Index
The collection of information a search engine has that searchers can query against. With crawler-based search engines, the index is typically copies of all the web pages they have found from crawling the web. With human-powered directories, the index contains the summaries of all web sites that have been categorized.
Landing Page
The specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a search engine listing. Marketers attempt to improve conversion rates by testing various landing page creative, which encompasses the entire user experience including navigation, layout and copy.
Link Popularity
A raw count of how “popular” a web page is based on the number of backlinks it has. It does not factor in link context or link quality, which are also important elements in how search engines make use of links to impact rankings.
Link Text
The text that is contained within a link. For example, search engine is a link that contains the link text “search engine.”
Listings
The information that appears on a search engine’s results page in response to a search.
Organic 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 that content usually appears intermixed with unpaid organic results.
Outbound Links
Links on a particular web page leading to other web pages, whether they are within the same web site or other web sites.
Reciprocal Link
A link exchange between two sites.
Results Page
After a user enters a search query, the page that is displayed, is call the results page. Sometimes it may be called SERPs, for “search engine results page.”
Robots.txt
A file used to keep web pages from being indexed by search engines. The Robots Exclusion page provides official details.
ROI
Stands for “Return On Investment” and refers to the percentage of profit or revenue generated from a specific activity. For example, one might measure the ROI of a paid listing campaign by adding up the total amount spent on the campaign (say $100) versus the amount generated from it in revenue (say $500). The ROI would then be 500 percent.
Submission: The act to submitting a URL for inclusion into a search engine’s index. Unless done through paid inclusion, submission generally does not guarantee listing. In addition, submission does not help with rank improvement on crawler-based search engines unless search engine optimization efforts have been taken. Submission can be done manually this is done by filling online form and then submitting it or automated, where a software program or online service may process the forms behind the scenes.
XML Feeds: A form of paid inclusion where a search engine is “fed” information about pages via XML, rather than gathering that information through crawling actual pages. Marketers can pay to have their pages included in a spider based search index either annually per URL or on a CPC basis based on an XML document representing each page on the client site. New media types are being introduced into paid inclusion, including graphics, video, audio, and rich media.