SEO Glossary

I'm finding that there is quite a bit of mystery, a blackbox effect, around SEO and Search Marketing and it's power to convey important messages to the right people.  The fact is most corporations do not have adequate SEO in-house resources and many lack the ability to evaluate Search Marketers.  Even the unique terminology presents hurdles.  I've presented a list below, and will try to keep it up-to date.


SEO: Search Engine Optimization can also be used to refer to a person (noun) Search Engine Optimizer

PPC: Pay Per Click, e.g. pay for each visit.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing, the combination of two distinct disciplines SEO and PPC.

Organic SEO: SEO that is driven through innovation and enthusiastic public reception.  Smart PR can drive Organic SEO.

Organic Results: Search results not including paid qualifiers or perhaps more specifically to some without location weight boost.

SEMM: Search Engine Market Management (what we provide) is an advanced form of SEM, where the goal is not specific traffic targets but revenue and ROI targets.  One service we offer actually projects ROI to a high-confidence interval in advanced of campaign execution.  Current & Former start-up CEOs, or those with strong marketing backgrounds, understanding of consumer behavior and optimization, intimate knowledge of business and technical SEO skill are required to execute such campaigns.  SEMM and Organic SEO are premium services but they will likely return more than inexpensive outsourced SEO.

KW: Keyword

Location Boost: Search results tailored to specific ip regions with a high degree of localization weight.

RFID: Radio Frequency Identification Chip, Search giant Google currently employs NFC capability in Android, and Apple is also planning support for RFIDs. The amount information that can be gathered about a user and their spending habits will increase a great deal for each company. I'm unsure of how it will apply now but RFIDs may have an impact on Contextual Ad-serving and organic search results.

Performance Marketing: A way to pay for marketing retroactively based on actions

SERPS or SERPs: Search Engine Results Position, or Search Engine Result Page

PR: PageRank as explained in the original patent application

Y: Yahoo not really important anymore as they utilize Bing Results

RFID Software: This is what actually powers the "magic" of RFIDs. RFID Software can refer to simplistic software on intelligent RFID Readers, RFID Operating Systems, RFID Middleware, and etc.

BL: backlink

TPR: Topical PageRank as described here: http://www2002.org/presentations/haveliwala-rp17.pdf

OBL: outbound link

Social Media RFID: This is a cutting edge RFID Application the practice of utilizing RFID technology to automate social media and consumer applications, e.g. automatically checking into a Chipotle or a ski slope and keeping track of your runs, etc.

IBL: inbound link


CPM: Cost per Mille (1000) impressions, a measurement of impression cost

QR Code: Think of a barcode that can be scanned and pre-populates contact information or launches actions on your phone, such as opening a web page. QR Codes overlap slightly with RFID's but RFIDs are much more powerful in terms of the information they can track and they don't require line of sight (LOS) to actuate.

CTR: Click Thru Rate

NFC: Near Field Communication - a type of RFID implementation with limited range.

ILQ: Inbound link quality

Trust Rank: This is an informal name for trust algorithms deployed by every major search engine.  Yahoo did file a patent under the describing a "Trust Rank" Technology (I'll search USPTO for it)

Topology: A description of linking to topical hubs.  Imagine the most important pages on subjects like mountains.

PPA: Pay Per Action, you pay each time a consumer signs up, buys something, or executes a specific transaction.  A fixed or proportional rate may be applied for compensation, e.g. $10 per signup or 10% of a sale.   Commission Junction and other companies work on this model. Similar to Performance Marketing, however Performance Marketing usually denotes a higher quality campaigns for larger companies utilizing advanced predictors to establish a predicted ROI from SEM activities. 

White Hat: SEO done by the letter of google webmaster code.  This is exactly how google wants you to promote, and nothing more.

Grey Hat: SEO that may not be what google likes but its not illegal and they can't penalize you for it.  Because other people could do it to competitors to destroy their rankings.

Black Hat SEO: This is against google conduct, much more severe than grey hat.  These items will get you punished, you have to bring this on yourself.  Sometimes these activities are actually illegal.