A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 

A

301 Redirect: Or permanent redirect is a server setting that redirects traffic from one URL to another while sending a 301, or “permanent,” status code to the requesting client.

404 Error: The error that occurs when a requested file cannot be found.

A/B Split: Or A/B Testing is a method of comparing the performance of two sponsored listings, landing pages or other promotional content.

Adsense: Google's pay-per-click, context-relevant program available to blog and web publishers as a way to create revenue.

Adwords: The advertiser program that populates the Adsense program. The advertiser pays Google on a per click basis.

Aggregator: A web-based tool or desktop application that collects syndicated content.

AJAX: An acronym (Asynchronous Java Script and XML) representing a way to create real-time Web applications.

Akismet: Comment spam filter popular with WordPress blogs.

Algoholic: A person who obsessively follows search engine algorithm changes.

Algorithm: In SEO, the formula that search engines use to determine the ranking of websites on their results pages.

ALT Tag: A tag included in the source code of an image to define alternative text for site visitors who cannot or do not wish to view graphics. The ALT Tag can also be displayed while an image is loading.

Anchor Text: Text used in hyperlinks that link to another location on the web.

Anonoblog: A blog site authored by a person or persons who don't publish their name.

API: An acronym (Application Programming Interface) representing a computer system or application allowing for requests to be made of it by other programs and allows for data to be exchanged. Think "programmable web"

Archives: Most often an index page, often organizing posts or entries by either category or date.

AstroTurfing: A fake grass roots push to generate buzz or interest in a product, service, or idea. Often this movement is motivated by a fee or gift to the writer of a post or comment or may be written under a phony pseudonym.

Atom: A popular feed format used for syndicating content.

Authority Page: A web page that search engines recognize as having an outstanding level of trust, as represented by inbound links, among other websites in a similar community.

Avatar: A graphical image or likeness that replaces a photo of the author of the content on a blog.

B

Banned: Removed from a search engine’s results.

Black Hat: An SEO methodology that includes techniques not in compliance with the search engines’ guidelines for webmasters. Also used to describe a person who engages in black hat techniques.

Blog: Short for weblog, a regularly updated journal style web page that is generally presented in reverse chronological order and allows readers to post comments. Also a verb: to blog – to write a blog.

Blogger: A person who blogs.

Blogoshere: The community of blogs and bloggers.

Broad Matching: A pay per-click-keyword matching option in which an advertisement is displayed for all search queries that include a given keyword or phrase: in any order, with or without additional words. Variants, synonyms and plurals are usually included in broad matching.

C

Canonical URL: The preferred, or primary, form of a URL. Often websites use various forms for their URL, for example: http://www.blackbirdesolutions.com/ and http://blackbirdesolutions.com. It can be difficult for search engines to determine which is the canonical form.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): A simple language used for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents. Can also be used for placement of content and is used as a file that is separate from the content itself.

Client: A program or computer that requests information from another computer over a network. (e.g. Web browser)

Client-Side Tracking: A web analytics technique that includes adding small scripts or images to web pages and monitoring user activity via a third party server.

Cloaking: A deceptive technique of showing different content to search engine robots than normal visitors using a standard browser.

Consumer Generated Media (CGM): Information created and shared among consumers online using blog entries, email, person websites, social bookmarking sites, message boards, etc...

Content Management System (CMS): Software used to publish and manage web content.

D

Dashboard: The administration area on your blog software that allows you to post, check traffic, upload files, manage comments, etc.

Date-Based Archives: The archives of a blog site, organized by time-stamp. Most blogs have some form of time-stamp. Some list archives weekly, but most list the archives monthly.

Del.icio.us: A social bookmarking site owned by Yahoo! Allows users to quickly store, organize (by tags) and share favorite web pages. Users can also subscribe to RSS feeds of others and share a page specifically with another user.

Digg: Digg is a place for people to discover, share and recommend content from anywhere on the web.

Domain Name: The identifying name or address of an internet site. An example: "german-to-english.com"

E

Ecosystem: A community and their environment functioning as a whole. The blogosphere can be viewed as an ecosystem.

Edublog: A blog site focused on education, be it teacher, administrator, consultant or student.
EFF: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world

Entry: An individual post or article published on a blog. Each of these entries, while appearing in an index, are also web pages unto themselves.

F

Feed: The RSS or Atom feeds used by news aggregators (aka feed readers).

FeedBurner: FeedBurner , owned by Google, is a tool allowing web sites, blogs and podcasts to "burn" content into a simple way for readers to subscribe (incl. email).

Feed Reader: An aggregator of content, subscribed to by the user, so that specific content or search results arrives in their "reader". Among the popular (and free) tools are Feed Demon, Net Vibes and Google Reader.

Findability: Refers to being locatable. Though tied closely with Information Architecture on the Web, particularly within one site, findability has also become a popular term in creating a findable, locatable and navigable presence on and across the web and social networking.

Folksonomy: The collective indexing using tags, labels or keywords, created by the content consumers. Tagging system such as Delicious, Digg and Technorati are examples of this type of social indexing.

G

Geotargeting: The method of determining the geolocation (the physical location) of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, Internet Protocol (IP) address, ISP or other criteria. Used in online advertising services as well as SEO.

Global Navigation: Links or menus that appear on every page of a website.

H

HTML: The acronym for HyperText Markup Language. The coding language used to create and link together documents and files on the World Wide Web. The code is embedded in and around text and multimedia files in order to define layout, font, colors, and graphics.

Hat Tip: A hat tip is a public acknowledgment to someone (or a website) for bringing something to the blogger’s attention. Also known as H/T.

Hits: A measurement used in Web Analytics, a "hit" is often defined as any request for a file from a Web server. In one web page, there could be several files embedded in it; including, images, JavaScript, media files, etc.

Hyperlink: an object, as text or graphics, linked through hypertext to a document, another object, etc. Used on the World Wide Web.

I

Impression: Wach time an advertisement or web page is displayed.

Inbound Links: Links pointing to a website from other sites. Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO).

Invisible Text: Text on a website that is not automatically and easily visible to visitors. (e.g. Text color the same as background, too small to read, etc...) A Black Hat technique that is considered spam by most search engines.

K

Keyword: A word or phrase describing the content, product, service or purpose on a webpage. A word or phrase used in a search engine query.

Keyword Density: The number of times a keyword or phrase appears on a page divided by the total number of words on the page. Location and font style of keywords is also considered. (i.e. title, bold, headings.)

L

Landing Page: Or entry page, a web page where visitors initially enter a website. Also, pages that are targeted and optimized in order to draw visitors.

Linkability: A web page’s perceived potential for receiving Inbound Links.

Linkbait: Web content specifically created to attract Inbound Links and/or has high Linkability.

Long Tail: Search queries that are less frequently used, but are more focused and usually longer. The idea is that people using queries that are so narrow know what they want and are more likely to convert.

M

Mashup: Most often a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single tool. Not necessarily restricted to online applications

MicroBlogging: A form of blogging allowing users to compose brief text updates and publish them. These messages can be submitted and received by a variety of means and devices, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, mobile device, MP3 or the web. Twitter is a good example.

Moblogs: A blog published directly to the web from a phone or other mobile device.

Movable Type: Movable Type is a served web publishing platform (it sits on your server) created by SixApart, the same folks who operate Typepad (a hosted web publishing platform -- hosted on their server).

MyBlogLog: A Yahoo-owned community and social networking site that tracks traffic and visits to member sites.

N

Navigation (Nav): A menu of links or buttons allowing users to move from one web page to another within a site.

News Aggregator: A web-based tool or desktop application that collects syndicated content.

Newsvine: An open source, community news service, which lets members customize the news viewed by "seeding" articles or posting for others to view and rate.

NoFollow: An HTML attribute instructing search engines to not allow a hyperlink to a web page to be influenced in ranking by that link. Used to combat certain types of search-engine spam (link fams, link spamming)

O

Organic SEO: Optimization efforts that effect areas of search excluding pay-per-click. Also called Natural SEO.

S

Search Engine Optimization: The act of optimizing a webpage or website using keywords in order to improve traffic via "organic" search results.

SEO: Acronym for Search Engine Optimization

Sidebar: A column (or multiple columns) along either or both sides of a site's main content area. The sidebar is often includes contact information of the author, the site's purpose and categories, links to archives, honors and other widgets.

SMO: Acronym for Social Media Optimization.

Social Media Optimization: A set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites.

Spambot: Aautomatic software robots that post spam on a blogs, contact forms and other forms.

Social Bookmarks: A method for internet users to store, search, organize, and most importantly - share web pages. Some examples are Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon.

Social Media: This can include audio, video, photos, text, files, blogs...just about anything, which everyone can use to publish, share and discuss content on the web.

Splog: Nickname for Spam Blogs, or blogs not providing their own or real content. Sploggers use automated tools to create fake blogs full of links or scraped content from other sites in order to boost search engine results.

Stickiness: Or Website Stickiness is the measured by the amount of usage (repeat usage) and the amount of time spent on the site.

Syndication: Or Web Syndication makes your website or blog material available to multiple other sites.

V

Viral Marketing: Marketing that encourages people to pass along a marketing message.