Link baitUseful or entertaining web content which compels users to link to it.
Link BaitingThe art of targeting, creating, and formatting information that provokes the target audience to point high quality links at your site.
Link BuildingThe process of building high quality linkage data that search engines will evaluate to trust your website is authoritative, relevant, and trustworthy.
Link BurstsA rapid increase in the quantity of links pointing at a website. When links occur naturally they generally develop over time.
Link ChurnThe rate at which a site loses links. See also: Information retrieval based on historical data
Link EquityA measure of how strong a site is based on its inbound link popularity and the authority of the sites providing those links.
Link FarmWebsite or group of websites which exercises little to no editorial control when linking to other sites. FFA pages, for example, are link farms.
Link HoardingA method of trying to keep all your link popularity by not linking out to other sites, or linking out using JavaScript or through cheesy redirects.
Link ReputationThe combination of your link equity and anchor text.
Link RotA measure of how many and what percent of a website's links are broken. Links may broken for a number of reason, but four of the most common reasons are…
Link spamLinks between pages that are specifically set up to take advantage of link-based ranking algorithms such as Google's PageRank (PR).
Linkstext or graphics that, when clicked on, take the Internet user to another web page location. Links are expressed as URLs.
Live.comNew search platform provided by Microsoft. See also: Live.com
Log FileA coverage or workspace history file containing a list of all commands used to operate on a coverage or all commands used in the workspace.
Log FilesServer files which show you what your leading sources of traffic are and what people are search for to find your website.
Long TailPhrase describing how for any category of product being sold there is much more aggregate demand for the non-hits than there is for the hits.
LooksmartCompany originally launched as a directory service which later morphed into a paid search provider and vertical content play. See also: Looksmart.com
Machine-generatedDon't use software tools that purport to auto-generate doorway pages. These pages are usually devoid of meaningful content.
Malda, RobFounder of Slashdot.org, a popular editorially driven technology news forum.
Manual ReviewAll major search engines combine a manual review process with their automated relevancy algorithms to help catch search spam and train their relevancy…
Manual submittingSubmitting by hand to an individual search engine, rather than using an automated submission tool or service.
Mechanical TurkAmazon.com program which allows you to hire humans to perform easy tasks that computers are bad at.
MemeIn The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins defines a meme as "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.
Meta DescriptionThe meta description tag is typically a sentence or two of content which describes the content of the page.
Meta KeywordsThe meta keywords tag is a tag which can be used to highlight keywords and keyword phrases which the page is targeting.
Meta RefreshA meta tag used to make a browser refresh to another URL location. A meta refresh looks like this <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10;url=http://www.
Meta SearchA search of searches. A query is submitted to more than one search engine or directory, and results are reported from all the engines, possibly after…
Meta Search EngineA server which passes queries on to many search engines and/or directories and then summarises all the results.
Meta tagA construct placed in the HTML header of a web page, providing information which is not visible to browsers.
Meta tag stuffingRepeating keywords in the meta tags and using meta keywords that are unrelated to the site's content.
Meta TagsPeople generally refer to meta descriptions and meta keywords as meta tags. Some people also group the page title in with these.
MicrosoftMaker of the popular Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser.
MindshareA measure of the amount of people who think of you or your product when thinking of products in your category.
MirrorA reflecting surface of various physical shapes (parabolic, nearly flat, or flat) used to reflect and/or concentrate the sun's energy to specific…
Mirror SiteA file server containing a duplicate set of files located in a different geographic area for the purposes of managing heavy traffic, providing security…
Mirror SitesMultiple copies of web sites or web pages, often on different servers. The process of registering these multiple copies with search engines is often…
Miserable FailureA well known example of "Google bombing", it poignantly illustrates how inbound text links can affect SERPs.
MisspellingsPeople quite often spell words incorrectly when using search engines. Pages which use common misspellings will quite often receive extra hits, so it is a…
Mod_rewriteA module or plugin for Apache web servers that can be used to rewrite requested URLs on the fly.
MouseoverWhere hovering the mouse over a text or graphic link without clicking displays something new on the page.
Movable TypeFor sale blogging software which allows you to host a blog on your website. Movable Type is typically much harder to install that Wordpress is.
Mozilla FirefoxMozilla Firefox is a web browser that has steadily grown in popularity over the last few years.
MSNcan refer to Microsoft Network and their search engine
MSN SearchSearch engine built by Microsoft. MSN is the default search provider in Internet Explorer.
Multi Dimensional ScalingThe process of taking shapshots of documents in a database to discover topical clusters through the use of latent semantic indexing.
Multiple Domain NamesThe use of several extra domains to provide gateway pages or gateway sites to the main site.
Multiple Keyword TagsThe use of more than one Keywords META tag in order to try to increase the relevancy of the best keywords on a page. This is not recommended.
Multiple TitlesIt used to be possible to repeat the HTML title tag in the header section of a page several times to improve search engine positioning.
MySpaceOne of the most popular social networking sites, largely revolving around connecting musicians to fans and having an easy to use blogging platform.
Natural Language ProcessingAlgorithms which attempt to understand the true intent of a search query rather than just matching results to keywords.
NavigationInformation discovery through drill-down into query results. Navigation is possible both on document level attributes/entities and contextual entities…
Navigation bar (nav bar)a web site's navigation icons, usually arranged in a row down the left hand side or along the top that plays crucial roles in directing spiders to the…
Negative KeywordNegative Keyword is a term referenced by Google AdWords and is a form of keyword matching.
Negative SEOThe act of demoting a page or site from the SERPS. Most often used against a competitor that is above your site in the SERPS but can be used purely for…
NetscapeOriginally a company that created a popular web browser by the same name, Netscape is now a social news site similar to Digg.com. See also: Netscape.com
NicheOrganisms role, or job, in the ecosystem in which it lives.
NofollowAttribute used to prevent a link from passing link authority. Commonly used on sites with user generated content, like in blog comments.
Noframes tagalternative non-framed HTML on a frameset page for very old, non-frames capable web browsers and search engine spiders.
On-themerefers to content specific to a particular topic
OntologyAn ontology defines the common words and concepts (meanings) used to describe and represent an area of knowledge, and so standardizes the meanings.
Open Directory ProjectA directory project run by thousands of volunteer editors. In principal, this is a very exciting and powerful way to organise the web.
Open SourceSoftware which is distributed with its source code such that developers can modify it as they see fit.
OperaA fast standards based web browser. See also: Opera.com
OptimizationChanges made to a web page to improve the positioning of that page with one or more search engines.
Organic Search ResultsMost major search engines have results that consist of paid ads and unpaid listings.
Outbound LinkA link from one website pointing at another external website. Some webmasters believe in link hoarding, but linking out to useful relevant related…
Outbound linkslinks that direct "off-site" to another website
OvertureThe company which pioneered search marketing by selling targeted searches on a pay per click basis.
Overture Keyword Selector ToolPopular keyword research tool, based largely on Yahoo! search statistics. Heavily skewed toward commercially oriented searches, also combines singular and…
Page PopularityA measure of the number and quality of links to a particular page (inbound links). Many search engines [...
Page ViewUsed in site statistics as a measure of pages viewed rather than server hits. Many server hits may be made to access a single page, causing many separate…
PagejackingStealing high-ranking web page content from another site and placing it on your site in the hopes of increasing your own site's search engine rankings.
PageRankA logarithmic scale based on link equity which estimates the importance of web documents.
PageRank (PR)Google uses a weighted form of link popularity called PageRankÂ. Not all links are created equal.
Paid InclusionA method of allowing websites which pass editorial quality guidelines to buy relevant exposure. See also: Directories such as the Yahoo!
Paid placementpaying a search engine to have your listing show up prominently. These listings are usually denoted as "sponsored listings."
Pay for PerformancePayment structure where affiliated sales workers are paid commission for getting consumers to perform certain actions.
Pay-per-click (PPC)a pay-for-performance pricing model where advertising (such as banners or paid search engine listings) is priced based on number of clickthroughs rather…
Pay-per-post (PPP)A website designed to help content creators such as bloggers find advertisers willing to sponsor specific content.
PDFPortable Document Format - a file format developed by Adobe Systems. PDF captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing…
PersonalizationAltering the search results based on a person's location, search history, content they recently viewed, or other factors relevant to them on a personal…
PHPPHP Hypertext Preprocessor is an open source server side scripting language used to render web pages or add interactivity to them. See also: PHP.net
Phrase MatchPhrase Match is a form of keyword matching where an ad will be displayed if the user's search query includes the exact phrase, even if their query…
Phrase searchA search for documents containing a exact sentence or phrase specified by a user.
Portal SiteA generic term for any site which provides an entry point to the internet for a significant number of users.
PositioningThe process of ordering web sites or web pages by a search engine or a directory so that the most relevant sites appear first in the search results for a…