Since Search Engine Optimisation seems like a rocket science to most people including some SEO experts who i met last month, we decided to make it easier to understand this alien speak to our clients and associates. It's a handy guide to the most commonly used terms and are pretty simple to comprehend. And since the way Search Engines are ruling the roost, we suggest that you browse these terms if you are looking towards getting famous on the Internet.

The A-Z glossary of search engine optimization terms and definitions.

Adwords - A system to advertise on Google & partner sites on a CPC (cost per click) basis.

Agent Name - Synonymous with "User-Agent". This is the name of a spider or browser as defined by the owner.

Algorithm - A mathematical formulae which is used in order to rank websites and web pages.

Altavista - One of the first large scale search engines.

Back Link - A link from one website to another.

Bridge Page - Similar to "Doorway Page", this is a specifically designed entry point for a website.

Click-Through - A click on a link that leads to another website.

Click-Tracking - The use of scripts in order to track inbound and outbound links.

Cloaking - Delivering different content to specific crawlers/spiders. This is generally used to trick spiders into seeing optimized content.

Comment Tag - A tag in HTML that is invisible unless viewed through the source code.

Counter - A program or script that counts hits/visits to a page.

CPA - Cost per Action. Where you pay for a specified action such as a purchase.

CPC - Cost per Click. With this you are charged for every click your link on someone's website receives.

CPL - Cost per Lead. Where you pay for a lead i.e. is someone does something.

CPM - Cost per Thousand. Where you pay for each 1000 impressions.

Crawler - A program that goes through websites and gathers information for the crawler's creator.

Cross Linking - Multiple sites linking to each other.

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. Used to manipulate and easily manage the design of a website.

CTR - Click Through Rate. The ratio of impressions shown to the number of clicks.

Dead Link - A link that produces a 404 error, page not found.

Directory - A website that list other websites in their various categories.

Domain - The name for a website e.g. SEOChat.com.

Dynamic Page - A page that generates content "on-the-fly" as a user requests the page.

Error Log File - A server log file which records errors encountered.

Google Everflux - This denotes the continuous changes in the Google search results pages.

FFA Free For All - This is a links page with nothing but links added by visitors.

Freshbot - This is the name for the Google crawlers that are known to add pages to the Google index more promptly than others.

Google - The largest and currently the #1 search engine.

Google Bot - The crawlers (software) which index pages into Google.

Gulliver - The name of the web crawler for Northern Light.

Header Tag - An HTML tag which is commonly used for page headers.

Hidden Text - Text which is invisible to the human eye because it is the same color as the background.

Hit - An instance of a graphic or file being loaded on a webpage.

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language. The languages used to format webpages.

HTML Link - A link from one page to another.

Inbound Link - A link from another website to your website.

Inktomi - A database of search results used to power multiple search engines.

IP Address - A unique number which identifies a computer or system.

IP Spoofing - An illegal process of faking an IP address.

JavaScript - An embedded client side scripting language.

Keyword - A single word used to help identify the purpose of a website.

Keyword Density - The percentage density of a given keyword or phrase.

Keyword Stuffing - Stuffing a page with numerous keywords for the sole purpose of confusing search engines.

Link Farm - A series of websites linking to each other in order to increase rankings.

Meta Search - Searching multiple databases and combining results.

Meta Tags - A tag used for behind the scenes purposes, such as providing content to non human visitors.

Northern Light - An older search engine, once very popular.

Open Directory Project - A large directory of websites run by volunteers. Their database is used by many website across the internet.

Optimization - Fine tuning a website or webpage with the ultimate goal being to ascertain a higher position in all or a specific search engine's results.

Outbound Link - Linking from your website to another website.

Page View - The number of times a page was loaded.

PopUp - The opening of a new window above the previous window.

PFI - Pay For Inclusion. This is where a site must pay to be listed at all.

Pop Under - A pop-up that loads under a page so that it is only viewable when the current page is closed.

PR - Google's Page Rank. A ranking given by Google to the popularity of your page/website based on the number of times your page/website is referenced by other high traffic websites. The higher the rank the better position your website or page will have in their results.
Yahoo.com which is content heavy, referenced by many sites etc... has a page rank of nearly 10 out of 10 for most its pages.

Query - A search phrase submitted to search engines.

Rate Card - A sheet with pricing information.

Reciprocal Link - Where 2 sites exchange links.

Referrer - The page from which a user has come.

Refresh Tag - A tag which defines when and to where a page will refresh.

Robot - Generally the name given to a spider / crawler. Anything that is not a human visitor.

Robots.txt - A file created to direct the search engine spiders in specific directions of the website.

Scooter - The search crawler of Altavista.

Search Engine - A site which searches the web for sites which are relevant for a given search query.

SERP - A search engine results page.

Slurp - The Inktomi search crawler.

Spider - A program that visits and downloads specific information from a webpage.

Submission - Submitting a site to a search engine or directory.

Traffic - The visitors and page views on a website.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator. The address at which a specific resource can be found.