The Digital Marketing Bible (L-Z)

LINKS

A link on a webpage is clickable text that redirects the user to another website or an internal page of the same site (see BACKLINKS and HYPERLINKS).

LINK-BUILDING

The practice of actively attracting inbound links to your website (see BACKLINKS and HYPERLINKS).

LINK EXCHANGE

Link exchanges are essentially confederations of websites whose operators believe that together they are stronger and more visible on the worldwide web. When a webmaster registers a site with a link exchange, they receive HTML code that installs banner advertisements for other members of the exchange that will be displayed on their site. The webmaster then needs to create their own ad, so it can be circulated and embedded throughout the group. Advantages of link exchanges include attracting a targeted audience to sites that display similar topics or themes. They are also a relatively stable method of encouraging backlinking.

All good then? Well, no, because the link exchange is yet another internet phenomenon that rubs prickly Google up the wrong way and could result in a plummeting in page rank. Rival banner ads may also tempt users away from sites, before they’ve explored beyond the landing page.

LINK JUICE

You can think of link juice as votes of confidence in a web page, cast by way of internal or external links to other pages. Although you won’t hear Google officially mention the term, it is a major factor in gaining high page rank.

It’s not just about numbers though. Link juice is far more effective when the pages it flows from are relevant to the subject, possess high page rank and authority, contain high quality content, appear high in SERPs, have user-generated content and, preferably, are referred to frequently in the various social media channels.

On the flipside, links are less effective when they are irrelevant and unnatural e.g. a coffee shop in Sydney linked to a car rental office in Los Angeles). Other inferior links are those that are paid for or derived from link farms, link exchanges and lowly ranked pages. They tend to be spammy and packed with uninformative, poorly-written content. Avoid at all costs!

LINK PARTNER

A reciprocal agreement between two sites who link to each other, as commonly used by link exchanges to manipulate search results. Not something Google and other search engines generally approve of, hence only a low SEO value is placed on such relationships.

LINK SPAM (BLOG SPAM, COMMENT SPAM)

Link spam often takes the black hat form of poorly written and designed, fake blogs (splogs) that contain links to websites. Alternatively, it can be in the form of guest posts on otherwise legitimate sites. Either way, the aim is the same – to manipulate SERPs by nefarious means and push websites further up the page by conveying authority via links. Google’s algorithms are constantly updated, in an effort to identify this form of spamming and negate any benefits it may bring.

MASHUP

A mashup webpage grabs various forms of content from multiple sources – blogs, news items, reviews, maps, images, video – and combines them with an additional functionality, to present something of added value and interest to users. Smart phone apps (APIs) are currently among the most common platforms for mashups. Twitterspy and WeatherBonk are succesful examples of the form.

META DESCRIPTION

This is the short description of a website (it can be up to 160 characters) that appears on search engine results pages, immediately below the title tag of the site. Whilst handy for the user as an explanation of what the site contains, meta descriptions have precious little SEO value and it’s not necessary to spend a whole lot of time drafting them. They should, however, be different on every site.

METRICS

Metrics are standards of measurement used in search engine analytics. Metrics that site owners are generally most interested in usually include backlinks, keyword rankings, website traffic, conversions and revenue. It’s worth pointing out that hitting #1 spot in SERPs doesn’t guarantee increased revenue. There are many other factors to consider when building a website that converts traffic into sales.

MIDJOURNEY

Midjourney is an AI-powered platform that allows you to generate stunning images from just your imagination. Using text prompts, you describe what you want the image to depict, and Midjourney’s sophisticated algorithms translate your words into a unique visual creation. This opens doors for artists, designers, and anyone with a creative spark to explore countless visual ideas and bring them to life, making Midjourney a powerful tool for artistic expression and exploration.

MOBILE FIRST INDEX

The Mobile-First Index represents a fundamental shift in Google’s approach to indexing and ranking websites, prioritising the mobile version of a site over its desktop counterpart for search engine rankings and results. With the increasing dominance of mobile devices in internet usage, Google recognizes the importance of delivering a seamless and optimised experience to mobile users. This shift signifies Google’s commitment to evaluating and ranking websites primarily based on their mobile version’s content, structure, and user experience, rather than focusing on the desktop version.

For website owners and developers, the Mobile-First Index necessitates a strong emphasis on mobile responsiveness, ensuring that their sites are well-designed, fast-loading, and user-friendly across various mobile devices. Optimising for mobile-first involves responsive web design, where the layout and content adapt dynamically to fit different screen sizes, ensuring a consistent and intuitive experience for users on smartphones and tablets. This approach not only caters to the growing mobile user base but also aligns with Google’s ranking criteria, potentially improving a site’s visibility and rankings in mobile search results.

Adapting to the Mobile-First Index means prioritising mobile usability and experience in web design and content creation strategies. It encourages webmasters to focus on factors such as mobile-friendly design, page speed, responsive layouts, and content relevance for mobile users. Embracing mobile-first practices becomes imperative for maintaining or improving search rankings and ensuring a positive user experience, aligning with the evolving landscape of digital consumption driven by mobile devices.

MONETISE

Whilst many websites simply exist to provide information or display calls to action e.g. phone your company or complete an online order form, others are optimized to independently generate income through the actions of visitors.

The most common method of achieving this is via Google Adsense campaigns (pay per click advertising) whereby you get paid when visitors click on 3rd party ads on your site. Affiliate marketing is another way to make money from a website or blog. Users are encouraged to click on affiliate links and the site owner profits by receiving a cut of any subsequent sale. Commission rates vary considerably but may be as high as 70% in some cases.

Other ways to monetize your website include displaying those annoying but profitable pop-up ads; renting site pace to others; selling e-books or running a full-on e-commerce site to sell your products or services.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of artificial intelligence focused on enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language. It encompasses a variety of techniques including tokenization, part-of-speech tagging, named entity recognition, and sentiment analysis, among others. NLP finds applications in search engines, virtual assistants, chatbots, sentiment analysis, machine translation, and more. By processing and analyzing large amounts of text data, NLP enables automation of tasks, enhances user experiences, uncovers valuable insights, and facilitates language understanding, contributing to advancements across industries and domains.

NEAR ME SEARCHES

“Near Me” searches have become a ubiquitous phenomenon in today’s digital landscape, reflecting the shift in user behaviour towards hyper-local and immediate information retrieval. These searches involve users looking for products, services, or information available in their vicinity, often using phrases like “restaurants near me” or “hardware store near me.” The prominence of mobile devices equipped with location-based services has fueled the surge in “Near Me” searches, empowering users to find nearby businesses or points of interest with unprecedented ease and convenience.

For businesses, optimising for “Near Me” searches has become pivotal in capturing local customers and enhancing their online visibility. This involves local SEO strategies aimed at ensuring that a business appears prominently in search results when users look for services or products in their vicinity. Factors such as having an accurate and updated Google My Business listing, incorporating location-specific keywords in content, and garnering positive reviews and ratings play a significant role in ranking higher in “Near Me” searches.

The prevalence of “Near Me” searches underscores the importance of local relevance and proximity in the user’s decision-making process. It signifies the growing reliance on digital platforms for immediate and location-specific information, presenting businesses with opportunities to leverage local SEO strategies and provide seamless experiences to users searching for nearby solutions or services. Embracing and optimising for “Near Me” searches has become a crucial aspect of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, especially for businesses targeting local audiences.

NOINDEX

Whilst the usual aim of SEO is to attract spiders, ‘noindex’ is a meta tag added to a webpage’s HTML code that commands search engine webcrawlers not to index that page. The code is inserted at the head of a webpage and can be programmed to prevent all webcrawlers or just specific ones, like Google’s, to ignore it. There are many reasons why a webmaster might want to prevent indexing, including privacy or duplication issues, or blocking pages that are only temporary. It could also be a special promotions page that you only want subscribers to access.

Some search engines interpret noindex tags differently, meaning your page may still be indexed by them. If pages still appear in Google, it could also be that they’ve not been crawled since the tags were added. The ‘Fetch as Google’ tool, found on the company’s support site, is useful for debugging such crawl issues. Another reason could be that a ‘robots.txt’ file may be conflicting with your noindex tags.

Accidental or malicious installation of noindex tags would be disastrous for a website’s SEO and potential revenue, so it’s highly recommended that a monitoring system is put in place to alert webmasters of any change in the head section of HTML.

OFF-PAGE SEO

A successful SEO strategy needs to include both on-page and off-page methods. Off-page SEO refers to a site’s ‘domain authority’, which works on a 100-point scale (100 being the highest) introduced by SEO resource company, Moz, and now used as a marker throughout the industry. A high score is determined by the quality of the backlinks to a site i.e. links from recognised authority sites that search engines and human visitors trust and value highly. It does NOT mean a high number of low-quality, spammy links bought in from third-parties.

The off-page SEO game usually takes time to play out. It isn’t a quick fix strategy but will reap rewards in terms of page rank further down the line. A website with world-class content will attract links like a magnet. Read more…

OPENAI

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory focused on developing advanced AI technologies for the betterment of society. It aims to create AI systems that are not only capable but also safe and beneficial for humanity. OpenAI conducts groundbreaking research in various areas of AI, including natural language processing, reinforcement learning, and robotics.

Within OpenAI’s array of projects, Chat-GPT stands out as a flagship example of their achievements in natural language processing. Chat-GPT is an AI model trained to understand and generate human-like text, making it adept at engaging in conversation with users. It’s designed to assist with tasks ranging from answering questions and providing information to simulating dialogue and facilitating communication. Chat-GPT represents OpenAI’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities while also ensuring its responsible and ethical deployment in real-world applications.

PAGERANK

Put simply, PageRank (PR) is a value assigned by Google to an individual webpage, based on its importance, and is measured on a sliding scale of 0 to 10. A PR of 10 is extraordinarily rare. The PageRank algorithm was originally conceived by one of Google’s two founders and smartest brains – the legendary Larry Page.

Google figures that when one website links to another, it is effectively casting a vote in favour of that site. The higher the authority of the domain casting the vote, the greater the positive impact on the webpage’s search engine rank and the higher its place in SERPs (all other ranking factors being equal). This means that links are an indispensable component of any successful SEO strategy.

Google keeps its PageRank algorithm a closely guarded secret but many experts in the SEO industry suspect it is based on a logarithmic system. This may trigger a blank expression but, for our purposes, it means that it takes a lot more additional PageRank to move up to the next level than it did to achieve the previous one. You can check PR by adding third-party software to your browser. There are many different versions available as extensions.

The level of PageRank tends to increase as the number of pages within a website expands. PageRank is distributed throughout a site’s pages via internal links. For an SEO consultant, it’s important to get the internal link-building right, in order to maximize the site’s PageRank potential. This does NOT mean creating identical or close-to-identical pages, in a vain attempt to fool the Googlebots into voting for them. New page content must always be original or Google could hit you with hefty penalties for spamming.

It’s most beneficial to channel link juice to the important or money pages e.g. hub pages, indexes and directories. Outbound links cause a website to leak PageRank. One way to negate this effect is to ensure the links are reciprocated.

PAID FOR INCLUSION (PFI)

A popular alternative for website operators, who simply can’t or won’t wait for their sites to appear in SERPs or online directories, is to make payments to publishers and in return jump to the top of the first page. These schemes are usually known a ‘pay-per-click’ (PPC). Google AdWords, Yahoo Advertising and Bing Ads (the latter two now amalgamated in a single platform) are the main players in this arena. Some social media companies, including Twitter and Facebook, have also adopted a pay-per-click marketing strategy.

The PFI model most commonly works through a bidding system, whereby advertisers bid on keyword phrases relevant to their specific market. The amount they end up paying when a visitor clicks on their advertisement is termed ‘cost-per-click’ (CPC). Company budgets for PPC range from $50 to $500,000 or even more per month.

In most search engines, PPC ads appear either at the top of a webpage’s search results (above the organic listings) or down the right-hand side of the page. They are usually distinguished by a green ‘Ad’ symbol or the word ‘Sponsored’.

PENGUIN

The Penguin algorithm, introduced by Google in 2012, targeted manipulative link-building practices and spammy link schemes that aimed to artificially inflate a website’s search engine rankings. Penguin focused on penalising websites that engaged in tactics such as buying links, participating in link farms, or using manipulative link schemes to manipulate their backlink profiles. The goal was to improve the quality of search results by promoting websites with natural, organic, and authoritative link profiles while demoting those employing deceptive or spammy practices.

This algorithm update emphasised the importance of high-quality and relevant backlinks, considering them as valuable signals of a website’s authority and credibility. Websites that were found to have unnatural or spammy links pointing to them faced penalties, experiencing drops in search rankings. Penguin incentivized webmasters and SEO practitioners to prioritise ethical and natural link-building strategies, focusing on acquiring genuine, contextually relevant, and authoritative backlinks to enhance their site’s credibility.

PORTAL

Web portals are sites designed to connect customers, employees, partners and other stakeholders. They collate information from various sources for sharing purposes. They are also frequently used to enable collaboration, project management, application integration, e-commerce or the sharing of business intelligence. They can be designed to operate on PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones.

Portals are often programmed to present information specific to a user’s needs and accessed via a personal log-in. There are various types, including knowledge portals, public web portals, government portals, market space portals, bidding portals and enterprise web portals.
Online banking sites are good examples of portals.

PPA (PAY PER ACTION)

A close cousin of PPC but the search engine operators only get paid when clicks result in conversions i.e. they result in actions from visitors, such as purchasing a product, registering for a service or signing-up for a free trial of some kind.

PPC is a good way to avoid costly click fraud and window-shopping. It also means you are offsetting your costs, because you only pay when you’ve generated either revenue or a high-quality sales lead. But you could still make a loss if those leads fail to convert and the cost the publisher (e.g. Google) is charging for your ad is too great. It’s important to negotiate good PPA rates. Do your homework, talk to your accountant or FD, and have a figure in mind before you start haggling. Then ensure you carefully check all your PPA and PPC reports, then weigh up their ultimate value to your business. Spreadsheets are your best friends!

PROPRIETARY METHOD

This phrase should set alarm bells ringing, as it’s often used in sales pitches by unscrupulous, so-called SEO ‘experts’, who claim they have a unique formula to send your webpages soaring to the top of SERPS. These purveyors of snake oil should be avoided at all costs. There is no magic bullet, just tried and tested SEO strategies. Worst case scenario is that they employ black hat techniques that could see your website vanish from Google forever. Caveat emptor!

QUERY

Refers to text entered into a search engine, in order to produce a result.

RECOMMENDATION ENGINE

Recommendation engines are powerful tools used in various industries to personalize content and make suggestions based on user preferences and behavior. These engines leverage data analysis and machine learning algorithms to predict and recommend items that users are likely to be interested in. In e-commerce, recommendation engines analyze past purchases, browsing history, and demographic information to suggest products or services that match a user’s interests. Similarly, in streaming services, recommendation engines analyze viewing history and user ratings to suggest movies, TV shows, or music. Content-based recommendation engines rely on the characteristics of items themselves, while collaborative filtering engines make recommendations based on user behavior and preferences, often using techniques like matrix factorization. Hybrid recommendation engines combine both approaches to provide more accurate and diverse recommendations. Overall, recommendation engines play a crucial role in enhancing user experience, increasing engagement, and driving revenue for businesses in today’s digital landscape.

REFERRER

The source of a website visitor. When visiting a webpage, the referrer is the URL of the previous page visited. Some SEO’s like to track their referrers using web log analysis software, although some web browsers block this practice, in order to protect user privacy.

REGISTRAR

A commercial company or organization that facilitates the registrations of internet domain names. Such registrars must be accredited by a gTLD (generic top level domain) or ccTLD (country-code top level domain).

There is a huge choice of competing companies you can register your name with, all offering hosting packages of various types and costs. Many have expanded to offer email services, online marketing, e-commerce and even website creation. Popular international providers include Go Daddy, TuCows, Register.com, NameCheap and Network Solutions.

REINFORCEMENT LEARNING

Reinforcement Learning is a type of machine learning where an agent learns to make decisions by interacting with an environment. The agent receives feedback in the form of rewards or penalties based on its actions, allowing it to learn which actions lead to better outcomes over time. Through trial and error, the agent discovers optimal strategies for maximizing cumulative rewards. This approach is inspired by how humans and animals learn from experience. Reinforcement Learning has applications in various fields, from training autonomous robots to playing complex games like chess and Go, and it holds promise for solving real-world problems where traditional algorithms may struggle.

REPEAT VISITS

Website visitors who have visited in the past. Many SEO experts believe that Google’s algorithms favour sites that enjoy regular repeat visits and reward them with higher ranking. Frequent visits suggest that a page has contains valuable information and is trusted by users. The website is then deemed to have authority.

ROBOTS.txt

The robots.txt file is used by web developers to restrict web crawler access to specific areas of a website. Its uses the robots exclusion protocol/standard, to inform the spiders not to process or scan those areas, via an ‘allow’ or ‘disallow’ command (see NOFOLLOW). Most common search engines have adopted the standard, including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Baidu, Ask, DuckDuckGo, AOL and Yandex. Bear in mind that robots.txt is purely advisory and some webcrawlers will choose not to comply with it.

The file may also contain further webcrawler directives. The contents of the file are always publicly available, meaning others will be able to see which pages you don’t want to be crawled. So, avoid using robot.txt to conceal private or sensitive information.

SAFARI

Safari is a web browser developed by the Apple company and first released in 2003 and is the default browser on all Apple products. A Windows version ran was available until 2012, when it was discontinued. Safari 10 is the current version.

SANDBOX

The alleged Google sandbox is thought by many in the SEO business to be a probationary period that all new websites must endure. This means that all your on and off-page SEO efforts could mean zilch in the short-term. It’s a bit like driving a car with the handbrake on but it’s ranking not speed that’s diminished.

It’s suspected that Google introduced the sandbox in March 2004, to reverse the tide of spammy websites using purchased links to rapidly ascend its rankings, straight from launch. However, many believe that the fabled sandbox is a figment of paranoid webmasters’ imaginations and its effect merely a consequence of existing algorithms. Sites consigned to the sandbox for longest (up to 6 months in some extreme cases) tend to be those targeting competitive keywords, whereas those that don’t tend to escape relatively quickly. The dampening effect will gradually peter out over time. If you have strong PageRank and high-quality links but still don’t figure in searches, you’re probably in the sandbox.

Frustratingly, even registering with AdSense or AdWords won’t provide an escape from the sandbox – you just have to knuckle down and serve your time! But a webmaster should use it constructively, by continuing to optimise his or her site with world-class content and high-quality links, so when probation is over, the site will rise like a hot-air balloon.

SCRAPE

Scraping is the unauthorised, black hat practice of copying content from popular websites and publishing it on your own site, as if it was original. It’s one of the tasks of Google’s Panda algorithm update to seek out duplicate content and punish it with sanctions of varying degrees. Scraping is usually done using automated bots (small programs). Avoid this form of plagiarism at all costs and focus on using only original content.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)

Often shortened to “search marketing” this term refers to the promotion of a website in search engines in order to increase visitor traffic, typically by employing a mix of pay per click advertising campaigns and paid inclusion, as opposed to unpaid SEO techniques.

Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Ads and Bing Ads are the most popular marketing platforms for SEM. All have great tutorials that will help you plan your marketing strategy. Read More…

SEARCH ENGINE SPAM

Spamming is a deliberate attempt to manipulate search engines into returning irrelevant, redundant or poor-quality results, in order to promote a website or particular webpage. This practice usually shows little consideration for the needs of users.

Black hat web developers have a whole range of crafty techniques in their spam toolbox, although Google and other search engines are now wise to most of them and quick to impose penalties on those that transgress its quality guidelines. Below is a list of common spamming methods:

• Irrelevant keywords
• Keyword stuffing
• Keyword stacking
• Duplicate or scraped content
• Redirects
• Link farms
• Doorway pages
• Cloaking
• Hidden or minute text
• Domain spam
• Hidden backlinks
• Page swapping

If you come across a spammy website, it’s easy to report it to the various search engine admins, who are keen to resist any attempts to subvert their ranking algorithms. .

SERP

Originally, SERP was short for ‘Search Engine Results Page.’ Meaning that if you’re on the first of Google this is SERP #1. If you’re on page 2, you’re SERP #2. However over time this acronym has evolved to mean ‘Search Engine Ranking Position.’ So if you’re first in Google’’s organic search you’re SERP #1. If you’re 2nd in Google you’re SERP #2. And if you’re halfway down page 2 you’re SERP #15 (as there are usually 10 organic listings per search page), etc.

The organic listings are displayed in response to a user entering a keyword query into an engine’s search box. The results can be natural (organic) or in the form of sponsored advertisements (pay per click marketing campaigns). Paid ads tend to be displayed at the top of the page to make them clearly distinguishable from the organic listings (and to make Google more money!). Depending on the search term used, a single enquiry may yield anything from zero pages to millions. From an SEO perspective, page 1 is the target, as few surfers drill further into the SERPs, with 92% of people not going to page 2 of their search. And 61.5% of all organic search is in the top 3 on page 1.

Natural results are determined by the search engine algorithms and usually ranked in terms of relevance, whereas paid ads achieve their rank through a keyword bidding auction. In Google, organic results can have a keyword or location bias, presenting companies and services in the area where the searcher is based, unless a specific city, town or other geographical parameter is specified in the enquiry.

SIPHONING

A wide range of black hat techniques, including cybersquatting, content duplication and spyware, used to steal visitor traffic from other websites.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (SMM)

To ignore the benefits of social media integration with your overall SEO strategy is to miss a very important trick. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram all have a serious role to play in helping a site ascend the rankings.

The prime SEO directive is to create a looking website that naturally draws visitors, and social media accounts are a great way to do that. Google will be impressed by an organization that slowly grows its Twitter and Facebook followers. A high level of interaction suggests an interesting and authoritative website, plus you’ll naturally garner loads of external links – both great for ranking! Social media likes, shares, retweets and replies all add up to increased authority in Google’s beady eyes. Without social media, you are relying on keyword-base campaigns and offline advertising to promote your brand.

A social media presence will also work wonders on your brand identity by providing new channels to get your name out there and sales prospects talking about you. Absence of at least a Facebook and Twitter account could be seen as negative and even arouse suspicion among a younger demographic that uses these platforms on a daily basis. Loyalty is another by-product of having social media accounts, with one recent survey finding that 53% of Americans following brands through social media are more loyal to them.

Every tweet, update, blog or Facebook post generates a potential site visit and possible conversion. It would be marketing suicide to waste such opportunities! Studies have revealed that social media boasts a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than conventional outbound marketing strategies. With 72% of adult internet users having Facebook accounts and 31% Pinterest and 23% Twitter, the sales potential is huge. Get on board as soon as possible, because social media is here to stay!

SORA

Sora is an innovative tool developed by OpenAI that serves as a unified interface for various artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, allowing seamless integration and interaction with other products within the OpenAI suite. At its core, Sora acts as a bridge between users and advanced AI models, facilitating natural language understanding and generation, as well as providing functionalities for task automation, data analysis, and more.

One of the key features of Sora is its ability to leverage state-of-the-art language models like GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) to comprehend and respond to human queries or commands effectively. This means users can interact with Sora using everyday language, making it accessible even to those without technical expertise in AI. Additionally, Sora can tap into specialized models within the OpenAI ecosystem, such as image recognition algorithms or reinforcement learning agents, expanding its capabilities beyond just text-based interactions.

Moreover, Sora seamlessly integrates with other OpenAI products, such as GPT-based language models like ChatGPT and CodeGPT, as well as more specialized tools like DALL-E for image generation and CLIP for multimodal understanding. This integration allows users to harness the collective power of these AI technologies through a single interface, streamlining workflows and enabling innovative applications across various domains. Whether it’s generating creative content, automating repetitive tasks, or analyzing complex datasets, Sora serves as a versatile and powerful tool for leveraging the capabilities of AI within the OpenAI ecosystem.

SPAMDEXING

Spamdexing, also known as search engine spamming or search spam, refers to the practice of manipulating search engine indexes to artificially inflate a website’s ranking in search results through deceptive or unethical means. This tactic involves employing various techniques that violate search engine guidelines to trick algorithms into ranking a website higher than it deserves based on its actual content or relevance. Spamdexing techniques often aim to exploit loopholes in search engine algorithms to gain unfair advantages in rankings.

Some common spamdexing methods include keyword stuffing, where webmasters excessively repeat keywords unnaturally within content to manipulate search rankings. Another technique involves using invisible text or hidden links that are visible to search engines but not to users, attempting to deceive algorithms into perceiving a page as more relevant than it actually is. Doorway pages, which are low-quality pages created solely for search engines and not for users, are also used in spamdexing to artificially boost rankings.

Search engines continuously evolve to combat spamdexing by refining their algorithms and guidelines to identify and penalize websites employing such manipulative tactics. Penalties for engaging in spamdexing practices can include downgrading a website’s rankings, removal from search engine indexes, or even being banned from search results altogether. Ethical SEO practices prioritize providing valuable and relevant content to users, steering clear of spamdexing techniques that compromise the integrity of search results.

SPIDER TRAP

Spider or crawler traps are often set to catch spambots or other malicious programs that consume a website’s limited bandwidth, causing it to slow or even crash. These traps effectively force an impolite crawler into an infinite loop, seriously hampering its performance, whilst not affecting polite bots who respect the warnings in robots.txt files.

SPLOG

Short for ‘spam blog’, these are fake blogs, set up purely for the promotion of affiliate websites, through the manipulation of search engine rankings. Splogs vary widely in content, many reading like lengthy advertisements for the domains they’re aiming to promote. Others feature content scraped from other sites. All splogs are stuffed with keywords and hyperlinks to the sites they’re aiming to promote.

Google and other search engines have been wise to splogs for years, and continually update their software, in an effort to identify them and shut them down. Occasionally an innocent site will be flagged as a splog and see its ranking plummet. A webmaster can attempt to remedy this by auditing their site, to figure out why it appears spammy, then make the appropriate changes. It can then be submitted to search engine admins for review.

STATIC PAGE

A webpage that only changes when its programmer chooses to edit its content. Static pages are usually coded in HTML, whereas dynamic webpages often employ PHP, Javascript or other languages to provide different content for different visitors. Static pages tend to load faster.

SUBMISSION

Because a well-optimized website will naturally attract webcrawlers through the link system, there is really no longer a need to proactively submit your site to search engine admins, so they can manually add it to their directories. There are exceptions to this rule, including vertical search engines, which usually specialise in providing niche business data and information. If you operate in one of these fields, submission will help in your SEO efforts by increasing high-quality traffic.

SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINES

Support Vector Machines (SVM) is a powerful machine learning algorithm used for both classification and regression tasks. SVM works by finding the optimal hyperplane that separates data points into different classes while maximizing the margin, or the distance between the hyperplane and the nearest data points (support vectors). In classification, SVM aims to find the hyperplane that best separates data points of different classes, while in regression, it aims to find the hyperplane that fits the data with the maximum margin. SVM is particularly effective in high-dimensional spaces and is robust to overfitting, thanks to its ability to handle complex decision boundaries using kernel functions. SVM has various applications, including text classification, image recognition, and bioinformatics, making it a versatile and widely used algorithm in machine learning. However, SVM’s computational complexity can be a limitation for large datasets, and the choice of kernel function and hyperparameters requires careful tuning for optimal performance. Nonetheless, SVM remains a popular choice for many classification and regression tasks due to its effectiveness and versatility.

TEXT LINK ADS

Hyperlinks that redirect the user to online advertisements.

User eXperience (UX)

User Experience (UX) refers to the overall interaction and perception that users have when engaging with a product, system, or service. It encompasses every aspect of the user’s journey, from the initial interaction to the final perception after using the product. UX design focuses on creating meaningful and seamless experiences for users, aiming to meet their needs, address their pain points, and provide value in an intuitive and efficient manner.

UX design involves understanding user behaviours, motivations, and goals through research, analysis, and testing. Designers aim to create experiences that are user-centred, empathetic, and easy to navigate. This involves not only the visual elements but also the usability, accessibility, and functionality of the product. Effective UX design considers the entire user journey, ensuring that each touchpoint aligns with user expectations, resulting in a positive and satisfactory experience.

A well-crafted UX is crucial in building trust, loyalty, and satisfaction among users. It focuses on delivering solutions that are intuitive, enjoyable, and valuable, fostering positive interactions and long-term engagement. Ultimately, UX design plays a pivotal role in shaping how users perceive and interact with a product, influencing their decision to continue using it and advocating for it within their networks.

VLOG

A blog in video format. From an SEO perspective, great to include on any site, as they will feature the fresh, original content that search engines regard as a positive ranking signal. Remember, most vlogs are posted on YouTube, which is now the world’s second most popular search engine. So, don’t miss the opportunity to include a link to your website and employ powerful keywords in your tags and descriptions. Embedding vlogs into blogs gives you even more bangs for your buck – the best of both worlds. You can also leverage social media in the same way.

WHITE HAT SEO

SEO techniques that conform to search engine best practice guidelines and follow the spirit of Google’s aim to offer natural, democratic search results, free from the SERPS manipulation and trickery used by black and grey hat operators. White hat techniques are primarily aimed at human readers, rather than influencing webcrawlers.

If you employ purely white hat SEO strategies, it may take longer to climb to #1 in Google but you won’t be looking over your shoulder, wondering when you’ll be caught out and see your site tumble down the rankings or be de-indexed altogether.