
Link Farm: A collection of substantially interlinked Websites whose goal it is to increase link popularity. This is Spam in the eyes of search engines.
Link Popularity: Is a component of the search engines algorithm for calculating search results. Search engines reward higher search positions to Websites having higher Link Popularity. See External Link Popularity.
Link Text: See Anchor Text
Linkbait: Valuable, informative and entertaining content that was created in order to gain links back to your Website. Examples include videos, polls, applications, games, editorial, controversial content and lists.
Local Search Marketing: Marketing initiatives specifically tailored toward local markets. Tools to use include Google Maps, Yellow Pages, and local directories.
Location Business Ad: Feature within Google AdWords that allows location-based advertising or business listings within Google Maps.
Macromedia Flash: See Flash
Maximum Cost Per Click: Or Max CPC is a term used by Google AdWords to denote the most you are willing to pay for one click on your ad. However, this does not mean you will actually pay this amount. Other factors such as Quality Score and competition will play a factor.
Meta Description: Tag within the HTML code that summarizes the page's content or purpose. These tags should be kept relatively short and are often included in search results under the title of your page. The description should create interest in the page and accurately describe the page so searchers can more easily find what they are looking for.
Meta Keywords: List of keywords within the HTML code that is applicable to the page's content. Search engine spammers misused this tag in the past. As a result, this tag provides no benefit to search engine visibility anymore as search engines ignore it.
Meta Refresh: A redirect method that is not search friendly. Search engines are unable to follow a meta refresh. This type of redirect was used to spam search engines and caused some sites to be banned by search engines. The proper way to redirect is using a 301 Redirect.
Meta Tags: Information that is within the HTML code that describes the content of the Web page.
Micro Community: Niche social networks focused around a specific interest. Micro communities are smaller in nature compared to more popular social networks like Facebook. Examples include: DeviantArt, Trulia or Care2.
Mobile Search: Services tailored for users to search the Web and other online interactivity through mobile phones and devices.
MSN AdCenter: A way to advertise on Microsoft, Bing and its content ad partners. MSN ads are displayed via text along with search results.
Natural Search Positions: See Organic Search Positions.
Navigation: Links common on every page for visitors to browse the Website in an organized fashion.
Negative Keyword: A word or phrase used in pay per click advertising that allows you to block unwanted searches or impressions. Example: If you sell only red widgets, you want to add blue, green, black, etc. as negative keywords. This way your ad will not be shown for a product you do not sell.
Organic Search Positions: Non-paid search engine results. Organic search positions are calculated with complicated algorithms unique to each search engine.
Organic Search Rankings: See Organic Search Positions.
Page Title: Tag used to provide a short description of the page. The Title Tag is written within the HTML code and is shown in the top of your browser. This is a key meta-tag for organic search positions.
PageRank: Google's form of link popularity reporting. Google gives precedence and added weight to links from important Websites over links from smaller, more trivial Websites. The PageRank score of a Website is displayed on the Google Toolbar. The scores can range from 0 to 10, with higher numbers being better. PageRank is an outdated tool however, and not much credibility is placed on a Website's PR score anymore.
Pay Per Click Advertising: An advertising payment model utilized by paid search platforms such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter where the advertiser only pays when the advertisement is actually clicked. Advertisements can be in the form of text, image, or video ads. CPC (cost per click) is sometimes used instead of PPC.
Phrase Match: Keyword matching option used within PPC advertising. Phrase match is more targeted than broad match. This match option will show your ad to those looking for your keyword(s) in the exact order. However, other relevant query strings may be appended before or after your target keyword(s) that will also show your ads. For example, your target keyword is "red shoes." By using phrase match your ad will also be shown for search queries like "big red shoes" and "red shoes in Chicago."
Podcast: An audio or video series that you are able to download and listen to via the Web.
PPC: See Pay Per Click Advertising
Quality Score: A numerical score assigned by Google AdWords utilized in their Pay Per Click platform. The Quality Score is determined by an ad's Click Thru Rate, keyword relevance, Landing Page relevance and other factors. Combining the ad's Quality Score with your maximum Cost Per Click and advertiser competitiveness determines your ad's position and what you end up paying per click.
Redirect: When the Internet user is automatically taken to another Web page. There are different kind of redirects, not all are search friendly. Please see 301 Redirects, 302 Redirects and Meta-Refresh.
Return On Investment: Measured by how much return you receive from your online marketing investment. An example would be if you spend $1000 on Pay Per Click ads and you make $2000 in profit from sales, then your Return on Investment would be 100%. Calculated: ($2000-$1000) / 1000 = 100%
Robot: See Search Crawler
Robots.txt: A text document, located in the root directory of a Website, providing instructions to the search engine crawlers as to which pages it should not index or crawl as well the location of the Website's XML file.
ROI: See Return on Investment.
RSS Feeds: (Really Simply Syndication) - Format used to publish content that is updated frequently such as Blogs, podcasts or newsletters. Readers subscribe to feeds of content, and are provided with full or summarized text when new content is placed online. Feeds make it easy for users to organize and stay up to date when they regularly access a variety of Blogs, newsletters, podcasts, etc.
Search Crawler: Also known as a spider, bot or robot. It is a search engine's automated program that surfs the Web by following href links on Websites from one page to another. Search crawlers "crawl" a page and make a copy of the pages found. Those stored copies are called cache and kept in the search engines' indexes.
Search Engine Marketing: Marketing a Website on Internet Search Engines with the goal of gaining high visibility and traffic for Websites. Includes organic Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, Social Media Marketing and link building.
Search Engine Optimization: The art of revising content, links and various other attributes in order to try and increase your Website's organic or natural search positions. Search engine optimization activities include: keyword research, content optimization and development, Website architecture, meta-tag optimization, link building, brand and reputation management, and viral marketing strategies.
Search Index: Complete database of all pages a search engine has crawled and chose to store a copy of. See cache.
SEM: See Search Engine Marketing.
SEO: See Search Engine Optimization.
Session ID: Unique identifier given to a user when visiting Websites using Session IDs. Each time a visitor comes to the Website a new Session ID is given. Session IDs are not search friendly because the Web page has a different URL every time a search engine crawler visits the page. This creates the appearance of duplicate pages.
Site Map Page: A Web page that is a Table of Contents for a Website used by search engine optimizers to better guide search crawlers about the keyword focus of each Web page.
Social Bookmarking: Web-based services allowing you to Bookmark favorite Websites. Since they are Web-based, you can access them from any online computer, not just your own. Popular Social Bookmarking Websites include: Delicious, Clipmarks, Google Bookmarks and Yahoo Bookmarks.
Social Media Marketing: Utilizing and interacting in online communities to promote content, services, or products. Online communities include Networking sites, Blogs, Forums, Media Sharing, Bookmarking and more. Social Media Marketing helps businesses to interact and engage their potential customers as well as build links that result in better search visibility.
Spam: Unsolicited email messages that continue to fill the inboxes. In the eyes of the search engines, Spam is seen as any Website that is engaging in intrusive and unethical marketing techniques in trying to manipulate the search results.
Spider: See Search Crawler
Splash Page: A home page that has an inadequate amount of text content. Usually made with Flash technology, they often have an "Enter Here" link or the option of entering a Flash Website or the HTML version. These pages can hurt search engine rankings because home pages are usually considered the most important page on your Website by search engines, and Splash pages typically have little or no content that a search engine can index.
Style Sheet: HTML programming used to control the design of the Website including fonts.
Tags: Word used on Social Websites for keywords. When describing content on various Social Websites, you "tag" your content versus entering "keywords".
Text Ad: The primary type of ad used by the major Pay Per Click search engines.
Tracking URL: A custom URL generated to follow through in measuring conversions. Typically used in Pay Per Click advertising.
User IDs: See Session IDs.
Vertical Portals: Websites and directories tailored specifically to a single vertical. GlobalSpec is an example that tailors specifically to engineering and industrial manufacturers.
Vertical Search: Specialized search that targets specific vertical or business categories directly through the use of vertical portals and search engines. The content in focus is usually based on topic or information type. Examples of verticals include: automotive, banking, real estate.
Viral Advertising: See Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing: An alternative means of advertising or promotion. This type of promotion is designed to create buzz about the brand or product. Online viral marketing uses social networks and various other interactive avenues to increase awareness and visibility.
Web 2.0: The second generation of Web services. Typically refers to Social Media Websites and tools allowing people to communicate, network, share and become part of an online community.
Web Analytics: Measures and collects various metrics regarding the activity to and on your Website and is a crucial part of analyzing its success.
White Hat SEO: Ethical search engine optimization techniques utilizing tactics that are not seen as Spam by search engines.
Wiki: Web publishing platform that allows multiple users from a community to share and contribute to content posted.
Wikipedia: Free online collaborative encyclopedia project created, edited and monitored by volunteers.
WordPress: Open source Blogging platform with large collection of plugins available. Blogs can be on a free .wordpress subdomain or can be hosted on your own Website.
XML: Extensible Markup Language. A simple, easy to use, and flexible text format used for syndication.
XML Feed: Feed typically used to list URLs of a Website as well as other attributes describing the URL. Uses include: sitemap.xml file, paid inclusion and large data listings such as real estate listings.
XML Site Map: XML file created to list all URLs to be listed within search engines index along with various other attributes. The sitemap.xml file can then be submitted within Google Webmaster Tools.
Yahoo Search Marketing: Pay Per Click advertising on Yahoo.com and their content ad partners. YSM ads are displayed via text along with search results as well as on partner content sites.
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