Ad
Advertisements a searcher sees after submitting a query in a search engine or web site search box. In PPC, these ads are usually text format, with a Title, Description and Display URL. In some cases, a keyword the searcher used in his or her query appears boldfaced in the displayed ad. Ads can be positioned

Backlink
A link from one website to another. Also called inbound links.

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.

Bridge Page
Similar to “Doorway Page” or “Landing Page”, “Hallway Page”, this is a specifically designed entry point for a website.

Buying Cycle
Before making large purchases consumers typically research what brands and products fit their needs and wants. Keyword based search marketing allows you to reach consumers at any point in the buying cycle. The buying cycle may consist of the following stages – Problem Discovery: prospect discovers a need or want. Search: after discovering a problem

Click Through
When a user clicks on a hypertext link and is taken to the destination of that link. Also see, CTR – Click Through Rate.

Conversion
Many forms of online advertising are easy to track. A conversion is reached when a desired goal is completed. Most offline ads have generally been much harder to track than online ads. Some marketers use custom phone numbers or coupon codes to tie offline activity to online marketing. A few common example desired goals

Crawler
Automated programs in search engines that gather web site listings by automatically crawling the web. A search engine’s crawler (also called a spider or robot) “reads” page text contents and web page coding, and also follows links to other hyperlinked pages on the web pages it crawls. A crawler makes copies of the web pages

Directory
A directory lists websites by individual topics. Open Directory Project and Google Directory are examples of directory. A directory is eventually a website which looks just like search engine but is organized as a series of sections under which appropriate sites are filed. The content of a directory is vetted by human editors before becoming a part

External Link
Link which references another domain.

Google Instant
Google Instant, “a new search enhancement that shows results as you type”, was launched on September 8th, 2010 for users searching while signed into their Google accounts. Google describes three benefits of the new technology: Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search

Impression
One view or display of an ad. Ad reports list total impressions per ad, which tells you the number of times your ad was served by the search engine when searchers entered your keywords (or viewed a content page containing your keywords).

Inbound Link
Link pointing to one website from another website.

Index
A search engine’s index refers to the amount of documents found by a search engines crawler on the web.

Keyword / Keyword Phrase
A word or phrase that is used in a search engine query. Optimizing a site entails researching the keyword or keyword phrases that users enter in order to find web sites related to their query, and optimizing a web site around those terms. Includes generic, category keywords; industry-specific terms; product brands; common misspellings and expanded

Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of discovering relevant keywords and keyword phrases to focus your SEO and PPC marketing campaigns on.

Landing Page / Destination Page
The web page at which a searcher arrives after clicking on an ad. When creating a PPC ad, the advertiser displays a URL (and specifies the exact page URL in the code) on which the searcher will land after clicking on an ad in the SERP.

Link
A citation from one web document to another web document or another position in the same document. Most major search engines consider links as a vote of trust.

Link Building
The process of building high quality linkage data that search engines will evaluate to trust your website is authoritative, relevant, and trustworthy.

Manual Submission
The process of submitting Websites or Web pages to search engines and directories for inclusion in their databases using specific guidelines unique to each index.

Metrics
A system of measures that helps to quantify particular characteristics. In SEO the following are some important metrics to measure: overall traffic, search engine traffic, conversions, top traffic-driving keywords, top conversion-driving keywords, keyword rankings, etc.

Negative Keywords
Filtered-out keywords to prevent ad serves on them in order to avoid irrelevant click-through charges on, for example, products that you do not sell, or to refine and narrow the targeting of your Ad Group’s keywords. Microsoft adCenter calls them “excluded keywords.” Formatting negative keywords varies by search engine

Organic Results
Listings on SERPs that were not paid for; listings for which search engines do not sell space. Sites appear in organic (also called “natural”) results because a search engine has applied formulas (algorithms) to its search crawler index, combined with editorial decisions and content weighting, that it deems important enough inclusion without payment. Paid Inclusion

Organic Search Listings
Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings). Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine has deemed it editorially important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Paid Inclusion Content is also often considered “organic” even though it is paid for. This is because paid inclusion content usually appears intermixed with

Outbound Link
A link from one website pointing at another external website.

Pop-under
A pop-up that loads under a page so that it is only viewable when the current page is closed.

Pop-up
The opening of a new window above the previous window.

Portal Site
A full service website. Usually refers to any high traffic website that provides news, email, search, and some form of entertainment. Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL are portal sites.

PPC Advertising
Acronym for Pay-Per-Click Advertising, a model of online advertising in which advertisers pay only for each click on their ads that directs searchers to a specified landing page on the advertiser’s web site. PPC ads may get thousands of impressions (views or serves of the ad); but, unlike more traditional ad models billed

Quality Content
Content which is link worthy in nature

Query
The keyword or keyword phrase a searcher enters into a search field, which initiates a search and results in a SERP with organic and paid listings. Alternately, also a word, phrase or group of words characterizing the information a user seeks from search engines and directories. The search engine subsequently locates Web pages to match

Rank
The position that a sites entry is display in any search engine query. For example, if you rank at position #1, you’re the first listed paid or sponsored ad. If you’re in position #18, it is likely that your ad appears on the second or third page of search results, after 17 competitor paid ads

Relevance
In relation to PPC advertising, relevance is a measure of how closely your ad title, description, and keywords are related to the search query and the searcher’s expectations.

Robot
Any browser program that follows hypertext links and accesses Web pages but is not directly under human control. Example: search engine spiders, the harvesting software programs that extract e-mail addresses or other data from Web pages.

Search Directory
Similar to a search engine, in that they both compile databases of web sites. A directory does not use crawlers in order to obtain entries in its search database. Instead, it relies on user interaction and submissions for the content it contains. Submissions are then categorized by topic and normally alphabetized, so that the results are visible properly

Search Engine
A search engine is a searchable online database of internet resources. It has several components: search engine software, spider software, an index (database), and a relevancy algorithm (rules for ranking). The search engine software consists of a server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing Internet Web pages, storing the results and returning lists

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is the process of editing a web site’s content and code in order to improve visibility within one or more search engines. When this term is used to describe an individual, it stands for “Search Engine Optimizer” or one who performs SEO.

Search Engine Placement
The practice of trying to ensure that a web site obtains a high rank in the search engines. Also called search engine positioning, search engine optimization etc.

Search phrase / search
The keywords used in a query to a search engine.

Search Phrase / Search Term
The keywords used in a query to a search engine. Also see search query and search string.

Search Query
The word or phrase a searcher types into a search field, which initiates search engine results page listings and PPC ad serves. In PPC advertising, the goal is to bid on keywords that closely match the search queries of the advertiser’s targets. Also see search string.

Search String
Search strings or terms are the words entered by users into a search engine or directory to locate needed information.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
A form of internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). SEM methods include: search engine optimization (SEO), paid placement (contextual advertising, digital asset optimization, and paid inclusion). Hence resulting in two types of listing: Editorial / Organic / Natural Listings: Any good search engine, such as Google.

Social Media or Social Search
Sites where users actively participate and interact with each other to determine what is popular.

SPAM
Any search marketing method that a search engine deems to be detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant, quality search results. Some search engines have written guidelines on their definitions and penalties for SPAM. Examples include doorway landing pages designed primarily to game search engine algorithms rather than meet searcher expectations from the advertiser’s clicked-on

Spider
An automated program that follows links to visit web sites on behalf of search engines or directories. Robots then process and index the code and content of a web page to be stored in the search engine’s database.

Submission
The process of informing a search engine of the URL of a website (submitting). See also, URL Submission.

Unique Visitor
A real visitor to a Website (versus a visit by a search engine robot or other robots (computer programs)). Web servers record the IP addresses of each visitor, and this is used to determine the number of real people who have visited a Web site.

Upload
The process of sending data or files to another computer. The opposite of upload is download. The process in web context means uploading or downloading files to or from a web-server on which a web-site is hosted.

URL Submission
The act of submitting a website to the search engines.

Usability
This term refers to how “user friendly” a web site and its functions are. A site with good usability is a site that makes it easy for visitors to find the information they are looking for or to perform the action they desire. Bad usability is anything that causes confusion or problems for the user.

Usage Data
Things like a large stream of traffic, repeat visitors, multiple page views per visitor, a high click-through rate (CTR) or a high level of brand related search queries may be seen by some search engines as a sign of quality. This is also the data that is used to analyze SEO or Paid SEM efforts.