S

sandbox; an alleged filter placed on new websites in order to “prevent” the good rankings while the site is very “young”; it’s a decreasing effect and lasts somewhere between 1 month and 6 months

search engine advertising (or SEA); paid keyword-based PPC text ads shown on the top of the organic search results; also known as paid search

search engine results page (or SERP); the ranked list of relevant organic search results displayed by search engines as a result for a custom search query

search engine marketing (or SEM); marketing strategy used to improve the rankings of a website within the search engine results; usually combines search engine optimization and search engine advertising

search engine optimization (or SEO); a complex set of rules, techniques and strategies used to improve the ranking position of a website in a given search engine’s (usually Google) organic, unpaid results

shadow domains; the practice to use a domain name which is very similar to an already existing and successful domain in order to benefit from the massive traffic generated by the original website

sitemap; an organized hierarchical list of pages or links – created usually in XML format – used to provide navigational instructions to search engine crawlers and human users

snippet; the web page summary retrieved from the meta description tag and displayed as a text beneath the title of the webpage on the search results page

spamdexing; the practice of search engine spamming used to deliberately manipulate the search engine indexes

squeeze page (or landing page); a special single-page creative with minimal, eye-catchy content created with the sole purpose to capture information for follow-up marketing; an attractive “bait” designed to increase conversion

SSL (or Secure Socket Layer); standard security technology used to establish a secure, encrypted link between a web server and a web browser

static URL; unlike a dynamic URL which is dynamically generated as a result to a database query, a static URL is hard coded within the HTML code and stays the same with each and every page load

T

title tag; HTML title element used to briefly and accurately describe the topic or the content of a given website; is very important to both user experience and SEO

tracking pixel; one-by-one pixel – usually GIF – images placed on a website in order to track events, actions, conversion rates, visits, impressions, etc; is an alternative for script-based (Javascript) tracking methods

U

unique clicks; the total number of unique persons who have clicked a given affiliate link (in contrast with raw clicks); the definition of a unique click will vary from merchant to merchant (e. g. it can be a unique IP or a predefined amount of time with periodical resets)

URL (or Uniform Resource Locator); protocol used to specify the address of a World Wide Web page on the internet; basically is a link pointing to a web page

URL rewrite; the act of rewriting the dynamic URLs into user- and SEO-friendly static URLs

URL redirection (or URL forwarding); a web-server function used to send a visitor from one URL – the one visible in the address bar – to a new, different domain or URL

URL shortener; online service that will create a shorter, abbreviated alternative for long URLs; is based on URL redirection

V

vanity URL; a descriptive, personally chosen and usually branded URL used by companies or individuals against of a generic, unrecognizable URL; is a quite common method used especially by social networks

vertical search; specialized search focusing on results from a particular area only

W

whitelabel rights; the affiliate has the right to promote a given product or service under his own brand without even mentioning the original merchant; usually these are subdomain websites hosted on the merchant’s server, created and branded solely to a given – very efficient – affiliate (super affiliate)

white hat SEO; ethical SEO optimization techniques and tactics that focus on a human audience instead of search engines and follows all the search engine rules and policies

X

XML (or Extensible Markup Language); a self-descriptive, text based meta-language designed to create, store and transport a database of information without having an actual database; it is used to create sitemaps, RSS feeds and markup languages for specific applications

I know, it’s a quite long list, but you need to understand these terms in order to create a solid ground for your SEO efforts. If you want to learn how to SEO a website, you need to understand these terms. If you don’t want to get lost in China, you’ll have to learn a few Chinese words …

And that's it my friends!

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