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Term

Definition

Accessibility

The practice of making websites usable by disabled people - especially blind people.

Because search engines are essentially blind (ie they can't see pictures or use Ffash) accessible websites tend to have better search engine rankings than inaccessible websites. 

Adsense

Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site — or matched to the characteristics and interests of the visitors your content attracts — you'll finally have a way to both monetize and enhance your content pages.

It's also a way for website publishers to provide Google web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages

AdWords

Google's CPC (Cost Per Click) based text advertising. AdWords takes clickthrough rate into consideration in addition to advertiser’s bid to determine the ads relative position within the paid search results. Google applies such a weighting factor in order to feature those paid search results that are more popular and thus presumably more relevant and useful. Google has also started taking into account the quality of the landing page and applying a quality score to the landing pages. You can apply for AdWords Select at http://adwords.google.com

Agent name

This is the name of the Crawler/spider that is currently visiting a page. Spider is a robot sent out by search engines to catalogue websites on the internet. When a spider indexes a particular website, this is known as 'being spidered'.

Algorithm

Operational programming rules that determine how a search engine indexes content and displays the results to its users.

Anchor text

This is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined). Used by search engines as an important ranking factor. Google pays particular attention to the text used in a hyperlink and associates the keywords contained in the anchor text to the page being linked to. Also see "Google bombing." 

API

Abbreviation for Application Program Interface. An API is a set of routines, protocols and tools for building software applications; it determines how a service is invoked through the application

ASP

An acronym for Active Server Pages, a Microsoft-invented, proprietary programming language for building dynamic web sites. Also an acronym for Application Service Provider, a hosted service available via the Internet

Automated Submitting

Using automated software such as WebPosition Gold or an Application Service Provider (ASP) such as Microsoft b-central's Submit-It service to submit your web pages to the search engines. This tactic is frowned upon by the search engines. Indeed, some search engines such as AltaVista have completely automated submissions by requiring the user to re-key in a one-time use submission code that is displayed on the submission page as a graphic.

Back Links

Inbound links pointing to a web page. Also known as backlinks or inlinks

Banned

When a search engine blocks your site from appearing in its search results.

Bid managent tool

Software or an ASP service used to manage bids on pay-per-click search engines such as Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) and Google AdWords.

Bidding

Placing a bid price that you are willing to pay as an advertiser on a pay-per-click search engine. The highest bid for a given keyword achieves the top spot in the PPC search results. In Overture, the top three bids are "featured" on Overture's partners' sites, including AOL, Altavista, Infospace, and others. The minimum bid amount on Overture is 5 cents per clickthrough.

Blacklist

Lists that either search engines or vigilante users compile of search engine spammers, which may be used to ban those spammers from search engines or to boycott them. 

Blog

Also known as a "weblog". An online diary with entries made on a regular if not daily basis. Some blogs are maintained by an anonymous author who uses a nickname or handle instead of his or her real name.

Body Copy

The 'meaty' textual content of a web page. Body copy refers to text visible to users, doesn't include graphical content, navigation, or information hidden in the HTML source code.

Bot

Short for robot. See "spider"

Bulk submission services

An ASP that submits many URLs to the search engines on your behalf. For example: SubmitWolf. Search engines don't like these. (see "automated submitting")