seoanalysisnow

Welcome!

This site was created as part of a Graduate Studies course that examined Advanced Analytical Techniques from March '09 to May '09.  This particular site is dedicated to the analytical technique known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  To see the blog dedicated to the various techniques covered in class, please visit: http://advat.blogspot.com/

Operational Definitions

Click on term for source information.

  For other SEO definitions, click here.
 

Addicts:

Addicts are the hardcore segment of a site's audience, who have 30 or more visits to that site in a month.

Affinity:

Affinity numbers represent how likely a given visitor is to visit one of the listed sites or categories compared to the internet average.  For example an affinity of 10.2x would mean that a visitor is 10.2 times more likely than the average visitor to visit the other site or category that is provided.

Average Pageviews:

Average pageviews is one way of measuring visit quality. A high Average Pageviews number suggests that visitors interact extensively with your site. A high Average Pageviews results from one or both of:

  1. Appropriately targeted traffic (i.e. visitors who are interested in what your site offers
  2. High quality content effectively presented on the site.

Conversely, a low average pageviews indicates that the traffic coming to the site has not been appropriately targeted to what the site offers or that the site does not deliver what was promised to the visitor.


Bot:

This is an automated software program that can execute certain commands when it receives a specific input (like a ro-"bot"). Bots are most often seen at work in the Internet-related areas of online chat and Web searching. The online chat bots do things like greet people when they enter a chat room, advertise Web sites, and kick people out of chat rooms when they violate the chat room rules. Web searching bots, also known as spiders and crawlers, search the Web and retrieve millions of HTML documents, then record the information and links found on the pages. From there, they generate electronic catalogs of the sites that have been "spidered." These catalogs make up the index of sites that are used for search engine results.

Bounce Rate:

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality and a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren't relevant to your visitors. You can minimize Bounce Rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

Browsers (Browser Capabilities):

Which browsers do your visitors use? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.

Connection Speeds (Network Properties):

Which connection speeds are your visitors using? Optimizing your site so that it loads quickly for most visitors can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.

Crawler:

See "Bot"

Depth of Visit (Visitor Behavior):

Depth of visit is a measure of visit quality. A large number of high pageviews per visit suggests that visitors interact extensively with your site.

Domain:

While the term "domain" is often used synonymously with "domain name," it also has a definition specific to local networks.  A domain contains a group of computers that can be accessed and administered with a common set of rules. For example, a company may require all local computers to be networked within the same domain so that each computer can be seen from other computers within the domain or located from a central server. Setting up a domain may also block outside traffic from accessing computers within the network, which adds an extra level of security.

Domain Name:

This is the name that identifies an Web site. For example, "microsoft.com" is the domain name of Microsoft's Web site. A single Web server can serve Web sites for multiple domain names, but a single domain name can point to only one machine. For example, Apple Computer has Web sites at www.apple.com, www.info.apple.com, and store.apple.com. Each of these sites could be served on different machines.

Domain Suffix:

A domain suffix is the last part of a domain name and is often referred to as a "top-level domain" or TLD. Popular domain suffixes include ".com," ".net," and ".org," but there are dozens of domain suffixes approved by ICANN.  Each domain suffix is intended to define the type of website represented by the domain name. For example, .com domains are meant for commercial websites, whereas .org domains are to be used by organizations. However, since any entity can register domain names with these suffixes, the domain suffix does not always represent the type of website that uses the domain name. For example, many individuals and organizations register .com domain names for non-commercial purposes, since the .com domain is the most sought after.

Flash Versions (Browser Capabilities):

Which versions of Flash do your visitors have installed? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.

Hostnames (Network Properties):

From which hosts are people visiting your site? Hostnames sometimes provide insight into organizations that are interested in what you offer.

ICANN:

Stands for "Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers." The ICANN is an non-profit corporation that is responsible for allocating IP addresses and managing the domain name system.  Every computer connected to the Internet, from servers to home PCs, has an IP address. However, it would be unrealistic for the ICANN to directly assign each computer an individual IP address. Instead, the ICANN allocates blocks of IP addresses to companies, educational institutions, and Internet service providers. These organizations then allocate IP addresses to computers that use their Internet connections.

IP:

Stands for "Internet Protocol." It provides a standard set of rules for sending and receiving data through the Internet. People often use the term "IP" when referring to an IP address, which is OK. The two terms are not necessarily synonymous, but when you ask what somebody's IP is, most people will know that you are referring to their IP address. That is, most people who consider themselves computer nerds.

IP Address:

Also known as an "IP number" or simply an "IP," this is a code made up of numbers separated by three dots that identifies a particular computer on the Internet. Every computer, whether it be a Web server or the computer you're using right now, requires an IP address to connect to the Internet. IP addresses consist of four sets of numbers from 0 to 255, separated by three dots. For example "66.72.98.236" or "216.239.115.148". Your Internet Service Provider (ISP), will assign you either a static IP address (which is always the same) or a dynamic IP address, (which changes everytime you log on). ISPs typically assign dial-up users a dynamic IP address each time they sign on because it reduces the number of IP addresses they must register. However, if you connect to the Internet through a network or broadband connection, it is more likely that you have a static IP address.

ISP or Internet Service Provider:

Stands for "Internet Service Provider." In order to connect to the Internet, you need an ISP. It is the company that you (or your parents) pay a monthly fee to in order to use the Internet. If you use a dial-up modem to connect to your ISP, a point-to-point protocol (PPP) connection is established with another modem on the ISP's end. That modem connects to one of the ISP's routers, which routes you to the Internet "backbone." From there, you can access information from anywhere around the world. DSL and cable modems work the same way, except after you connect the first time, you are always connected.

Java Support (Browser Capabilities):

Is Java supported on your visitors' platforms? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.

Keywords:

Keywords are words or phrases that describe content. They can be used as metadata to describe images, text documents, database records, and Web pages. A user may "tag" pictures or text files with keywords that are relevant to their content. Later on, these files may be searched using keywords, which can make finding files much easier. For example, a photographer may use a program like Extensis Portfolio or Apple iPhoto to tag his nature photos with words such as "nature," "trees," "flowers," "landscape," etc. By tagging the photos, he can later locate all the pictures of flowers by simply searching for the "flowers" keyword.

Length of Visit (Visitor Behavior):

Length of visit is a measure of visit quality. A large number of lengthy visits suggests that visitors interact more extensively with your site.

Link:

When you are browsing the Web and you see a highlighted and underlined word or phrase on a page, there is a good chance you are looking at a link. By clicking on a link, you can "jump" to a new Web page or a completely different Web site. While text links are typically blue and underlined, they can be any color and don't have to be underlined. Images can also serve as links to other Web pages. When you move the cursor over a link in a Web page, the arrow will turn into a little hand, letting you know that it is a link. The term "hypertext" comes from the way links can quickly send you to another Web destination.

Loyalty (Visitor Behavior):

Loyal visitors are frequently highly engaged with your brand and a high number of multiple visits indicates good customer/visitor retention. A high number of new visitors (i.e. those on the left of the histogram) indicates strong visitor recruitment. 

Network Location (Network Properties):

Which internet service providers do your visitors use? This report allows you to track the internet service provider (ISP) domains to which the user resolves. The domain is determined by the internet service that owns the user's internet _protocol (IP) identifier.

New Visitor vs. Returning Visitor:

A high number of new visitors suggests that you are successful at driving traffic to your site while a high number of return visitors suggests that the site content is engaging enough to keep visitors coming back. You can see how frequently visitors return and how many times they return in ‘Recency’ report and the ‘Loyalty report’, both under ‘New vs. Returning’ in the Visitors section.

Operating Systems (Browser Capabilities):

Which operating systems do your visitors use? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.

Pageviews:

Pageviews is the total number of pages viewed on your site and is a general measure of how much your site is used. It is more useful as a basic indicator of the traffic load on your site and server than as a marketing measure.

Passers-By:

Passers-by have a single visit over the course of a month.

Recency (Visitor Behavior):

The frequency with which visitors return to your site can indicate their level of engagement with your brand and their readiness to buy.

Regulars:

Regulars refer to a segment of a site's audience that frequent the site more than once per month but not as much as addicts who frequent a site 30 or more times per month.

Robot:

See "Bot"

Screen Colors (Browser Capabilities):

How many screen colors can your visitors see? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.

Screen Resolutions (Browser Capabilities):

Which screen resolutions do your visitors use? Optimizing your site for the appropriate technical capabilities helps make your site more engaging and usable and can result in higher conversion rates and more sales.

Search Engine:

Google, Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, Infoseek, and Yahoo are all search engines. They index millions of sites on the Web, so that Web surfers like you and me can easily find Web sites with the information we want. By creating indexes, or large databases of Web sites (based on titles, keywords, and the text in the pages), search engines can locate relevant Web sites when users enter search terms or phrases. When you are looking for something using a search engine, it is a good idea to use words like AND, OR, and NOT to specify your search. Using these boolean operators, you can usually get a list of more relevant sites.

Server:

As the name implies, a server serves information to computers that connect to it. When users connect to a server, they can access programs, files, and other information from the server. Common servers are Web servers, mail servers, and LAN servers. A single computer can have several different server programs running on it.

Spider:

See "Bot"

Time on Site:

Time on site is one way of measuring visit quality. If visitors spend a long time visiting your site, they may be interacting extensively with it. However, Time on site can be misleading because visitors often leave browser windows open when they are not actually viewing or using your site.

Visits:

The number of visits your site receives is the most basic measure of how effectively you promote your site. Starting and stopping ads, changing your keyword buys, viral marketing events, and search rank are some examples of factors that influence the number of visits your site receives.

Website:

A website, or Web site, is not the same thing as a Web page. Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they should not be. So what's the difference? To put it simply, a Web site is a collection of Web pages. For example, Amazon.com is a Web site, but there are millions of Web pages that make up the site. Knowing the difference between these two terms can save you a lot of embarrassment.