score
Search engines usually arrange search results from the most relevant to the least relevant (as determined by the search engine's algorithm ). In order to rank documents, the search engine assigns a score to each page and those with the highest scores are listed first. Most search engines simply give the maximum score to the most relevant document and score all other relevant documents relative to that document. Others compare all documents to a theoretically perfect document. The score of a web page therefore refers to its relevance as perceived by a specific search engine.
script
A piece of programming designed to perform a certain function on a web page - for example to create a rollover effect on buttons or to create pop-ups .
search
The process of locating information - on the Internet typically done by searching through documents in search engine and directory databases .
search engine
A tool for finding information on the Internet. Most search engines consist of the following main components:
1. Spider
2. Indexer
3. Database
4. Search software
5. Web interface
Documents found by the spider are processed by the indexer and stored in a database. From the database the search software extracts documents based on parameters entered by the user. Examples of search engines include Google and AllTheWeb . Directories like Yahoo and ODP are often referred to as search engines although they are not.
search hours
The actual amount of time (in hours) all visitors to a search engine spent there during a given month. Audience reach and search hours are the two major factors when calculating the popularity of a search engine.
searchjacking
A variation of spamdexing where pages are optimized for popular search terms even though those terms are not related to the page content. In the long run this technique makes little sense, as it attracts mostly untargeted visitors .
search results
The documents returned by a search engine in response to a query .
search term(s)
Words entered into a search engine 's search box to form a query .
SERP(S)
Search Engine Results Page(s). The term refers to the page of search results a search engine displays in response to a query .
similarity
The measure of the degree to which a document matches a query or the degree to which two or more documents are alike.
sitemap
A map to your site. A sitemap contains links to every page of your site (check out Google's sitemap ). The important benefit of having a sitemap (apart from helping your visitors find what they are looking for) is that spiders can find all pages on a site quickly and with fewer hops. For maximum benefit, insert a prominent link to your sitemap on every page of your site.
site search
A search utility that allows the user to search through documents on a particular site. Different from a search engine in that it's database contains only documents found on that site as opposed to a wider collection of documents from all over the web.
skewing
A technique used by search engines . It refers to the practice of artificially altering the search results so that certain documents will score well on certain queries .
snippet
Referring to the quoted pieces of page content search engines like Google use on the SERP s instead of a traditional, webmaster created site descriptions. The term originates from the "NOSNIPPET" robots meta tag used to disallow SNIPPETS.
sorting results
Search engines sort results displayed on the SERP in a particular order - usually from most relevant to least relevant. Some search engines allow the user to sort results based on different criteria, for example alphabetically, arranged from newest to oldest etc.
spam
A collective name for those marketing techniques that are intrusive, offensive and/or unethical in some way. A major characteristic is that it aims its message at a wide (often in the millions), untargeted audience - which it can afford because electronic distribution is very cheap. The most common form of spam is unsolicited commercial e-mail. In the search engine world, regular mass submission of web pages to search engines is also referred to as spam or spamdexing . The term spamdexing is also used to refer to all SEO techniques that are deceptive or unethical.
spamdexing
All attempts to deceive search engines or gain an unfair advantage in the search results of a search engine. Spamdexing decreases the value of a search engine's index by reducing the precision with which the search engine can return relevant documents. Most search engines have measures in place to detect spamdexing and guilty pages are usually either penalized or de-listed . Many webmasters inadvertently make themselves guilty by braking search engine submission rules .
spider / spyder
A browser -like program that forms part of a search engine . Its task is to "surf" the web by following links from one page to the next and from one site to the next. It collects information from the sites it visits and that information is stored in the search engine's database .
stats / statistics
In the context of search engines , the term is often used to refer to the information created by some type of reporting software. The web server log files for the site are used as the source of the information. Also known as Web stats, web reporting, statistics, and traffic reports.
stemming
The use of linguistic analysis to get to the root form of a word. Search engines that use stemming compare the root forms of the search terms to the documents in its database . For example, if the user enters "viewer" as the query , the search engine reduces the word to its root ("view") and returns all documents containing the root - like documents containing view, viewer, viewing, preview, review etc.
submission
The process of manually adding a URL to a search engine 's list of URLs to spider - in effect telling a spider about a page in order to get it spidered and ultimately added to the search engine's database .
submission rules
Most search engines have a list of rules that must be obeyed when submitting sites to be spidered . Examples of submission rules include how often the page may be resubmitted (if at all), how many pages may be submitted per day etc.
submission service
Services exist where the user can have pages submitted to multiple search engines for a fee. The fee is normally very low, but usually not as low as the quality of the submission.
submission software
Programs that assist webmasters in optimizing and submitting web pages to search engines . There are countless programs available, but probably only a handful that are worth getting.
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