The Glamorous SEO Glossary – by Sophia Schwan
When I first started my work experience I had absolutely no idea what some of the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) terms meant. In order to not look like a complete idiot on my first day, I decided to look up several widely used terms beforehand. I have to say though, some make you wonder how on earth certain terms came to be.
Organic listings
This has nothing to do with super healthy food or vegetables. Organic listings refers to the search results on the left hand side that can be manipulated and Google has not been paid for to display.
Sponsored Listings
This is also known as a paid listing. If you enter a search in Google you get sponsored listings on the right hand side of the screen and/or at the top of your page.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
This just always makes me think of PVC, it’s a little less interesting though. Fees for advertisers on Google are typically charged on a pay per clicks basis (PPC Campaign). This means that every time you click on an advertisement, the advertiser is charged a certain amount.
Page Titles
This sounds a bit ambiguous I know but in this case I’m referring to the blue bar at the very top of your browser page. It should be descriptive and accurate. If its blank or non-descriptive it will stop the website from ranking well on Google.
Meta Description
Its sounds like something Pacman would say. This you don’t actually see on the site as it is HTML code but it is visible if you search for something on Google. It is the description displayed underneath the search title.
Anchor Text
HTML text that links to another location on the web. Basically it’s the visible text that is clickable and links you to something.
Valid Code
This basically means that the code that makes up a webpage is up to w3c standards and is clean and minimalist. These are pretty high but should be standard. The website can be checked on w3c.org.
Social Media
Yes you can even be social while sitting in front of a computer all day. There are so many social networking sites. There is Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Mr. Wong, Delicious, Stumble Upon and many other ones. They let you pass on information you think others might find useful or interesting or just keep in touch with friends.
Duplicate Content
As the name suggests, its online plagiarism. If your info isn’t original, Google doesn’t properly display it and it harms your site in terms of page rankings. That would be bad and well, it’s a bit silly to be copying someone else’s work anyway!
Crawlers /Spiders/Bots
Yeah it sounds pretty creepy but it’s really not. Well, maybe a little bit. It just means that theres a little search engine robot that goes on the treacherous journey of gathering information on the net by following links.
No Follow Tag
This could be considered an SEO for Dummy’s term. This is added HTML code that is added to links preventing Google bots/crawlers/spiders of following the link. I had no idea what the point of that was in the beginning either but it turns it was made to prevent spamming on forums and blogs.
Bounce Rate
Its the time that a page visitor decides to stay on the website before he says he has to bounce. Sorry I couldn’t help myself.
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