Search Engine Glossary - Search Engine Terminology You should
Know
home >
resources >
search engine glossary
Here is an ever growing list of search engine terms you should
know. The search engine gloassary has been organized alphabetically.
If you would like to add a term to the list please email us at info@salientmarketing.com.
E - Search
Terms
Entry Page
See Gateway Page.
Euroseek
A search engine which concentrates on information relating to Europe.
The URL is http://www.euroseek.com.
Excite
Regarded as one of the best search engines, with an index of 55
million pages. It can be slow to index new sites. The URL is http://www.excite.com.
Sites using frames must have a NOFRAMES section in order to be listed.
Some spamming has been noticed. Excite previously ignored the DESCRIPTION
meta tag, but is now using this in its listings (although the contents
do not affect relevancy, which is based mainly on the title and
body text). The use of gateway pages and hidden text is allowed.
Excite has an audio/video search facility which is a branded component
of RealNetworks' RealPlayer G2.
F - Search Terms
Fake Copy Listings
Sometimes a malicious company will steal a web page or the entire
contents of a web site, re-publish at a different URL and register
with one or more search engines. This can cause a loss of traffic
from the original site if the search engines position the copy higher
in the listings. If you find that someone has stolen your site in
this way, write to the company concerned and ask them to remove
the stolen content. Also contact the hosting service used by the
company, any company that benefits from the theft and any search
engine(s) concerned. If the thieves refuse to remove the material
or ignore you, obtain legal advice. It is also well worth having
printed evidence to support your claim that your copy of the material
was there first, and that you have the copyright! See also Mirror
Sites.
False Drop
A web page retrieved from a search engine or directory which is
not relevant to the query used. This could be for one of the following
reasons:
- The web page contained the keywords entered, but used in the
wrong context, with a different meaning or with a different inter-relationship
to that expected.
- The web page is an attempt at spamdexing.
- The search engine has a fault in its database or a bug in its
query program.
Flash Page
See Splash Page.
Font and Background Spoofs
Various techniques used to place invisible text in a web page, to
improve positioning without affecting the appearance of the page.
These are mostly based on setting the font and background colours
to the same value (e.g. white). Most search engines now detect these
tricks.
Frames
An HTML technique for combining two or more separate HTML documents
within a single web browser screen. Compound interacting documents
can be created to make a more effective web page presented in multiple
windows or sub-windows.
A framed web site often causes great problems for search engines,
and may not be indexed correctly. Search engines will often index
only the part of a framed site within the <NOFRAMES> section,
so make sure that the <NOFRAMES> section includes relevant
text which can be indexed by the spiders. If your site uses frames,
consider providing a gateway page or adding navigational links within
the framed pages. Submit the main page - the one containing the
<FRAMESET> tag to the search engines. If you use a gateway
page, submit this separately.
G - Search Terms
Gateway Page
A web page submitted to a search engine (spyder) to give the relevance-algorithm
of that particular spyder the data it needs, in the format that
it needs it, in order to place a site at the proper level of relevance
for the topic(s) in question. (This determination of topical relevance
is called "placement".)
A gateway page may present information to the spyder, but obscure
it from a casual human viewer. The gateway page exists so as to
allow a web-site to present one face to the spyder, and another
to human viewers. There are several reasons why one might want to
do this. One, is that the author may not want to publicly disclose
placement tactics. Another is that the format that may be easiest
for a given spyder to understand, may not be the format that the
author wishes to present to his viewers for aesthetics. Still another
may be that the format that is best for one spyder may differ from
that which is best for another. By using gateway pages, you can
present your site to each spyder in the way which is known or thought
to be best for that particular spyder.
Also known as bridge pages, doorway page, entry pages, portals
or portal pages.
Go.com
A portal partnership between Infoseek and Disney, with search capabilities
based on the Infoseek index, at http://go.com.
Google Sitemaps
Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to submit all your URLs to
the Google index and get detailed reports about the visibility of
your pages on Google. With Google Sitemaps you can automatically
keep us informed of all your web pages, and when you make changes
to these pages to help improve your coverage in the Google crawl.
With Google Sitemaps you get:
- Better crawl coverage and fresher search results to help people
find more of your web pages.
- A smarter crawl because you can tell us when a page was last
modified or how frequently a page changes.
- Detailed reports to learn more about how Google directs traffic
to your site and how the Googlebot sees your pages.
Salient Marketing can prepare your XML-based Google Sitemap. Call
us at 613-266-9812 or email us at info@salientmarketing.com
for more information.
GoTo
A search engine, powered by Inktomi, which only returns one URL
per domain in its search results. Operates a "pay per click"
scheme where websites can pay to increase their relevancy. The URL
is now http://www.overture.com.
Gulliver
The name of the Northern Light Search Engine's spider.
H - Search Terms
Heading
Many search engines give extra weight and importance to the text
found inside HTML heading sections. It is generally considered good
advice to use headings when designing web pages and to place keywords
inside headings.
Hidden Text
Text on a web page which is visible to search engine spiders but
not visible to human visitors. This is sometimes because the text
has been set the same colour as the background, because multiple
TITLE tags have been used or because the text is an HTML comment.
Hidden text is often used for spamdexing. Many search engines can
now detect the use of hidden text, and often remove offending pages
from their database or lower such pages' positioning.
Text can also be hidden using agent name delivery or IP delivery
either to present different text to different search engine spiders
or to hide the real HTML source from competitors.
Hit
In the context of visitors to web pages, a hit (or site hit) is
a single access request made to the server for either a text file
or a graphic. If, for example, a web page contains ten buttons constructed
from separate images, a single visit from someone using a web browser
with graphics switched on (a "page view") will involve
eleven hits on the server. (Often the accesses will not get as far
as your server because the page will have been cached by a local
internet service provider).
In the context of a search engine query, a hit is a measure of the
number of web pages matching a query returned by a search engine
or directory.
Hotbot
One of the largest search engines, indexing 110 million pages. Powered
by Inktomi, new submissions appear to be taking two weeks or longer
to appear. The URL is http://www.hotbot.com.
HTML
HyperText Markup Language - the (main) language used to write web
pages.
HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol - the (main) protocol used to communicate
between web servers and web browsers (clients).
I - Search Terms
Image Map
A set of hyperlinks attached to areas of an image. This may be defined
within a web page, or as an external file.
If the image map is defined as an external file, search engines
may have problems indexing your other pages, unless you duplicate
the links as conventional text hyperlinks.
If the image map is included within the web page, the search engines
should have no problem following the links, although it's good practice
to provide text links too, to aid the visually impaired and those
accessing the web with graphics switched off or using text only
browsers.
Inbound Link
A hypertext link to a particular page from elsewhere, bringing traffic
to that page. Inbound links are counted to produce a measure of
the page popularity. Searches for the inbound links to a page can
be made on Altavista, Infoseek and Hotbot.
Index
See Directory. Also refers to the database of web pages maintained
by a search engine or directory.
Infind
A meta search engine. Found at http://www.infind.com.
Infoseek
One of the largest search engines. New sites are normally added
very quickly, within one or two business days. The URL is http://www.infoseek.com.
Infoseek is one of the few search engines to treat singular and
plural forms as the same word. Very sensitive to page popularity
in its positioning algorithm.
Inktomi
The database used by some of the largest search engines, including
Hotbot. Inktomi is also used by Yahoo when no matches are found
in Yahoo's own database.
IP Delivery
Similar to agent name delivery, this technique presents different
content depending on the IP address of the client. It is very difficult
to view pages hidden using this technique, because the real page
is only visible if your IP address is the same as (for example)
a search engine's spider.
SalientMarketing is Search Engine Marketing and Market Research Firm.
Our staff of marketing and technology professionals deliver services that maximize
the return on investment (ROI) for online and offline marketing
initiatives. Our process of implementation is rooted in upfront research followed
by a measurement of success, ensuring that our strategies are on target and
exceed expectations. It's all about taking the guesswork of business success.
>> Click here for our list
of services or solutions that we provide
|
