» Elle

Is my site banned by Google?

Elle — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:19:45 +0000

In order for your website to be found via a search on the internet, it needs to first be accepted by the search engines. However, if it contravenes any of the search engine’s rules – then it may get banned… resulting in it not showing up in those important results.

For the purposes of this article, we shall concentrate on Google – after all, it is the biggest!

We are very proud to say that we have NEVER had a site banned by Google. Not any of ours, nor any of our clients. However, a couple of years ago we did buy a domain that had been registered by someone else (who no longer lives on the Island) and found out very quickly that they must have broken some criteria laid down by Google had resulted in the domain being banned. This banned domain was Lanzarote Business

Getting a site unbanned by Google is not particularly easy. First of all, Google won’t tell you why a specific site has been banned. However, it does give you some ways to ensure that a site doesn’t get banned in the first place, so going through these step by step can help you to check that you are following best procedures, then leaving you to approach Google and ask for reconsideration.

So how do I know if my site is banned by Google?

There are a couple of ways to try. Start by going to Google and typing in site: followed by your domain name, minus the www. For example:

site:lanzarotewebdesign.com

If it gives you search results… then all’s well, and your site is not banned. If it returns no search results, then it is not listed in their archives. If this is the case, then do a search for “Google banned checker tool” – there are plenty of free ones out there – and here is a link to just one of them: Google Banned Checker Tool

What could have caused it?

Getting a site banned by Google isn’t that common really – so you must have done something pretty bad if that has happened. There are a number of reasons why Google may have banned your website, and here are just three of them:

Using Black Hat SEO techniques
Linking to”bad” sites, such as gambling, pronographic or link farms
Duplicate content. Copying another website’s content can definitely harm you, which is one of the reasons we take plagiarism very seriously indeed.

How can I fix it?

The best way is to open a Google Webmaster Tools account. It is free, and only takes a couple of minutes. Then you submit your website, validate it by placing a small piece of code in your website, and you can start using the tools that Google has provided. There is a tool in there that can resubmit your site to Google, and offer it for reconsideration.

The offending site that we had was looked at in less than a week, and is already commanding many useful search terms… all on page one of Google results. We simply proved to Google that we were new owners, and that the site was full of useful content – and Bob’s your auntie’s husband.

Summary
Don’t risk getting your site banned, by urilising bad practice – and do certainly be careful who you get to build your website!

What is Google Page Rank

Elle — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:53:59 +0000

Many people confuse Google Page Rank with the ranking their site has in Google search results.

The two are very different animals however, and do not always match each other. For example – you may have a Google Page Rank of 4 or 5 (it goes 0 to 10 – with 10 being the highest) but you still do not come up at the number one spot for their chosen search term in Google results.

Google says that Google Page rank is determined by a high number of factors… but are reticent about listing them all. One of the most deciding factors however, is the number of backlinks from external websites referring to a particular page. The rank is always allocated to a page, rather than the whole website… so you will usually have a higher page rank on your home page, than to an internal page – this is usually because people will usually point to your home page when referencing your website.

Recently our guide to moving to Lanzarote achieved a Google Page rank of 4. This tells us that Google views the site as beneficial to readers, because there are so many links pointing towards it.

Our nightlife website Canary Nightlife has a page rank of 3. However, some of its internal pages also rank well… such as the Island pages and town pages inside the website.

So how do you raise your page rank? The first place to start is by getting lots of people to link to your website – or to a particular page. You can do this by a variety of methods… such as reciprocal linking, article writing, posting on message boards and much more. Ensure that your content is engaging, and of interest to lots of different people. You might think that you have written a masterpiece – but if nobody else shares your interest… then it’s not a lot of use. Aim to get your link listed on pages that already have a good rank themselves, as their “vote” is respected more highly by Google.

Be wary of websites that email you for a reciprocal link – claiming that they have a high page rank… but then shove your link onto a page on their site that isn’t even acknowledged by Google. This doesn’t help you – and only benefits them.

One thing to always remember though – is that content is vital for the health of your website. Keep it current… keep it fresh… keep it relevant… keep it updated!

To check the Google Page Rank of your own website – either install the Google Toolbar direct from Google… or you can enter your site address into this tool below.

Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly:

This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service

Both options are free of course.

Revamp that website!

Elle — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:01:58 +0000

Why should you bring your website up to date?

When you buy a car, you don’t necessarily buy exactly the same model, age, and colour, that you did last time would you? Why? Because technologies, tastes, and features have moved on. What your old car used to do for you was fine at the time… but now the demands are different.

The same can certainly be said of websites. Although your original website served its purpose at the time – it may not be the best use of your web presence now!

Times change, people change, demands change, and tastes change. Certainly your business will have changed. Perhaps your focus is different now, to what it was when you had your original website provided.

Hopefully your business will have grown. Can your staff update your website themselves? Do they have access to your client database from the back of your website? Can they easily send out mailings… targeted to specific customer groups of yours? Can you easily add products to your site?

Maybe currently your website is full of good information – but is it ‘cutting it’ in comparison to your competitors? Competition is always growing and changing, and you already know you need to keep evolving in order to keep a step ahead.

Have a good hard look at your current website. Does it do everything you need it to NOW? Is it up to date NOW? Has it grown to where your business is NOW? If not, then why not have a talk to Gandy-Draper to see exactly what we can do to help.

Does my company really need a website?

Elle — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:50:34 +0000

The easy and simple answer is “Yes – without a doubt!” But why? Here are just three reasons why a website is a must for any serious business.

Accessibility
You know what it’s like. You’ve been at work all day, or you’ve been taxi-ing the kids around to and from school, footie lessons, friends’ houses etc – and before you know it, you’re back at home and it’s far too late to visit a shop, or talk to a call centre (if you even wanted to). So you click on the computer, and start surfing to see what you can find. A website ensures that your business is available to prospective customers at all times – even if you personally are not. In a short time, your prospective customers can have found out all about you, your services, how to get more information, dropped you an enquiry, or even bought your products – all while you snooze in front of the telly… or are sipping wine with friends on the terrace.

Customers will speak to YOU!
How many times have you searched through an online directory, looking for something specific, and then are faced with rows of telephone numbers. Then a supplier with a website is in the list – human nature dictates that you will click on that because straight away you can find out more information without having to pick up a phone, or drive to their premises. Well, you’re not alone… Don’t you think your customers would do the same?

Increase your customer base
No matter whether you are doing business on a local level, or gaining clients internationally, a website can help you reach out to more people. It would be lovely if we had enough money to advertise in every publication in the world, flypost every flat surface in every country, or have your logo emblazoned on every vehicle ever driven, have our image blasting on every television channel ever broadcasting – but life just isn’t like that. And hey, if you had enough money to do that, you’d be retiring to yout luxury yacht and supping margheritas. What a website can do for you is the next best thing. With the internet, there are no national borders, no geographical limitaions – you’re are simply in the place caled “online”. Perhaps you have a new offer coming up – get it on your website, and you are automatically advertising worldwide. Planning a new range? Then your website can display that for you across all the compass points.

Of course there are many many more reasons to have a website – but even with just these… can you afford not to?

Search Engine Results Page

Elle — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:33:24 +0000

The search engine results page or SERP is the page(s) of website listings that a search engine shows you in response to submitting a search to that specific engine. Here in Lanzarote, we hear “Google” shouted from the rooftops… and as this is the most widely used search engine, we will concentrate on that one.

There are a number of things you can do to help your website rank highly. But be aware that even if you cross all your t’s and dot all your i’s… you may still not get there if the keywords you are competing for are very common or are part of a saturated market. Everybody wants to be in the number one position… but take a moment and look at your competition. How many other villas are there in Lanzarote, let alone the world? How many other pool cleaners are there? How many other Estate Agents? Bars? Builders? You getting the idea yet?

So you need to look at other differing key words that people may search for you with. If you have a unique company name, then great! But of course people need to know that name first in order to search for you don’t they? This is where other forms of marketing come in.

But this does not mean that you shouldn’t use best practices when designing, maintaining or promoting your site. If you honestly feel that you can not put any extra work into your site once you’ve put it live, then don’t expect to suddenly appear on page one of Google, and to stay there forever, it just doesn’t work like that. But… if you work at optimising your website continuously, you may yet get some brilliant results without spending a huge fortune on different forms of advertising.

Some important factors in helping your site succeed in the SERPs…

Do your research – Firstly you (or your web design company) must perform keyword research to determine what keywords and keyword phrases you are going to design your business around, as this will lay the groundwork for all of the meta data, text and links your site will contain. A decent web design company will do this for you automatically.

As we have already discussed, if you are using only generic keywords, you will have little or no chance to rank highly in the search engines. The key here is to target words and phrases that are more unique and have a bit more substance to them. For example, if you are selling holiday accomodation, you’ll have a better chance of success if you design your site around “luxury holiday villas” or if they are in a particular area, use descriptive elements such as “luxury holiday villas in Lanzarote” or “the finest holiday villas in Playa Blanca”. The longer the keyword phrase and more descriptive, the better chance you’ll have to grab that organic traffic. Designing your site around keywords is the most important element.

Content
It is extremely important to have fresh, unique content. And make sure that each of your pages follows that uniqueness too (which your web designer should see is reflected in the meta data on the page). The Google spiders steam in and try to read as much as they can on your pages – but if they see repetition, or things simply don’t make sense… then they’ll scurry off to another website.

Keep it new!
Search engines love to read new things. So adding, and enhancing your website as often as you possibly can will bring those spiders hurrying back more often for a good old read. If we could all add a new page to our websites every day, with fresh new text, linking it to other pages within our site… those spiders would permanently set up camp – as they do in places such as YouTube, Facebook, and PhotoBucket. The greater number of unique pages you get indexed in the search engines the better. This does of course all take time – and time is precious.

Link-it-baby-link-it!
We’ve already skimmed across the tip of the subject of links elsewhere on this site – but we cannot stress the importance of these enough. This is probably the best way to get those spiders coming-a-hunting. The more inbound links you can get the better… But keep them relevant. Don’t fall into the same trap that others do with pages and pages of completely unrelated links. Aim to achieve at least 1 new RELEVANT link to your site per day – and you’ll be rolling.

Black Hat SEO

Elle — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:38:23 +0000

It is suggested that the terms “Black Hat” and “White Hat” originates back to the early Western movies… where the bad guys wore black hats – and the good guys wore… yes you’ve guessed it, white hats.

As with most things, if there’s a faster or easier way of achieving something… then people will want to try it – that’s what Black Hat SEO is. I’ll happily microwave scrambled eggs rather than take the time in the saucepan, and then have that joy of scraping off cooked egg! But this Black Hat methodology goes back to when Search Engines were a lot less sophisticated than they are today.

Black Hat SEO is Search Engine Optimisation using methods that can whizz you up the rankings in the short term… but that risk you being blacklisted by Search Engines in the longer term. We at Gandy-Draper choose not to use these methods on our clients’ websites.

Building a site with Black Hat
A website that is built around blackhat methods will be generated from an expansive keyword list, and may use cloaking and re-directs to show something different to Search Engines that a human user would not be able to see.

Promoting a site with Black Hat
This would include forum spamming, blog spamming, mass social bookmarking, social networking exploitation and masses of RSS submissions.

Hidden Content
For example, it used to be common practise to place white text onto a white background, filling it with content that a normal person wouldn’t see, but that Search Engines could pick up.

Link Farming.
Unfortunately we still see this all too often. Link farming is when a website has oodles and oodles of irrelevant links – sometimes reaching into many many pages. The site owner has heard “links are good” and thinks that by getting hundreds or even thousands onto his site without regard for relevancy that this can help. That really is naive, but don’t take our word for it – Google has its own views here too.

Meta Keyword Stuffing.
This is when the website has its key words literally stuffed over and over again into its headers. It’s overkill for search engines, and has been basically ignored since the late ’90s.

Doorway Pages.
These are pages that are specifically built to target a number of phrases, which when clicked upon, send you in a different direction – which they know by viewing your IP address. These are also known as Gateway pages, Portal pages and Entry pages.

Scraping
This is a site (also known as “Made for Adsense” site) which continuously scrapes results from Search Engines in order to drive traffic to its own pages. These sites are generally either chock-full of advertising, or of redirects to other websites.

Buying Expired Domains
It is common knowledge that Search Engines prefer more established sites, than brand new ones. So people buy recently expired sites… and pop their content on… hoping to be taken more seriously. Unfortunately for these people – Google automatically resets its cache when a domain expires.

So what’s the upshot then?
With most of this, it’s the scale upon which it’s done rather than what is actually being carried out that makes it blackhat. Many site owners will comment in a forum, post their link on MySpace or Facebook, or on a blog in order to get their backlink – but it’s when it is done without providing quality information, that it is considered spamming or blackhat. This risks you being banned or blacklisted from these sites.

Anyway… We’d rather not take the risks with our own sites, and any of our clients. We would however encourage all Black Hat Experts to carry on – after all… it teaches Google the newer tricks… and make sure that those with quality content and well designed sites will get the recognition they deserve. The Black Hatters can take the gamble, and we’ll stay within the safety net.

Choosing a Domain Name – 6 Tips

Elle — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:00:59 +0000

Choosing the right domain name is vital for your success on the internet. Get it right – and the world is your oyster. Get it wrong – and your business may struggle to recover. Here are just 6 easy tips to help you on that path.

1. Think small
Although you might fall in love with a longer name, like www.i-really-like-this-domain-name-so-im-going-to-keep-it-goddammit.com , you still want it to be easy for people to remember and type in by hand. The same goes with difficult spellings too. So keep it short and sweet.

2. Avoid Trademarks
“There was once a guy who bought a domain name and made a lot of money out of the film company that should really have owned it”. Yes, most of us have heard that story. However, nowadays companies will not shell out oodles of cash to buy it from you. They’re already the owners of that trademark name – and their lawyers will be knocking at your door.

3. Buy it fast!
There are people and companies around that bulk buy names, just so that they can take some money off you, if you really want that name… don’t let them beat you to it!

4. Buy more than one
Sometimes, it isn’t a bad idea to register several similar domain names. It really does depend on the nature of your business, and particularly if you go for a generic descriptive name. Consider buying the .net, .co.uk etc too. Some people also go as far as buying common misspellings of their name – but that’s up to you.

5. Ask your friends
When you have narrowed down your choices – run them by a few pals too. It may be memorable to you, but if others have difficulty getting used to it – then the odds are that others will too. Be careful also of how it can be misread. here’s a couple of examples to make you smile!
*Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com
*There’s the Italian Power Generator company, www.powergenitalia.com
*Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net

6. Be careful
Be very careful where you search to see if your name is available. Unscrupulous companies will register it if they even see a search has been made. Network Solutions in the US has just been sued for doing just that very thing.

If you get stuck, we can take the worry away for you. Have a look at our Domain Name Service for details

Content and Relevant Linking

Elle — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:58:45 +0000

Right, now that we have established that Google is the biggest, let’s move on to a couple of things that you can do to help push your site up the results pages.

We’re obviously not going to list all the things that we, as webmasters, do to help push websites up to that number one page in Google search results – that wouldn’t please our bank manager really now, would it?

But we will happily share just a couple of the things that you can do from the comfort of your own computer.

Content
Think of a search engine as a human being. It wants to know that when it clicks onto your page, that it’s questions will be answered. Open up a Google window, and carry out a search for anything you like. The majority of results on that page will take you to websites that accurately answer that question. That’s how it should be. The content on your website should be relevant to what your site visitors are looking for. The more relevant, informative and fulfilling to your site visitors, the better.

Keep it fresh, keep it accurate, keep it updated. The search engines send their “spiders” into your site to have a look around. If each time they arrive, they see that you have added something new, then they’ll keep coming back. If however, you haven’t changed a thing in quite a while… then they’ll visit less often.

Relevant Linking
There are different kinds of links. Internal Links, which are links on your website that point to other areas within your website. Inbound Links, that other people put on their websites that point to yours. These are very important, because each inbound link is considered a “vote of confidence” by Search Engines. Outbound Links are links on your site, that point to other people. These too, are important, because the Search Engines want to know that you are providing a valuable resource, yet still pointing people to answers they may be looking for. Reciprocal Links, are when you and another website do a “swap”.

Always keep your links relevant. It used to be considered acceptable to list as many reciprocal links as you can possibly cram onto your site, regardless of content, or to submit your site to “Link Farms”. Google is starting to penalise sites that have done this. For example, would you find it useful to find a link about Plumbers in Essex if you were searching for a luxury holiday villa in Lanzarote? Of course you wouldn’t – and neither does Google.

A – C

Elle — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:00:35 +0000

Access provider – an organisation that provides access to the Internet. Also known as Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Ad Pimp – A website that has too many advertisements on it in an obvious attempt to monetize the site.
Ad Rank – Google AdWords multiplies Quality Score (QS) and the maximum CPC (Max CPC) to reach an Ad Rank for each ad.
Added Value Affiliates – Provide a value-added service to visitors in addition to affiliate links and affiliate content.
AdSense Link Clicking Bots – Automated programs that try to spoof random IP addresses to click through AdWords displayed on a site.
Adsense – Google’s Cost Per Click (CPC) based advertising system.
Affiliate Sniper – People who save money on purchases by switching your affiliate ID with their own.
Agent Name – An agent name is the name of the software accessing a web page.
Aggregator – Software that lets you automatically download content to your computer
Algorithm – A mathematical formula used to determine the value of a page when compared against others.
ALT Text – The text that appears when you put your mouse on top of an image or a picture.
AltaVista – Used to be the #1 search engine until Google came along.
Anchor Text – Also known as Link Text, the clickable text of a hyperlink.
Apache - An open source Web server package, mostly used on Linux and Solaris platforms.
API – Application Programming Interface.
Applet – A self-contained mini-executable program, such as one written in the Java programming language.
Application servers – Software used to provide an interface between systems to enable Web services.
ASCII – American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard for digital representation of letters, numbers, and control codes; understood by most computers.
Ask - One of the major search engines, along with Yahoo and MSN, after Google.
ASP – Dual meanings: Microsoft Active Server Pages, or Application Service Provider
ATF – “Above the Fold”. This is the part of the user’s screen that is always displayed.
Attachment – A file (such as a document, or image) which is delivered as part of an email message.
Audioblog – An audio web log in MP3 format and available for download to an MP3 player or a computer.
AUP – “Acceptable Use Policy”. A binding document signed by all users that explains the rules of Internet use at a Company, or an institution.
Authority Site – A site that has many In-Bound links coming to it, and very little outbound links.
Auto responder – An email message that is sent automatically in response to a message to another email address.
Back/Forward – Buttons in most browsers’ Tool Button Bar, upper left. BACK returns you to the document previously viewed. FORWARD goes to the next document, after you go BACK.
Back link – A text link to your website from another website. Also called inbound links or IBLs. If someone else links to your site, this is a backlink
Backup – To make a second copy of a file as a safety measure.
Bandwidth – A Term used to describe how much data you can send through a connection to the Net.
Banned – A term that means a site has been removed from a search engine’s index.
Banner Blindness – The act of web visitors to ignoring advertisements on the site whether it is a graphic or text ad.
BAP – “Blog and Ping”. A method used to get the search engines to quickly index your blog’s content.
BBS – “Bulletin Board Service”. A forum for users to browse and exchange information. BIOS – Basic Input-Output System. This is the small but fundamental program which starts up your computer and allows you to access your software programs.
Bit – An acronym for BInary digiT. It is the basic unit of information in the computer world. A bit is a digit in binary form and carries one of two values, 0 or 1.
Black Hat SEO – A term referring to the practice of SEO that is used to ‘fool’ search engine rankings. These techniques are used to gain an advantage over your competition.
Blind Traffic – This is traffic that is extremely low quality often by low relevance pages.
Blog – A “Web Log” that is updated frequently and is usually the opinion of one person. Blogged – Term referring to have bookmarked a blog in your browser.
Blook – A book that is serialized on a blog site. Chapters are published one by one as blog posts.
Bookmark – A word or picture ‘marked’ so that you can jump to it by name from within a list. Also used by browsers to mark frequently visited web sites.
Favourites – Way in browsers to store in your computer direct links to sites you wish to return to.
Boot – To switch on a computer. If the machine is re-started whilst running, this is called ‘re-booting’.
Bot – Abbreviation for robot (also called a spider). It refers to software programs that scan the web. Bots vary in purpose from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.
Browse – To move around the interent
Browser – Software application used to browse the internet – Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer are the 2 most popular browsers.
BTF – “Below the Fold”. This is the part of the user’s screen that is hidden unless the user scrolls down on the page.
Bumping – The act of posting on old forum threads, to bring them up to the top
Byte – A single computer character, generally eight bits.
Cache (1) – A copy of web pages stored within a search engine’s database.
Cache (2) – A section of computer memory set aside for storing frequently-used data from a disk drive, speeding up the transfer of information.
CAPTCHA – Stands for : Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
CSS – “Cascading style sheets”. An extension to HTML which allows style features (colour, font size, spacing, and page-layering) to be specified for certain elements of a hypertext document.
Catablog – A blog that describes products for sale.
CD-R – “Compact Disk-Recordable”. Blank compact disks on which data can be recorded just once.
CD-ROM – “Compact Disk-Read Only Memory”. A record like storage medium that uses digital and optical laser technology to store about 600Mb of text, pictures, and sound on a single disk.
CD-RW – “Compact Disc Re-Writable format”. These are blank compact disks that can be recorded over and over again.
CGI – “Common Gateway Interface”. A system installed on Web servers to automatically process information entered into web page forms.
Checkbox – A small square box which, when clicked on, displays a cross or tick to show that an option has been selected.
Click Distance – The minimum number of clicks it takes for a visitor to get from one area of your site to another
Click Pirates – People who click on ads, knowingly, stealing from advertisers, as they encourage others to join with them.
Click Through – The process of clicking through an online advertisement to the advertiser’s destination.
Clickprint – Derived from the amount of time a user spends on a Web site and the number of pages viewed, a clickprint is a unique online fingerprint that can help a vendor identify return visitors, curb fraud, and collect personal information for “customer service.” aka invasive marketing
Clipboard – A section of a computer’s memory where you can temporarily copy chunks of text, data, graphics, or pictures. Once in the clipboard, the item can be pasted into another part of a document, or transferred to another application.
Cloaking – Describes the technique of serving a different page to a search engine spider than what a human visitor sees. This technique is abused by spammers for keyword stuffing. Cloaking is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.
Clustering – In search engine search results pages, clustering is restricting each represented website to one or two listings.
Content Networks – A more politically correct way to say Link Farm.
Content Repurposing – A more politically correct way to say scraping a site for content.
CLI - “Contextual Link Inventory”. Text links that are shown depending on the content that appears around them.
Conversion – Conversion refers to site traffic that follows through on the goal of the site, such as buying a product or service, filling out a contact form, or registering for a newsletter. Webmasters measure conversion to judge the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
Conversion Optimization – Transforms your site into a selling tool – your site logically leads visitors through the sales cycle and closes sale.
Conversion Rate -The number of visitors to a website that end up performing a specific action that leads to a conversion. This could be a product purchase, newsletter sign up or anything where information is submitted.
Converting Search Phrase – A phrase that converts traffic into money.
Cookie – Information stored on a user’s computer by a website.
Copy – Text found on a web page.
CPT – “Cost per Thousand”. The cost for each thousand impressions of your ad.
CPA – “Cost Per Action”. The price paid for each visitor’s actions from a paid search.
CPC – “Cost Per Click”. The amount it will cost each time a user selects your phrase or keyword.
Crawler – A bot from a search engine that reads the text found on a website in order to determine what the website is about. Also called a “Spider”, or a “Bot”.
Cross Linking – Having multiple websites linking to each other.
CSS – “Cascading Style Sheets”. Used to define the look and navigation of a website.
CTA – “Content Targeted Advertising”. It refers to the placement of relevant PPC ads on content pages for non-search engine websites.
CTR – “Click Through Rate”. The value associated to the amount of times a paid ad is viewed.
Cybrarian (slang) – A person who finds, collects, and manages information available on the Internet.

D – K

Elle — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:00:05 +0000

Dangling Link – This term is applied to a web page with no links to any other pages. Also known as an Orphan Page.
Dead Link - A hyperlink pointing to a non-existent URL.
Deep Crawl - Once a month, Googlebot will crawl all of the links it has listed in it’s database on your site. This is known as the Deep Crawl.
Deep Link – A link on a website that is not reachable from the home page.
Delisting – When a site gets removed from the search index of a search engine.
Deliverable – In a contract, these are the expected results of the services provided.
Directory – Usually human edited, a directory contains sites that are sorted by categories.
DMCA – “Digital Millenniium Copyright Act”. A declaration that protects digital works found online.
DNO – Domain Network Optimizers
DNS – “Domain Name System”. A protocol that lets computers recognize each other through an IP Address, whereas the human sees a website URL.
Doorway Page – A web page designed to draw in Internet traffic from search engines, and then direct this traffic to another website.
Dynamic Site – A site that uses a database to store it’s content and is delivered based on the variable passed to the page.
EPC – “Earnings Per Click”. How much profit is made from each click from a paid ad.
EPV – “Earnings Per Visitor”. The cost it takes to make profit from a site’s total number of visitors.
Error 404 – When a hyperlink is pointing to a location on the web that doesn’t exist, it is called a 404 error.
Everflux - A term associated with the constant updating of Google’s algorithm between the major updates.
External Link – A link that points to another website.
FAQ – “Frequently Asked Question”. Commonly found on websites, FAQs answer questions that many users generally have about a product or service.
FFA – “Free For All”. FFA sites post large lists of unrelated links to anyone and everyone. Humans do not use them and search engines minimize their importance in ranking formulas. Don’t bother wasting your time submitting your site to these places.
Filter Words – Words such as is, am, were, was, the, for, do, ETC, that search engines deem irrelevant for indexing purposes. Also known as Stop words.
Fresh Crawl – Utilizes FreshBot to review already indexed pages and any pages where the content has been updated.
FreshBot – A sister to GoogleBot, this spider crawls highly ranked sites on a very frequent basis.
FTP – “File Transfer Protocol”. Technology that allows file transfers from a local machine to a remote host.
Gateway Page – Also called a doorway page. A gateway page exists solely for the purpose of driving traffic to another page. They are usually written for search engines to achieve high rankings and hopefully drive traffic to the main site. Using gateway pages is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.
Geo Targeting – A very tactful way to employ cloaking.
Google – Currently the worlds #1 search engine
GoogleBot – The spider that performs a deep crawl of your site.
Googlebowling – To nudge a competitor from the serps.
Googlephobia – The fear of Google taking over everything.
Googlewashing – When your content is copied and inserted into someone else’s site without permission or credit.
GOOGOL -This is the term that inspired the creators of Google to use this name – it means: 10100 = 1 followed by 100 zeros
Harvesting – What bots do to gain lots of email addresses from websites, ready for spamming
Heading Tag – Tag that designates headlines in the text of a site.
Hidden Text – Text that can’t be seen normally in a browser.
Hit – A single access request made to the server.
Hoax Marketing – The creation of false stories to drive traffic to a site.
htaccess – .htaccess is an Apache file that allows server configuration instructions.
HTML – HyperText Markup Language – the basics for all web coding.
HTTP – “HyperText Transfer Protocol”. It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks.
HTTPS – “HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure”. It is a generic, stateless, protocol which can be used for many tasks, but has security features enabled to protect sensitive data.
Hub – A site that has many outbound links, and few sites linking back.
IBL – Abbreviation for In Bound Link. Any link on another page that points to the subject page. Also called a back link.
ICRA – The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) is an international, non-profit organization of internet leaders working to make the internet safer for children, while respecting the rights of content providers.
IM – “Instant Messaging”. As the name implies, this protocol allows for extremely fast communication over the Internet
Index – A term used to describe the database that holds all the web pages crawled by the search engine for each website.
Indexing Assistance – An even more advanced form of cloaking.
Information Architecture – The gathering, organizing, and presenting information to serve a purpose.
Informational Query – A query about a topic where the user expects to be provided with information on the topic.
Internal Link – A link that points to another page within the same site. Most commonly used for navigation.
Internet – An interconnected system of networks that connects computers around the world via the TCP/IP protocol.
ITO – “Internet Traffic Optimizer”. A broader term for a person who optimizes not only for search engines but to get traffic from other sources such as blogs, RSS feeds and articles.
Invisible Web – Web Pages that are not reachable by search engines.
IP – “Internet Protocol”. This protocol allows for machines to communicate to each other via the Internet.
IP Address – “Internet Protocol” address. How data finds its way back and forth from your computer to the internet.
IP Spoofing – A method of reporting an IP address other than your own when connecting to the internet.
JS – “JavaScript”. A scripting language that provides browser functionality.
Keyword Density – A ratio of the number of occurrences of a keyword or “keyword phrase” to the total number of words on a page.
KEI – “Keyword Effectiveness Index”. The KEI compares the number of searches for a keyword with the number of search results to pinpoint which keywords should be the most effective for your campaign.
Keyword Phrase – A group of words that form a search query.
Keyword Stuffing – Using a keyword or “keyword phrase” excessively in a web page, perhaps in the text content or meta tags.
Keyword/Keyphrase – Keywords are words which are used in search engine queries. Keyphrases are multi-word phrases used in search engine queries.