TexasDesign

In every profession has its own set of terms, that on the outside may not make sense (remeber the first time you saw the term WYSISWG?). We have pulled togther the top level terms that you, as a graphic designer, shpuld need to know. I like Clement Mok’s quote: “knowing HTML is to the web, as kerning was to layout”- same for creating search engine friendly web sites.

Alt Text The text that is displayed when the mouse cursor is held static on an image. It is primarily used as a place holder in case the image on the web browser is unable to load.

Anchor Text The text/copy written on the web page that works as a link.
Back Link A link from another page which links to your page. It is also called an inbound link.

Below The Fold Part of the web page that cannot be seen without scrolling the page.

BLOG Web LOG is a journal kept on the internet. This journal is often updated daily and contains all information that the person maintaining the BLOG (Blogger) wishes to share with the world. Also applies to websites dedicated to a particular topic and being updated with the latest news, views and trends.

Broken Link A link that no longer points to an active destination. It is also called a dead link.

Cloaking A web optimisation technique used to serve a different version of the same page to Search Engine spiders and a different version to users. Sometimes separate versions of the page are created for different Search Engine spiders to promote rankings.

Crawlers Programs created by Search Engines that go around the internet collecting information about the websites. The process of visiting a website and recording information is known as indexing. The information collected by these spiders is then used to rank the websites. Crawlers are also known as spiders.

Cross Linking A simple process where two websites provide links to each other.

CSS Cascading Style Sheet Used in conjunction with HTML to provide formatting information to the web page.

Dead Link See Broken Link

Deep Linking Process of linking pages embedded in the directories of your website from your home page or other pages, to facilitate indexing of the page by the Search Engine spiders.

Description Tag A Meta tag that provides certain Search Engines spiders/ crawlers with a description of the web page. This description is often displayed along the search result for your website.

DHTML Dynamic HTML Programming constructs used in an HTML page using JavaScript, VBScript etc, to make the page more dynamic to user responses.

Directory A directory or a Web Directory is a website that arranges the web pages in categories, much like Yellow Pages, for user searches. Unlike a search engine, it does not crawl the internet gathering information and instead relies on the information you provide it when requesting to be included in the Directory. Inclusion into these directories can be free or paid.

DMOZ Web Directory edited by human editors. Also known as ODP (Open Directory Project). Provides directory results to various search engines.

Dynamic Content Content that is generated on the web pages on the fly. Information gathered from databases or other sources depending on user request, when displayed on the web page makes the content dynamic.

Google Dance An informal term created to explain the phenomenon of frequent shifts in rankings while Google updates its database.

Header Tag The tag that defines the Title, Description and other Meta information of the web page.

Hidden Text The text on the webpage that is difficult to see because it is the same colour as the background. This technique is considered spamming and should be avoided.

Inbound Link A link from another page that links to your page.

Indexing The process by which a Search Engine spider visits your web page and collects information about it.

Keyword A word entered into the search box of a Search Engine or Directory by a user to looking for information.

Keyword Density A percentage calculated on the basis of the number of times a keyword occurs in your web page copy against the total number of words on your web page.

Keyword Stuffing A technique where too many instances of the keyword are put into a web page without any context or use to make it keyword rich or increase keyword density. This practice is considered spamming and should be avoided at all times.

Keyword Tag A Meta tag that defines the keywords that the web page is targeting. It is considered, in the current day and age, to be of little or of no use. Search engine spiders no longer assign any importance to this tag.

Link farms A process by which independent websites create a complex linking structure to build their Link Popularity.
Link Popularity Link popularity is defined by the quality and quantity of inbound and outbound links of your web page. By quality we mean the reputations of the websites that link to you, the titles of the pages that link back to you, the text used to link to your website and a few other factors. By quantity we simply mean the number of links on the internet which point to your website.

Linking Strategy The planning process that goes into creating link popularity. Deciding who to form associations with, who to exchange links with and who to buy links from.

Meta Tag A tag created to provide keyword, description and other information to Search Engine spiders and other user agents. This tag is invisible when the page is rendered on the web browser and can be seen by viewing the source of the web page.

Mirror Sites Websites or web pages with the same or similar content as another. They could be used to target near same keywords as the other. As they provide no new and no useful information a Search Engine may penalize a mirror website.

Optimization When used in the context of Search Engine Optimization, it is a series of steps that promote a webpage or website on the internet and strive to achieve higher rankings on the Search Engines.

Outbound Link The opposite of inbound link. An outbound link is a link from your web page to another page.

Paid Inclusion The process of inclusion in a Web Directory or a Search Engine by paying a fee.

PPC (Pay Per Click) A model of Website inclusion where you pay an agreed amount every time a user clicks to your website through a Search Engine. Usually you buy the position you want to rank at, for a particular keyword or keywords and pay the Search Engine every time it generates a hit to your website.

PR (Google PageRank) A number of link popularity factors combine to produce a rating that Google assigns to your website. This rating is called PageRank and is a score between 0-10. It is an extremely important factor for ranking high in Google.

Query A search conducted in a Search Engine using a keyword or key phrase.

Ranking The position of a web page in the SERP, plus the number of results displayed prior to it on previous pages.

Reciprocal Link A link to your web page by an associate site. When you create a link to another web page (Page B) from your own page (Page A) and the other website does the same, then a link from Page B to Page A is a reciprocal link.

Reciprocal Linking The process of exchanging links with other websites is called Reciprocal Linking. Since both participating websites get an inbound link, it helps in building link popularity.

Referrer When a user visits your website by clicking a link from another website, the other website is called a referrer. The referrer could be a Search Engine or an associate website that provides links to your web page.

Search Engines Websites that enables users to search for information on the internet based on the keywords that they provide. Some of these websites gather information from all across the World Wide Web and furnish them to the user in the order of importance and relevance that it assigns each page based on the entered keyword.

SEO Search Engine Optimization Refers to an individual or an organisation that undertakes the process of Search Engine Optimisation.

SERP Search Engine Results Page- This is the page that the user sees after entering a query.
Spamming Deliberately using any technique that is in violation of Terms of Inclusion of a Search Engine. The practice when caught can lead to a penalty.

Spiders See crawlers.

Stats See Website Statistics.

Stemming Is a method by which Search Engines associate words with prefixes and suffixes to their word stem to make the search broader. It is especially important to look out for these while participating in a PPC program, since a search for pen can yield results for pencil, pendulum and penicillin and you might not be promoting all of these products.

Stop Word Words that are of generic nature and are ignored by Search Engines in the search. Some of these are a, an, the, with etc.

Submission The process of requesting a web page or a website to be included in a Search Engine or Web Directory.

Targeted Keywords / Key Phrases / Keyword Search Phrases Keywords or key phrases that your web page is trying to rank high in. These keywords are chosen on a number of factors including your target market, industry and competition. This model is gaining more and more popularity every day.

Title Tag The tag that defines the title of the web page. It is probably the most important page element that influences the ranking of a page.

Traffic Term used to decribe internet users

Unique Visits Number of individuals who have visited a Web site at least once in a fixed time frame.

Web Ring A conglomeration of separately-owned websites with similar topics that provide links to one another.