Search Engines and Search Directories
Top Search Engines & Directories
- Search Engines
- Search Directories
- Search Engine Optimization
- Search Engine Ranking for this Site
- TOP 10 Search Engines & Directories
- Search Engine Optimization Terms
- Search Engine Results Relationships (Flash)
- Our Orange County Directories for Professionals
By analyzing the popular Search engines including AllTheWeb, Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, Lycos, Excite, AltaVista and others, we know where and how to place your site for the best results.
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See where your site ranks at the following Search engine and directory sites:
* Full search engine & directory descriptions follow below
| AltaVista |
| Anzwers |
| AOL Search |
| Ask Jeeves |
| Canada.com |
| Electron Search |
| FAST |
| FindWhat |
| Overture |
| HotBot |
| Inktomi |
| Jayde |
| LookSmart |
| Lycos |
| MSN Search |
| Open Directory Project |
| Scrub the Web |
| Teoma |
| whatUseek |
| Wisenut |
| Yahoo! |
Top 10 Search Engines & Directories*
AllTheWeb.com (FAST Search)
www.alltheweb.com
AllTheWeb.com (also known as FAST Search) consistently has one of the largest indexes of the web. FAST also offers large multimedia and mobile/wireless web indexes, available from its site. The site, also known as AllTheWeb.com, is a showcase for FAST's search technologies. FAST's results are provided to numerous portals, including those run by Terra Lycos. FAST Search launched in May 1999. Note: As of June 23, 2002, ALLTheWeb claims to have the largest database of Web pages.
AltaVista is one of the oldest crawler-based search engines on the web. It has a large index of web pages and a wide range of power searching commands. It also offers news search, shopping search and multimedia search. AltaVista opened in December 1995. It was owned by Digital, then run by Compaq (which purchased Digital in 1998), then spun off into a separate company which is now controlled by CMGI.
AOL Search
www.search.aol.com/
AOL Search allows its members to search across the web and AOL's own content from one place. The "external" version, listed above, does not list AOL content. The main listings for categories and web sites come from the Open Directory (see below). Inktomi (see below) also provides crawler-based results, as backup to the directory information.
Ask Jeeves is a human-powered search service that aims to direct you to the exact page that answers your question.
Google
www.google.com
Google is a top choice for web searchers. It offers the largest collection of web pages of any crawler-based search engine. Google makes heavy use of link analysis as a primary way to rank these pages. This can be especially helpful in finding good sites in response to general searches such as "cars" and "travel," because users across the web have in essence voted for good sites by linking to them. The system works so well that Google has gained wide-spread praise for its high relevancy. Google provides web page search results to a variety of partners, including Yahoo and Netscape Search (see below). Google also provides the ability to search for images, through Usenet discussions and its own version of the Open Directory (see below).
You must ensure a quality Google listing. Google software engineer Matt Cutts reiterated that one step toward high Google rankings is to list in directories first, both DMOZ and Yahoo!.
DMOZ (Open Directory Project) is particularly desirable because it's used by many smaller directories, creating more links. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to get listed if there is no category editor or if an editor is prejudicial. (You can appeal through a "feedback" link that goes to DMOZ staff.)
Site architecture, page design, and optimization of relevant content with strategic keywords in text, headers and tags is of utmost importance, as is a strategic linking strategy.
Also be aware that Google seems to be excluding some cross-linked pages for
PageRank ratings. Its spiders now cross check link text with the linked site,
excluding links with text that doesn't appear within the linked site. This
may be the solution to "Google bombing," whereby linkers capriciously
manipulate the PageRank of the linked site.
In most cases, HotBot's first page of results comes from the Direct Hit service (see above), and then secondary results come from the Inktomi search engine, which is also used by other services. It gets its directory information from the Open Directory project (see below). HotBot launched in May 1996 as Wired Digital's entry into the search engine market. Lycos purchased Wired Digital in October 1998 and continues to run HotBot as a separate search service.
Originally, there was an Inktomi search engine at UC Berkeley. The creators then formed their own company with the same name and created a new Inktomi index, which was first used to power HotBot. Now the Inktomi index also powers several other services. All of them tap into the same index, though results may be slightly different. This is because Inktomi provides ways for its partners to use a common index yet distinguish themselves. There is no way to query the Inktomi index directly, as it is only made available through Inktomi's partners with whatever filters and ranking tweaks they may apply.
iWon's results come from both Overture & Inktomi. iWon gives away daily, weekly and monthly prizes in a marketing model unique among the major services. It launched in Fall 1999.
LookSmart is a human-compiled directory of web sites. In addition to being a stand-alone service, LookSmart provides directory results to MSN Search, Excite and many other partners. Inktomi provides LookSmart with search results when a search fails to find a match from among LookSmart's reviews. LookSmart launched independently in October 1996, was backed by Reader's Digest for about a year, and then company executives bought back control of the service.
Lycos started out as a search engine, depending on listings that came from spidering the web. In April 1999, it shifted to a directory model similar to Yahoo. Its main listings come from AllTheWeb.com with some results from the Open Directory project. In October 1998, Lycos acquired the competing HotBot search service, which continues to be run separately.
Microsoft's MSN Search service is a LookSmart-powered directory of web sites, with secondary results that come from Inktomi. Direct Hit data is also made available.
Netscape Search
www.search.netscape.com
Netscape Search's results come primarily from the Open Directory and Netscape's own "Smart Browsing" database, which does an excellent job of listing "official" web sites. Secondary results come from Google. At the Netscape Netcenter portal site, other search engines are also featured.
Open Directory
www.dmoz.org/
The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly known as NewHoo, it was launched in June 1998. It was acquired by Netscape in November 1998, and the company pledged that anyone would be able to use information from the directory through an open license arrangement. Netscape itself was the first licensee. Netscape-owner AOL also uses Open Directory information, as does Google and Lycos.
Yahoo
www.yahoo.com
Yahoo is the web's most popular search service and has a well-deserved reputation for helping people find information easily. The secret to Yahoo's success is human beings. It is the largest human-compiled guide to the web, employing about 150 editors in an effort to categorize the web. Yahoo has well over 1 million sites listed. Yahoo also supplements its results with those from Google. If a search fails to find a match within Yahoo's own listings, then matches from Google are displayed. Google matches also appear after all Yahoo matches have first been shown. Yahoo is the oldest major web site directory, having launched in late 1994.
Reprinted from SEARCH ENGINE WATCH
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Search Engine Optimization Terms
Above the Fold
Above The Fold refers to the part of the screen where a user does not have to scroll to see content. It is a reference to newspapers where the top part of the page is above the fold. Important for search engine optimization.
Ad Inventory
The number of page views a site has available for advertising.
Adult Words
Search engines often maintain two databases, one with all the bad stuff to keep away from children, and one for the general public. Adult words are called STOP WORDS by the search engines because the indexer STOPS when it finds one of these words.
Agent Name delivery
The practice of delivering a custom page based upon the user agent string a browser or spider uses to identify itself.
Algorithm
In the context of search engines and optimization, it is the mathematical programming system used to determine which web pages are displayed in search results.
AllTheWeb
Top 10 Search Engine. see Full AllTheWeb Description
AltaVista
Top 10 search engine. see Full AltaVista Description
AOL Netfind
Top 10 search engine. see Full AOL Description
Apache Web Server
The leading web server software on the the Internet. Apache is an open source project.
Architext
A spider run by the Excite search engine.
Ask Jeeves
Top 10 search engine. see Full AskJeeves Description
Bait & Switch Submission
The act of submitting one page to a search engine, waiting for the search engine to spider it, then replacing the page with another.
Bridge Page
A Doorway Page is sometimes referred to as a bridge page.
Citation
A citation is a reference to an entity. Citation: quote, mention, reference. Citation in the context of the web usually means a HREF link to a location. A Citation count is the count of references to a page on the Internet. Some search engines work on the theory that pages with high citation counts are better. In reality this is about 70% true. With modern affiliate and promotion programs, citations can be generated by some sites in mass quantities.
Click - Through
When a user selects a hyper text (web page) link. The Click refers to the noise a input mouse makes when a button is depressed. The through refers to the act of going "through" the link. Many web statistics are kept on click-throughs (sometimes abbreviated as Click-Thru). Some advertising systems are based on paying sites when someone actually Clicks-Thru to a new site.
Client
When one program is designed to be the director or action computer in a two or more computer communication. The computer that responds to the client is called a server. A browser is a Client, and a web server is a server.
Cloaking
Using some system to hide code or content from a user, and deliver custom content to a search engine spider. The word Cloak comes from Star Trek where the Klingons were capable of "cloaking" their ships invisible. There are three main types of cloaking: IP based, User Agent based, and the combination of those two. IP based cloaking custom delivers a page based on the users IP address (this can be used to deliver custom language based sites or target groups of users from particular ISP's such as AOL or @home users). User Agent cloaking sends a custom page based upon the users Agent (most often use to take advantage of a particular agents strengths or features). Finally, the combination of Agent and IP cloaking is use to target specific users with specific agents (such as search engines).
Combined Log
A log file format that collects all the data in the Common Log File format, plus the information found in the referrer and user agent fields. Often includes separate scripting error logs as well.
Cluster Search
Some search engines Cluster pages from the same website in groups to keep any one site from dominating the top results.
Common Log
The standard log file format developed by the NCSA. The data contained in a Common Log File is limited by its lack of referrer and user agent information.
Conversion Rate
The relationship between visitors to sales or actions. If 1 person out of 100 purchases a sites product, it has a conversion rate of 1 to 100.
Counter
A counter counts hits or page views to a web site. Counter quality and features can vary widely. Most common are image tag counters that are activated when anyone views a page with graphics enabled.
CPA
Cost Per Action. The website only gets paid for advertising if the user purchases something at the advertisers site.
CPC
Cost Per Click. Search engine such as Goto.com charge sites for the number of users they send them on a per click basis.
CPM
Cost Per Thousand (think metric where M=T). CPM advertising models are based upon advertisers purchasing page views in blocks of 1000. If a website displays 8000 page views with banners, the site has just shown 8 blocks. If they are receiving $8 cpm, then they just made $64.
Crawler
A type of a A HREF="#spider">Spider that will download multiple pages from the same web site. Crawling refers to the fact, that the spider will look for links in the pages it downloads and then walk or crawl down through a web site.
Cross Linking
Cross linking is linking across content within the same site.
Dead Link
An html link that has gone bad. The destination page no longer exists. Many search engines routinely check for "dead links" by spidering the page again. Dead links used to be a serious problem on search engines (mostly yahoo), but with increased link checking, dead links are becoming more rare.
Deep Link
Linking to content buried deep within a website. They are referred to as "deep" because they are often two or more directories deep within a website.
Default Ads
Advertising term used to describe when an advertiser doesn't have enough advertisements to fill the websites inventory.
Direct Hit
A click through counting system that counts users clicks on various search engine results. The count of clicks is then used to determine web site rankings in results pages. This system is can be manipulated quite easily.
Directory
A directory is a web site that focuses on listing web sites by individual topics. The processes of search engine optimization are applied as with search engines. A quasi table of contents. A search engine lists pages, where a Directory (such as Looksmart or The Open Directory Project lists websites).
DNS Lookup
Or sometimes referred to as Reverse DNS Lookup. Most often used by webmasters while looking at server log files. It converts a unique IP address of a site visitor to its domain name.
Dogpile
A meta search engine that was recently purchased by Go2net.com.
Domain
There are Top Level Domains (such as .com, .net, or .org), and then there are mid-level domains such as Ford (ford.com ford.net or ford.org). Domain is a generic term to describe any of these levels and is most often used to refer to the mid level domain (ford.com). In reference to search engine technology, domain names can play an important part in determining a sites rankings on the search engines.
Domain Name Registration
The act of registering a domain name with an approved registrar. The process is overseen by ICANN.
Doorway Domain
A domain designed to redirect traffic to a main website located on another domain.
Doorway Page
A page designed as an entrance to a website. Many doorway pages a specifically created to rank high on a particular search engine. Sometimes referred to as a Gateway Page or a Welcome Mat Page.
Download
The process of retrieving information from any computer is called Downloading. When one computer sends information to another, it is called Uploading.
Dynamic Content
A page that is generated just as the user views it. The content delivered to the user is often updated on-the-spot out of a database or based upon the users browser. It used to be easy to spot one of these pages, but with most systems now allowing dynamic content from any page at any time, you just never know. Search engines no longer penalize for dynamic content as long as the URL does not include submitted data (a ? question mark in the url).
Dynamic IP Address
An IP address that changes each time you connect to the Internet.
Entry Page (Front Page)
Sometimes refers to a single page with a logo and "click here" to enter and should be a key optimization page.
EPC
Earnings Per Click.
EPV
Earnings Per Visitor.
Error Log File
Useful in search engine optimization, Web servers run separate logs that show web site errors. These logs can show things like access to robots.txt (if it doesn't exist), and cgi program failures.
Excite Search Engine
One of the original big search engines.
Fast - ALL The WEB
Fast Search and Transfer is the parent company of AllTheWeb.com search engine. Shares #1 Spot with Google.
FFA
Free For All links. These are places that allow anyone to add a link.
Filter Words
This term is often confused with Stop Words. Filter words are common words that search engines remove from web pages before adding them to their databases. These include words along the lines of (the,is,an,of,for,do). As you can imagine, removing these words can save search engines enormous amounts of database space.
Frequency Cap
The maximum number of times or length of times a site visitor will be shown the same or related advertisements.
Gateway Domain Names
A domain name who's purpose is to direct traffic to a main site. The Gateway domain often will have major keywords in the domain name to catch surfers searching for a related subject.
Top 10 search engine. see Full Google Description
GoogleBot
Spider operated by Google.com.
GoTo
A search engine that sells keywords via auctions. Goto has gained in popularity with Webmasters in 1999. Webmasters can bid on keywords. When a user searches Goto and clicks on a search result, Goto then charges the website the bid about for the click.
Gulliver
Spider of the Northern Light search engine. Once a popular web destination it has become all but extinct.
Heading Tag
Key to search engine optimization. A HTML tag of 6 sizes. Search engines can rank a keyword higher if it appears in a larger heading.
Hidden Text
Placing same color characters on the same color background causes them to be hidden. This technique was popular for awhile, but search engines quickly caught on and began banning sites for it.
Hit
A request for a file on a webserver. Most often these can been graphic files and documents. In more modern lingo, website owners referrer to a HIT referrers as a request for documents only, while system administrators who are mainly concerned about server performance, refer to it as any file request.
HotBot
Top 10 search engine. see Full HotBot Description
HTML
HyperText Markup Language. The programming language of tag commands used in web pages.
HTML Link
A hyper link within a web page. You clicked on an HTML link to get to this page.
HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol. The agreed upon system to transfer data between a web server on the browser.
Image Map
A system of associating parts of an image with hyper links. For example a picture of the earth could have a hyper link associated with various locations. Selecting those location might take you to information about that location.
Inbound link
Links pointing to a website. When a user arrives at a website from another site, that link is called an Inbound Link.
Indexer
When a search engine spiders (downloads) a page on a web, it must process the page to store it. A spider is responsible for the downloading, while the Indexer is responsible for process the page. An search engine indexer will typically process a page by removing all HTML tags, checking for and story links, often compressing the page by pulling out filter words, looking for stop words, and finally storing the page in a online searchable database.
InfoSeek
A older search engines now part of the GO.com Disney family of websites.
Inktomi
Top 10 search engine. see Full Inktomi Description
Interstitial
A type of advertisement that takes more than one or two page views to see. It is downloaded in parts to the users computer.
Invisible Web
The group of dynamic or large database sites that search engines will not index.
IP Address
Whenever you connect to the Internet, you are giving a unique 4 number Internet Protocol Address (IP Address). Your IP address is how data from your computer to a website is how data finds its way back and forth. Your IP address may change each time you attach to your ISP. If your IP address stays the same from connection to connection, you are said to have a static IP address. If it changes each time you connect, you are said to have a Dynamic IP Address. IP addresses can be important in the context of search engine submission because some search engines have been known to ignore submissions from any one IP over a certain limit.
IP Delivery
Refers to the process of delivering customized content based upon the users IP address. This allow web sites to protect their proprietary code designed to rank high on search engines.
IP Spoofing
A technique of connecting to a web site and reporting an IP address different than the one you are actually connected too. This is a highly unethical tactic and may break some computer and technology laws. In the context of search engines, IP Spoofing involves redirecting or fooling a search engine into indexing one site, while actually delivering content from another site. It can also include falsely redirecting a user to some other site after innocently clicking on a link.
ISP
Internet Service Provider. The name designed by a Madison Avenue advertising and marketing firm for Internet point of access sellers.
IWon
Top 10 search engine. see Full IWon Description
JavaScript
A scripting language embedded within HTML that is executed after a page of HTML is transferred to a users browser. Many search engines will ignore Java and JavaScript commands.
Keyword
A singular word or phrase that is typed into a search engine search query. Keyword mainly refers to popular words which relate to any one website. For example web site about real estate could focus on keywords such as House, or phrases such as Home for Sale.
Keyword Buys
Some search engines tie keywords to advertising sales. When a user searches for a particular keyword, the results page often have a banner advertisement displayed buy advertisers that purchased the keyword.
Keyword Density
A percentage measure of how many times a keyword is repeated within text of a page. For example, if a page contains 100 words and ten of those words are "house", then "house" is said to have a 10% keyword density. There are programs that will rate keyword density by singular words or by groups of words, "new home for sale".
Keyword Phrase
Refers to two or more keywords combined to form a search query. IE: 'Real Estate Web Design'
Keyword Research
Doing research on a single keyword to find it's relatives and related keywords. This is often done to find the highest producing keywords.
Keyword Stuffing
The process of loading a page up with keywords in the META tags or main HTML body.
Linkage
A count of the number of links pointing (inbound links) at a website. Many search engines now count linkage in their algorithms.
Link Farm
Free For All links. These are places that allow anyone to add a link.
Link Popularity
The density of number of links linking to a particular site.
LinkRot
A reference to when urls are removed and the url goes 404.
Logger
A program that logs web page views. Most often a logger will also track referrals.
LookSmart
Top 10 search engine. see Full LookSmart Description
Lycos
Top 10 search engine. see Full Lycos Description
Meta Search
A process of searching several databases simultaneously and combining the results.
MetaSearch Engine
A search engine that searches multiple other search engines and combines the results. Successful search engine optimization will produce several returns. Search
Meta Tags
Key to search engine optimization. Author generated HTML commands that are placed in the head section of an HTML document. Current popular meta tags that can affect search engine rankings, are Meta Keywords, and Meta Description. Meta KEYWORDS tag is used to group a series of words that relate to a website. These tags can be used by search engines to classify pages for searches. The Meta DESCRIPTION is used to describe the document. The meta description is then displayed in search engine results. The Robots Meta Tag is used to control certain aspect of how a search engine indexes the page. An HTTP-EQUIV meta tag can sometimes be used to issue some server HTTP commands. Most common is a HTTP REFRESH command. Gaining in popularity is a NOCACHE command to thwart server caching of a page. Other useful tags are the CHAR SET tag to describe the document language and character set. The Author meta tag and the Generator meta tag (software used to generate the page).
MetaCrawler
A large meta search engine now called Go2net.com.
MetaFind
Meta search engine.
Mining Company
Former name of About.com.
Mirror site
A shadow duplicate copy of a web site at a separate url. This allows websites to spread out the resource load on a server. Mirror sites are difficult to get indexed properly by search engine. Search engines view the multiple duplicate pages as spamming.
Misspellings
Intentionally making a spelling mistake in meta keywords or meta tags to catch search engine users who also misspell words when searching.
MSN Search
Top 10 search engine. see Full MSN Description
Multiple titles
Another old defunct trick where authors would double up the titles in a page to increase search engine relevancy.
Multiple Keyword Tags
Using two or three keyword META tags to increase the relevancy of a page. This technique is considered spam by most search engines and should be avoided.
Netfind
AOL's search engine.
Netscape Search
Top 10 search engine. see Full Netscape Description
NorthernLight
Large corporate search engine.
Obfuscation
The act of misrepresenting meta tags or content. The user is presented with a page that looks normal, but it is not the page submitted to search engines. This is similar to cloaking or stealth pages, but it further protects the code by giving code stealers a Mickey page. The page often looks normal, but there will be something wrong with it to cause it to rank low on search engines (things like bad keyword density or meta tag errors). When someone steals a high ranking page like this and installs it on their own server, they will never get the rankings the real page gets.
Open Directory Project
Top 10 search engine. see Full Open Directory Description
Open Source
Open source software is software that is released with source code. People are allowed to make derivative works from open source software as long as it is released under the same open source agreement.
Open Text
A formerly large directory of businesses directory that is all but defunct now.
Opt-in
A program that gives the user choice of participation.
Opt-Out
Any program or process that requires a user to take action to stop being included in some action. e.g.: optout e-mail lists.
Optimization
Creating a page that is specifically intended to rank well as search engines. Basic optimization includes a descriptive paragraph of the site with keywords near the top, avoiding frames and deep tables that have menus on them.
Outbound link
A link that points away from your website.
Page Jacking
When someone steals a web page and places it on their own site.
Page View
Web Page Hits, or number of times a page is viewed.
PFI
Pay For Inclusion. A process where people can pay to be included in a database.
Portal
A once popular term to refer to a site that is an entry point to other sites on the Internet Often refers to search engines and directories.
Positioning
In the context of search engines, it is the position that a sites entry is display in any search engine query.
PPC
Pay Per Click. A Pay-Per-Click search engine charges websites on a per click basis.
Pay Per Lead
The amount a website spends to acquire leads.
PR0
The search engine Google is based upon link counting. The more quality links that a website has, the better its "page rank" (PR). Page Rank values can range from 0 to 10. A site that has just started or been penalized by Google will have a PR of 0.
Query
The very heart of search engine interaction with a user. The user types in words or topics to search for, and the search engine returns results that are matches from its database. The action of searching is called Querying the database. A single search is of any database is called a Query.
Ranking
In the context of search engines, it is the position that a sites entry is displayed in a search engine query results.
Resubmission
The process of resubmitting a web page or web site to a search engine or directory. This is often done to update a listing because of content changes, the page has moved, or the page has been removed. It can also be done after updating or optimizing a page to acquire better rankings.
Reciprocal Link
When two websites swap links to point at each other.
Referrer
The address (URL) of the web page a user came from, before entering another site. Each time a user clicks (selects) a new HTML link on a web page, most browsers report a "HTTP-REFERER" string to the new site. Web hosts can record these "referrer strings" in a log file for usage by a web site. In the context of search engines, these referrer strings are a powerful way to determine what searches users used to enter your website. As part of a referral string from search engine, the search terms a user typed in will be included. Some img tag counter style logging software can also record referral strings.
Refresh Meta Tag
Meta Refresh tag reloads a page at a set time.
Registration
The act of submitting a website to a directory for inclusion (such as registering with Yahoo).
Results
A page at a search engine that displays the results of searches. After the user types in a search query, the page that is displayed, is call the results page. The order of results on the results page, is called the rankings. See Search Engine Chart
Robot
A program that automatically does "some action" without user intervention. In the context of search engines, it usually refers to a program that mimics a browser to download web pages automatically. A spider is a type of robot. Some times referred to as Webbots.
Robots.txt
A file on a web site in the root directory of a website that is used to control which spiders have access to which pages within a website. When a spider or robot connects to a website, it checks for the presence of a robot.txt. Only spiders that adhere to the Robots Exclusion Standard will obey a robots.txt command file There are several specific fields in a robots.txt such as User-agent specifies which User Agents are allowed to access the site and "Allow/Disallow" specifies which directories a spider may access.
ROI
Return On Investment. In relation to search engine advertising, it often refers to sales per lead.
RON
RON : Run of Network. Large advertising brokers such as Burst or Double click, can sell ads across the entire network of member sites.
ROS
Run of Site. An ad that can be placed anywhere on a website without restrictions.
Scooter
The Altavista spider. The name is in reference to the world famous Altavista Raceway that holds motorcycle races every year.
Search Engine
A program designed to search a database. In the context of the Internet this refers to a web site that contains a database of information from other websites. Directories of sites are *not* search engines (such as Yahoo). see Top Ten Search Engines and Directories see Search Engine Results Relationship
Search MSN
The Microsoft Search engine
Search Results
The key to search engine optimization. The results of searches. see Search Engine Results Relationship
Search Term
SERP
Short for "Search Engine Results Page". This is the page that is generated by a search engine in response to a search query.
Server
A computer which is designed to generate information for connected users (client). In the context of the world wide web, this refers to a web site that delivers web pages to users.
Sidewinder
The Infoseek spider.
Slurp
The Inktomi spider.
Snap
A medium sized web site directory. Uses Inktomi for non-directory matches.
Spamdexing
The submission of pages that are intended to rank artificially high by various unethical techniques. These can include submitting hundreds of slightly different pages designed to rank high, small invisible text, or word scrambled pages. Most of these techniques are flagged by search engines as spam.
Spamming
See spamdexing. A broad term mainly referring to unsolicited junk e-mail.
Spider
The main program used by search engines to retrieve web pages to include in their database. see robot.
Spidering
While a spider is downloading pages, it is called Spidering. Most modern spiders used by search engines are only responsible for downloading the pages and storing them raw in a temporary database. An indexer is then used to process the page for inclusion in a search engine database. Spiders have a wide range of variables and guidelines that they can be setup to use and follow. Some include: speed at which it downloads pages, whether it will walk or crawl through a website, whether it only goes after index pages, what time of day it is active, which domains it will connect to, how many pages it will accept from one domain.
Static IP Address
An IP address that remains constant each time a person logs on to the Internet.
Stealth
A broad term referring to the hiding of data from a user or robot. Often this includes Obfuscation where by the data presented looks correct, but there is something wrong with it. In the context of search engine optimization this can include Stealth Meta Tags that are displayed for search engine robot but not users.
Stemming
Refers to root word origins. For example, Search, Searching, and Searches all have Search as the root stem. Some search engines use stemming to provide results from more than just the entered search terms. A search on Boat could return results on Boating or Boats.
Stop Words
This term has been so often confused with Filter Words that it now refers to Filter words most of the time. A stop word is a word that causes an indexer to STOP indexing in the current procedure and do something else. Most common of these, is when an indexer encounters an Adult censored words.
Submission
The act of submitting a web page to a search engine or web site to a directory.
Submission Service
A service that will automatically submit your page or website to many search engines at once. These were once popular, but many search engines now ban these types of services.
Theme Engine
A theme engine is a search engine that indexes entire sites as one giant page. They then use only the most relevant keywords found to determine your sites theme. By determining a theme search engines hope to return more accurate results.
Title
The part of an HTML page that is displayed on a browser title line (usually at the top of the window). The text of a web page title is important, because it is the part of the page displayed on search engines as a link. Search engines also give the page title more weight when determining what order to display pages.
TLD
Top Level Domain. This is the far right portion of any domain name. .com, .org, .uk, .net are examples of Top Level Domain names.
Traffic
A reference to the number of visitors a web site receives.
T-Rex
The Lycos spider.
Unique User
A single individual website visitor. Visitors (or users) can visit multiple pages within a site. Unique users are important because it is an indication of success of a website. If you have high visitor counts, but relatively low page per user counts, that indicates that people are not finding your site attractive enough to set and read through it. On the other hand, if you have low visitor counts and very high page per user counts, that is an indication your site is providing good information to people and you should do a better job a promotion. High page per user counts indicate good site potential, while low page per user counts indicate you need to rework the site with more content or better displays.
Upload
The process of retrieving information from any computer is called Downloading. When one computer sends information to another, it is called Uploading.
URL
An acronym for Universal Resource Locator. The basis of how we find web sites on the Internet. URL's can include different forms of communicating with a server: (an HTTP url is Hyper Text Transfer Protocol while a FTP url is a File Transfer Protocol). You can determine how you are connecting with a site, by looking at the beginning of a url for the HTTP, FTP, or other protocol identifier. Most websites are located on http servers and begin with HTTP://. In the context of search engines, URL's are important because they contain entities which the search engine may or may not like. For example, your domain may include keywords related to your website.
URL Submission
The process of submitting a web page to search engines.
User Agent
Each time a web browser or other client connect to a web site, they report a USER_AGENT. Common user agents include Netscape, Opera, and Internet. Explorer. In the context of Search Engine Robots or Spiders, a CGI program can read the USER AGENT and deliver custom content to that user or robot. The User Agent can also be included in a robots.txt file to allow or deny access to the website.
Viral Marketing
Any program that results in customers or program members promoting the service for you.
Virtual Domain
A website setting on its own domain name. For example this web site is located on the Virtual Domain www.searchengineworld.com.
Webcrawler
A large meta search engine.
Weblog
It started out as referring to specific content management software (blogger), and has transitioned into a description for a wide range of personal pages, journals, and diary type setups.
World Scrambled
Randomly sorting the words on a page is called word scrambling. A word scrambled page can be submitted to search engines for high ranking, yet the page will be unreadable by a human. By using cloaking, stealth, or other techniques, a web master can hide the scrambled page from all but the search engine spider.
Yahoo
Top 10 search engine. see Full Yahoo Description
Reprinted from SEARCH ENGINE WORLD
Search Engine Information Sites & Articles
- Search Engine Watch
- How Search Engines Look at Links
- Google Tops In "Search Hours" Ratings
- Search Engine Submission Tips
- Search Engine Links
- Search Engine Index