A procedure for solving a mathematical problem such as, in the case of search engines, determining the order in which to present a list of websites in response to a query.

Acronym for Active Server Pages, a scripting language used by Microsoft IIS web servers for web-based applications.

Acronym for Common Gateway Interface, the system used by web servers to pass information from HTTP document requests to user-defined software (written in Perl, PHP, C and other programming languages) for the purpose of producing dynamic content.

When a user clicks on a hyperlink in a web document. Many web statistics are based on the process of having users "click through" links to other pages.

Using software to deliver custom pages to search engine spiders or other users based upon the IP address or User Agent requesting the document.

A website development system from that uses custom markup tags in HTML documents to produce dynamic content from databases. Cold Fusion pages use filename extensions of ".cf" or ".cfm".

A counter tabulates hits or page views of a web page, typically using cgi programs.

Acronym for Cost Per Action, referring to the model of having an advertiser pay only when a user purchases something at the advertiser's website.

Acronym for Cost Per Click, referring to the model of charging an advertiser for each click-through.

Acronym for Cost Per Mil (Thousand), referring to the model of charging an advertiser a fixed price per thousand impressions of an advertisement.

A type of spider (typically from a search engine) that examines each page in a website by following all the links in each document to download each page in the website.

Acronym for Cascading Style Sheets, a technique for controlling the appearance, or style, of text in a website using a central set of definitions (usually in a file) that specify various attributes.

A bad, or inactive, HTML link in which the destination web page no longer exists.

Acronym for Domain Name System, an Internet protocol that translates domain names into IP addresses.

A name that identifies one or more IP addresses, such as microsoft.com which represents dozens of IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular web pages and must be registered with a top-level registrar (such as Network Solutions).

Sometimes referred to as a Gateway Page or Hallway page, a doorway page is a web page that acts as an entrance to a website, one which is specifically created to rank high on a particular search engine.

An IP address that changes each time your computer connects to the internet.

An HTML tag used to create web pages which contain multiple windows within the web browser. Many search engines will not index framed pages.

The technique of concealing text from view on a web page by making it tiny or use the same color as the background of the document. Many search engines will not list websites containing hidden text.

A request for a file on a web server. Because web pages often contain references to other files, such as images, a single page can generate several hits on a web server. Most webmasters consider a hit to be a single viewer of a web page, whereas system administrators may consider a hit to be a request for a single file.

Acronym for Hypertext Markup Language, the programming language of web pages.

Acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the internet protocol that transfers data, including web pages, between web servers and web browsers.

A reference (link) from some point in one hypertext document to another location in another (or the same) document. A web browser usually displays hyperlinks with special underlining, color and font, so as to distinguish them from their surroundings. When a user activates the link (e.g. by clicking on it with a mouse) the web browser will display the target of the link, which is typically another web page or a file.

A system for defining "hot spots" in a graphic image that, when clicked, takes the user to a different web page.

An identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route data based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers (sometimes called octets), ranging in value from 0 to 255, separated by periods (e.g., 192.168.0.1).

Acronym for Internet Service Provider, a company that provides access to the internet (typically via dialup, cable modem, DSL or satellite).

An object-oriented programming language, similar to C++, developed by Sun Microsystems. Java was originally called OAK, and was designed for handheld devices and set-top boxes. In 1995 Sun changed the name to Java and modified the language for use on the world wide web where it has been widely accepted. Small Java applications are called applets.

A scripting language developed by Netscape to enable web authors to design interactive sites. Although it shares many of the features and structures of the full Java language, it was developed independently. Javascript can interact with HTML source code, enabling Web authors to spice up their sites with dynamic content.

A way to express, as a percentage, how many times a keyword is repeated within a body of text.

A statistic used by some search engines that counts the number of times a web page is linked to by other web pages.

A special HTML tag that provides information about a web page. Unlike normal HTML tags, meta tags are not visible to users and do not affect how the page is displayed. Instead, they provide information such as who created the page, how often it is updated, what the page is about, and which keywords represent the page's content. Many search engines use this information when indexing web pages.

A website that is a replica of an existing website. Mirror sites are useful when the original site generates too much traffic for a single server to support.

The accessing of a web page by a user.

Acronym for Practical Extraction and Report Language, a programming language developed by Larry Wall. Because of its strong text processing abilities, Perl has become one of the most popular languages for writing CGI scripts. Perl is an interpretive language, which makes it easy to build and test simple programs.

A recursive acronym of Hypertext Preprocessor, PHP is a popular, general-purpose scripting language that can be embedded into HTML documents. See

Acronym for Post Office Protocol version 3, an internet protocol used by email programs to retrieve email from servers. IMAP is a competing protocol.

Acronym for Pay Per Click, referring to the model of charging an advertiser for each click-through.

The ordinal position of a website among the listings of other websites displayed by search engines.

The URL address of the web page a user came from before entering another web page. Each time a user clicks a hyperlink, most browsers send a HTTP-REFERRER header to the new web server so that the servers can record the information in log files. The search terms a user typed into a search engine will usually be included as part of the information, making it possible to determine what keywords users are searching on to find a website.

A special meta tag that causes a web browser to reload a page (perhaps the same page) after a delay.

With reference to the Robots Exclusion Standard, used by some search engines, a special file in the root directory of a website used to control how and which search engine spiders access pages within a website. When a spider or robot connects to a website, it checks for the presence of the robots.txt file and uses it to index or avoid web pages within the site.

A special website, such as Yahoo or Google, that searches large databases of web pages in response to keyword queries submitted by users. Most search engines uses proprietary algorithms to determine the order in which web pages are listed.

The keywords used in a query to a search engine.

Acronym for Search Engine Optimization, the process of designing web pages to achieve high rankings on search engines.

Acronym for Search Engine Results Page, the page returned by a search engine containing listings of websites in response to a query.

Acronym for Simple Mail Transport Protocol, an internet program used by email programs and email servers to send email messages.

Unsolicited junk email. Also used to refer to the process of excessively over-submitting pages to a search engine.

The software used by search engines to visit and index web pages.

Acronym for Server Side Includes, which are commands placed in the comments of HTML documents that direct a web server to include or insert special dynamic content at runtime.

Acronym for Secure Sockets Layer, the encryption protocol used between web servers and web browsers to safely transmit secure data such as credit card numbers.

An IP address that remains the same each time a connection is made to the internet.

The process of determining root words. For example, querying a search engine using the word "computer" might return results for "computers" or "computing".

With regard to search engines, a stop word is any word which causes the spider to stop indexing a web page, such as any words that may be offensive, prohibited or otherwise censored.

The process of informing a search engine of the URL of a website (submitting).

Domain name extensions such as .com, .net, .org., .info, etc.

In general terms, the volume of visitors that a website receives.

Search Engine Commando's unique technology that automatically submits large lists of URL's over an appropriate number of days according to the acceptance policies of individual search engines, rather than submitting them all at once. Trickle Submission reduces the risk of rejection by search engines while increasing the chances of achieving good placement.

The process of sending data or files to another computer. The opposite of upload is download.

Acronym for Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of web pages and other resources on the internet (e.g., "http://www.ibm.com").

A computer running special software that delivers web pages in response to requests from web browsers. Every web server has an IP address and (usually) a domain name. There are many web server software applications available, including Apache, Microsoft IIS and others.

An internet protocol that returns registration information about domain names.