Title Tag

The tag that defines the title of the web page. It is probably the most important page element that influences the ranking of a page.

Meta Tags

Meta Tags are HTML tags that help describe the document they are located within.

Description Tag

An HTML tag that gives a general description of the contents of the page. This description is not displayed on the page itself, but is largelyintended to help the search engines index the page correctly.

Keyword Tag

In the early days of search engines, this was a very important tag. But it was then abused and now most search engines ignore this tag. It is still worth using for the few search engines that do make use of it. It is best to place the most important keywords at the start of the list.

Algorithms

Formulas of instructions and directions as to how the information gathered by the spider (a web site indexing program) is to be used to rank a web page on that particular searchengine. Each search engine has its own unique algorithms which is why a page may rank high on one search engine while ranking low on another.

Spamming

Using any search engine ranking technique which causes a degradation in the quality of the results produced by the search engines. Examples of spamming include excessive repetition of a keyword in a page, optimizing a page for a keyword which is unrelated to the contents of the site, using invisible text, etc. Most search engines will penalize a page which uses spamming. Also called spamdexing. In a different context, spamming is also used to mean the practice of sending unsolicited bulk email.

Vertical Analysis

A vertical analysis looks at all forms of the word (singular, plural) and all the popular variations that are used in combination as a keyword phrase.

Lateral Analysis

A lateral analysis queries hundreds of other web sites that deal with similar markets and extracts those keywords from the Title Tags, MetaTags and body text.

Link Popularity

The number of sites which link to a particular site. Many search engines use link popularity as a factor in determining the search engine ranking of a web site.

Image Map

An image containing one or more invisible regions which are linked to other pages. If the image map is defined as a separate file, the search engines may not be able to index the pages to which that image map links. The way out is to have text hyperlinks to those pages in addition to the links from the image map. However, image maps defined within the same web page will generally not prevent search engines from indexing the other pages.

Robot

In the context of search engine ranking, it implies the same thing as Spider. In a different context, it is also used to indicate software which visits web sites and collects email addresses to be used for sending unsolicited bulk email.

Spider

Software that visits web sites and indexes the pages present in those sites. Search engines use spiders to build up their databases. Example: The spider for AltaVista is called Scooter.