Search Engine Optimization Definitions
| Term | Definition |
| AdWords |
AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines. |
| affiliate links |
is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. |
| backlinks |
links placed on other websites that lead viewers to your website. |
| blackhat |
black hat SEO tactics, also referred to as spamdexing, is an attempt to redirect search results to particular web pages using techniques not allowed by the search engines' terms of service. |
| cost per click (CPC) |
is the amount of money an advertiser pays search engines and other Internet publishers for a single click on its advertisement that brings one visitor to its website. |
| click-through rate (CTR) |
is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions). |
| link popularity |
is the measure of how popular a web page is by the number of backlinks (links to your website from another website). Link popularity is not just based on quantity, but also on quality. Websites with a higher Page Rank then your website, can help increase your website Page Rank. |
| local search optimization |
is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a website by ranking high for specific keyword phrases in search engines, plus the addition of geographical keywords in the search phrase (cities, streets, zip codes). Local SEO is a powerful tool attracting local customers for local small business. |
| Open Directory Project (ODP) |
also known as dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors. ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings. Listings on a similar topic are grouped into categories, which can then include smaller categories. |
| organic search results |
refers to those listings in search engine results pages that appear by dint of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being adverts. |
| pay per click (PPC) |
is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites, such as blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an advertisement to visit the advertisers' website. |
| reciprocal link exchange |
is a link for a link agreement or link exchange between two websites. |
| search engine |
tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input. |
| web analytics |
is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web site usage. |
| web directory |
a web directory is not a search engine and does not display lists of web pages based on keywords; instead, it lists web sites by category and subcategory. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories. Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions. |
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