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SEO Glossary of Terms

Search Engine Optimization – Definitions

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Meta search engine
A website that takes your search query and passes it on to several different search engines and directories, then summarizes the results in a logical manner for you to review.

Meta description
A meta tag hidden in the HTML that describes the page's content. Should be relatively short; around 12 to 20 words is suggested. The meta description provides an opportunity to influence how your Web page is described in the search results. Of the major search engines, Inktomi, AltaVista, Teoma, Lycos, and Alltheweb utilize the meta description tag to varying degrees. Make sure they reflect the page content or you may be accused of SPAMming.

Meta keywords
A meta tag hidden in the HTML that lists keywords relevant to the page's content. Because search engine SPAMmers have abused this tag so much, nearly all of the major search engines ignore this tag completely. Of the major search engines, only Inktomi still pays any attention to the meta keywords tag.

Meta tags
Meta tags are HTML entities which are placed within the <head> section of a webpage. The most common, and most relevant to search engines, are the KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION tags.

Mirror sites
Multiple copies of a site, usually for redundancy and on different servers, are called mirror sites. Registering such sites can be seen as SPAMming by some search engines, and it wise to let only the primary site be crawled. However, they are commonly used legitimately by large websites to share heavy server loads, and by search engine SPAMmers to generate more search engine referrals and revenue.

Mouseover
Hovering the mouse over a text or graphic link without clicking results in a new display on the page. For example, a horizontal navigation bar may display further sub-section choices underneath the section hovered over.