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copies of web pages stored locally on an Internet user's hard drive or within a search engine's database. A cache is the reason why web pages load so quickly when a user hits the Back button in their web browser, since the page is not being redownloaded off of the Internet. Google is unusual among search engines in that it allows Internet users to view the cached version of web pages in its index. Simply click on the word "Cache" next to the search result of interest and you will be taken to a copy of the page as Googlebot discovered and indexed it.This feature of Google makes it easy to spot cloaking...
Copy of a web page stored by a search engine. When you search the web you are not actively searching the whole web, but are searching files in the search engine index. Some search engines provide links to cached versions of pages in their search results, and allow you to strip some of the formatting from cached copies of pages.
- Browse Related Terms: accessibility, cache, cookie, Google cache, HIT, HITS, HTML Source, Image Map, Invisible Web, ISP, Log file, Page View, Referrer, Site Hit, Traffic, Unique Visitor
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Founder of Weblogs, Inc. Also pushed AOL to turn Netscape into a Digg clone. See also: Calacanis.com - Jason's blog
- Browse Related Terms: Brin, Sergey, Calacanis, Jason, Page, Larry, Sullivan, Danny, Wales, Jimmy
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A call to action is copy used in advertising to encourage a person to complete an action as defined by the advertiser. Call to action words are "doing words" such as "Click here", "Buy Now", "Enter Now" or "Click to download".
- Browse Related Terms: Above the Fold, Beyond The Banner, Call To Action, Content Integration, Demographics, Geo-Targeting, Landing Page, Negative Keyword, Pay-per-post (PPP), Share of Voice, Target Audience, trademark
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Many content management systems are configured with errors which cause duplicate or exceptionally similar content to get indexed under multiple URLs. Many webmasters use inconsistent link structures throughout their site that cause the exact same content to get indexed under multiple URLs. The canonical version of any URL is the single most authoritative version indexed by major search engines. Search engines typically use PageRank or a similar measure to determine which version of a URL is the canonical URL. Webmasters should use consistent linking structures throughout their sites to ensure that they funnel the maximum amount of PageRank at the URLs they want indexed. When linking to the root level of a site or a folder index it is best to end the link location at a / instead of placing the index.html or default.asp filename in the URL. Examples of URLs which may contain the same information in spite of being at different web addresses: http://www.seobook.com/ http://www.seobook.com/index.shtml http://seobook.com/ http://seobook.com/index.shtml http://www.seobook.com/?tracking-code Catalog (see Index)
- Browse Related Terms: .htaccess, 301, 302, Absolute Link, Canonical URL, CSS, Hijacking, Meta Refresh, Redirect, Relative Link, Scraper sites, SSI
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A listing used by pay per click search engines to monetize long tail terms that are not yet targeted by marketers. This technique may be valuable if you have very competitive key words, but is not ideal since most major search engines have editorial guidelines that prevent bulk untargeted advertising, and most of the places that allow catch all listings have low traffic quality. Catch all listings may be an attractive idea on theme specific search engines and directories though, as they are already pre qualified clicks.
- Browse Related Terms: Arbitrage, Ask, Banner Blindness, Behavioral Targeting, Business.com, Catch All Listing, Clickthrough rate, CTR, Doorway Pages, Entry Page, Google AdSense, Jump Page Ad, Keyword Purchasing, Organic Search Results, Paid inclusion, Referral Fees, Scumware, Search Marketing, Spyware, Syndication
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a "virtual" directory contained in URLs indicates a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) script is in use. A sure tip-off to the spider that your page is dynamic.
- Browse Related Terms: Agent Name Delivery, Cgi-bin, Cloaking, Hijacking of Websites, IP Delivery, Navigation bar (nav bar), Pull-down list, Robots.txt, Spider trap, Spidering, Stealth Script, Stop character
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a standard interface between web server software and other programs running on the same machine.
interface software between a web server and other machines or software running on that server. Many cgi programs are used to add interactivity to a web site.
- Browse Related Terms: ASP, CGI (Common Gateway Interface), Dynamic Languages, Frames, Frameset, HTML, HTTP Hypertext Markup Language, Java, Javascript, PHP, Web standards, XHTML, XML
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Strictly, any program which handles its input and output data according to the CGI standard. In practice, CGI programs are used to handle forms and database queries on web pages, and to produce non-static web page content.
- Browse Related Terms: CGI Program, Database-driven, Database-generated, Dynamic, Dynamic Content, Dynamic Rotation, Favicon, Replica, Skyscraper, static
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Lists of links to selected (and usually popular) web sites. The links are maintained by search engines and directories and are sorted into categories or channels. Sites are picked by a channel editor, often because of a site's already high ranking with the search engines. Some search engines and directories allow visitors to nominate sites for inclusion in their channels.
- Browse Related Terms: Amazon.com, AOL, Channels, Channel listings, DMOZ, Dreamweaver, Inlinks, Portal, Yahoo!, Zeal - Volunteer Built Web Directory
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An ad that allows the user to stay on the same web page, while viewing requested advertising content. Click-downs display another file on the user's screen, normally below or above the initial ad. Click-withins allow the user to drill down for more information within the ad.
- Browse Related Terms: 200, 404, AJAX, Click-down Ad or Click-within Ad, Custom error page, Error page, Fair Use, Flash Page, HTTP 301 Status Code Definition, HTTP 302 Status Code Definition, HTTP 400 Status Code Definition, HTTP 401 Status Code Definition, HTTP 403 Status Code Definition, HTTP 404 Status Code Definition, HTTP 410 Status Code Definition, HTTP 500 Status Code Definition, HTTP 501 Status Code Definition, Interstitial Ad, Open Source, Token
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The process of clicking on a link in a search engine output page to visit an indexed site.
This is an important link in the process of receiving visitors to a site via search engines. Good ranking may be useless if visitors do not click on the link which leads to the indexed site. The secret here is to provide a good descriptive title and an accurate and interesting description.
- Browse Related Terms: Bush, Vannevar, click-through, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Meta tag, Meta tag stuffing, Meta Tags, Misspellings, Multiple Keyword Tags, Multiple Titles, Nofollow, Page title, Refresh Tag, Sniffer, Stop word
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The action of clicking an ad element and causing a redirect to another web page.
- Browse Related Terms: beacon, Body copy, Clickthrough, Expandable Banner, Flash, Flash intro, Headings, Mouseover, Navigation, PDF, Shoskeles, Splash page, Title Attribute
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the rate at which people click on a link such as a search engine listing or a banner ad. Studies show that clickthrough rates are six times higher for search engine listings than banner ads.
- Browse Related Terms: Arbitrage, Ask, Banner Blindness, Behavioral Targeting, Business.com, Catch All Listing, Clickthrough rate, CTR, Doorway Pages, Entry Page, Google AdSense, Jump Page Ad, Keyword Purchasing, Organic Search Results, Paid inclusion, Referral Fees, Scumware, Search Marketing, Spyware, Syndication
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A computer, program or process which makes requests for information from another computer, program or process. Web browsers are client programs. Search engine spiders are (or can be said to behave as) clients.
A program, computer, or process which makes information requests to another computer, process, or program.
- Browse Related Terms: Agent Name, applet, Bot, Client, Crawler, GoogleBot, Hallway page, Politeness Window, Pop-up, Robot, Spider, Standards compliant, user agent, Web Crawler
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serving different content to search engine spiders than to human visitors. Cloaking is basically a "bait and switch" tactic, where the web server feeds visiting spiders content that is keyword-rich, thus fooling the search engine into placing that page higher in the search results. Yet when the visitor clicks on the link they are given different content, which may be totally unrelated. Search engines frown upon this practice and some will penalize or ban sites that they catch doing it.
The hiding of page content. Normally carried out to stop page thieves stealing optimized pages. See also Bait-and-Switch.
Displaying different content to search engines and searchers. Depending on the intent of the display discrepancy and the strength of the brand of the person / company cloaking it may be considered reasonable or it may get a site banned from a search engine.
Cloaking has many legitimate uses which are within search guidelines. For example, changing user experience based on location is common on many popular websites.
See also:
- The Definitive Guide to Cloaking - Dan Kramer's guide to cloaking. I also interviewed Dan here.
- KloakIt - cheaply priced cloaking software
- Fantomaster - more expensive cloaking software
- Browse Related Terms: Agent Name Delivery, Cgi-bin, Cloaking, Hijacking of Websites, IP Delivery, Navigation bar (nav bar), Pull-down list, Robots.txt, Spider trap, Spidering, Stealth Script, Stop character
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Book about how the web is a marketplace, and how it is different from traditional offline business.
See also:
- Browse Related Terms: Branded Keywords, Buying Cycle, Cluetrain Manifesto, The, Conversion, Conversion rate, Google Base, Google Checkout, Google Website Optimizer, Long Tail, LSI, Text Ad, Usability
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The listing of only one page from each web site in a search engine or directory's list of search results. This avoids occupation of all the top results by a small number of web sites and makes the list of results clearer and more useful to the user.
In search results the listings from any individual site are typically limited to a certain number and grouped together to make the search results appear neat and organized and to ensure diversity amongst the top ranked results. Clustering can also refer to a technique which allows search engines to group hubs and authorities on a specific topic together to further enhance their value by showing their relationships. See also Google Touchgraph - interesting web application that shows the relationship between sites Google returns as being related to a site you enter.
- Browse Related Terms: Blacklist, Clustering, description, Directory, Duplicate Content, Keyword Research, Mirror Sites, Paid placement, Re-submission, Select list, Skewing, Spamdexing, Spoofing, URL Submission
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Content Management System. Tool used to help make it easy to update and add information to a website. Blog software programs are some of the most popular content management systems currently used on the web. Many content management systems have errors associated with them which make it hard for search engines to index content due to issues such as duplicate content.
- Browse Related Terms: Blog Comment Spam, CMS, Feed, Feed Reader, Mirror Site, RSS, Trackback, User Generated Content, Web2.0, Wiki, Wikipedia, Xenu, Xenu Link Sleuth, YouTube
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In topical authority based search algorithms links which appear near one another on a page may be deemed to be related to one another. In algorithms like latent semantic indexing words which appear near one another often are frequently deemed to be related.
- Browse Related Terms: Age, Authorities, Authority, Co-citation, Compacted Information, Expert Document, Gateway Page, Hilltop, Hubs, Kleinberg, Jon, On-theme, Taxonomy, Teoma, Topic-Sensitive PageRank
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a web scripting language with limited capabilities, mostly centered around database access. ColdFusion program files are saved on the web server with a .CFM file extension.
- Browse Related Terms: Animated Ad, Cold Fusion, FTP, HTTP, Internet, Java applets, JavaScripts, Telnet, URL