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SEO Glossary of Terms

Search Engine Optimization – Definitions

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Keyword (Key phrase)
A word or phrase typed into a search engine in order to find web pages that contain that word or phrase. A web page can (and should be) optimized for specific keywords/phrases that are relevant to the content on that page.

Keywords meta mag
An HTML meta tag that lists all of the main keywords and key phrases that are contained on that web page. Some search engines use the keyword meta tag to help rank web pages in their databases; Google is not among them.

Example:
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="small business,business,advertising,sales">

Keyword Stuffing/SPAMming
The process of repeating keywords or key phrases in meta tags and body text. This can result in keyword densities over 50%, and is seen as SPAM by most search engines.

Keyword density
The number of occurrences that a given keyword appears on a web page. The more times that a given word appears on your page (within reason), the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a user.

Keyword popularity
The number of occurrences of searches done by Internet users of a given keyword during a period of time. Both WordTracker.com and Overture's Search Term Popularity Tool (http://inventory.overture.com) provide keyword popularity numbers.

Keyword prominence
The location (i.e. placement) of a given keyword in the HTML source code of a web page. The higher up on the page a particular word is, the more prominent it is and thus the more weight that word is assigned by the search engine when that word matches a keyword search done by a search engine user. Consequently, it's best to have your first paragraph be chock full of important keywords rather than superfluous marketing speak. This concept also applies to the location of important keywords within individual HTML tags, such as heading tags, title tags, or hyperlink text. It is therefore best to start your title tags with a strong keyword rather than "Welcome to."

Keyword research
Looking up keyword popularity numbers for relevant keywords with the purpose of identifying the best keywords to target for high search engine rankings.

Keyword-rich
A term defining when a given page or bit of text is chock full of good keywords, rather than a bunch of meaningless or irrelevant words (e.g. "welcome", "click here").

Keyword stuffing
Placing excessive amounts of keywords into the page copy and the HTML in such a way that it detracts from the readability and usability of a given page. This is done to boost the page's rankings in the search engines; methods includes hiding keywords on the page by making the text the same color as the background, hiding keywords in comment tags, overfilling alt tags with long strings of keywords, etc. Keyword stuffing is just another shady way of gaming the search engines and, as such, its use should be strongly discouraged.