Duplicate content

Duplicate content

This is content that is duplicated on other Web pages and/or other sites. If you have duplicate content on your website for a legitimate reason, you can use robot.txt to direct Search Engines not to index those Web pages.

Doorway page

Doorway page

A doorway page is a black hat SEO strategy whereby a page is created on a website that has no useful content and exists only to redirect visitors to another area of the site. This is not be confused with a targeted landing page which is a white hat SEO technique.

DOFOLLOW LINK

Dofollow link

A standard link which hasn’t been Nofollowed. This type of link will pass PageRank or link equity or link juice to another website or page on a website.

DMOZ

DMOZ

Also known as The Open Directory Project. DMOZ is a free, human, edited directory run by volunteers. A listing is considered beneficial for SEO, but getting listed can be a real challenge.

Crawl

Crawl

When a Search Engine spider visits your site they are said to “crawl” your site. This is the process of collecting data and returning it to the Search Engine. The more frequently you update your site, the more spiders are encouraged to visit and index new pages.

Conversation

Conversion

Conversion in SEO is to look at the keywords which are converting to “contact us”, to making a purchase, to subscribing. Assigning dollar values or goal completions in Google Analytics will assist in determining the conversions. Don’t ignore click stream conversions – this information can prove valuable

Content

Content

Web content is the visual part of the user experience when looking at a website. It can include text, images, sounds, video and more. Web content is still one of the most important SEO tools with text content really valuable in search engine terms

CMS Content management system

CMS

The term CMS stands for Content Management System. It is basically web based computer software that allows publishing of content online. The content can be edited and modified by the administrator. CMS have been designed to make it easier for a non-techincal user to make changes to their web based content.

Cloaking

Cloaking

Cloaking is a technique used in search engine optimisation where the content put forward to the search engine is actually a different version shown to the web user. It is considered a deceptive pratcie (black hat SEO) and could result in the site being banned or penalised.

Citation

Citation

Citations or directory listings are defined as “mentions” of your business name and address on other webpages. The goal of citations are to let the Search Engines know that your site is out there and to increase the number of inbound links pointing back to your site. While the importance of citations/directory listings have decreased over time, they are still an important part of your over-all SEO process and can serve as valuable links and ‘votes’ for your website.

Call to action

Call to action

A call-to-action is the copy or text on a web page or advertisment that encourages the user to complete an action. Anything from asking a user to sign up for your newsletter to asking them to give you a call is considered a call-to-action. This is, arguably, the most critical point of advertising because it is the point that will determine if a user leaves your page or converts into a customer. Each action is determined by the individual website and can come in many different forms depending on the overall goals of the webmaster.

Cache

Cache

In SEO terms, this refers to the way Search Engines “memorise” or “take a picture” of web pages, allowing you to quickly navigate to the cached version of a page. If a webpage is in your cache then the next time you go to open the page, you are actually opening it from your computer’s last memory of you visiting that page. This help saves time and can save your time when opening a page. Having said that, it is also importantly to frequently empty your cache so as to not overwhelm your computer.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate

“A bounce rate is the percentage at which people exit a website after only viewing one page. This, in terms, means that the landing page through which a person entered the site was not what the person was searching for and therefore ‘bounced’ off the page. This metric is used to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate
generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. While there are several indications that could result in an increased bounce rate, it is generally important to have as low of a bounce rate as possible.”

Blogs

Blogs

A company blog is an important part of an SEO strategy. As well as being able to add fresh, updated copy to a website, you can create blog articles that target relevant keywords for your website. A blog also allows a company to have an interactive forum with their consumers, something that can’t be duplicated on a static web page. Blogs have also become increasingly popular as social networks serve as an easy avenue for blog articles to be shared and discussed.

Black Hat SEO

Black hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is the use of unethical web tactics to improve a website’s presence on the Search Engines. While many of these tactics are simply ‘old school’ SEO practices, they have long since been banned for ethical reasons as it’s seen as ‘cheating.’ While many black hat tactics may give you an initial boost in rankings, penalties will very soon follow and could even cause your domain to become blacklisted by the Search Engines. Black Hat tactics can be done both on-site and off and you should make sure that you understand the ins and outs of any SEO program being implemented for your website.

Bing

Bing

Bing is the self advertised ‘decision engine’ powered by Microsoft and serves as Google’s closest competitor in the Search Engine world. Launching in June 2009, Bing has continued to promise to deliver the most relevant search results to it’s users. While it’s still lagging in many parts of the world, it has increasinly gained in popularity in the U.S. with its ‘Bing It On Challenge.’ Also in 2009, Bing struck a 10 year deal with Yahoo! to power all of it’s search engines and search partners which is why you often see very similar results from the two search engines.

Bad link neighborhood

Bad link neighborhood

This is a group of non-related sites all linked together in an attempt to strengthen a website’s link profile or build PageRank. The links often include pharmacy, porn sites, casinos, and so on. These are often created with link farms or low quality directories and can easily and quickly get your site penalised or blacklisted.

Back links

Backlinks (or Back Links)

Backlinks, or inbound links, are incoming links from other websites who have mentioned your company or used your company as a source of authority. Building a strong link profile consists of obtaining inbound links from credible and relevant sources who will boost your quality score and/or PageRank. Backlinking is often referred to as the ‘backbone of SEO’ as each backlink serves as a ‘vote’ for your site and, in turn, works to increase your sites visibility on the SERPs.

Auto-generated pages

Auto-generated pages

Auto generated pages are created using a script or computer program to generate thousands of irrelavent and keyword stuffed pages that have no value to the human reader. These auto generated pages are often used as a Black Hat SEO tactic to quickly increase a client’s web traffic by using the auto generated page as a doorway which is then redirected to the actual website. Using a tactic such as this can result in heavy penalties from the search engines and can often leave you blacklisted from the Search Engines.

Anchor text

Anchor text

An anchor text refers to the clickable (hyperlinked) portion of text within a webpage. The words used as the anchor text are generally a relevant keyword phrase to whatever page they are being linked to. Anchor text has also become a valid technique for inbound marketing in an effort to raise the relevance of a webpage for a certain keyword phrase. Anchor texts are also used internally within a website to help a user navigate from one page to the next with ease.