google.public.support.general FAQ: Glossary

=========== 8. GLOSSARY ===========3 | 4 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * 301 Moved Permanently: An HTTP Status Message that means the requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URL. * 404 File Not Found: An HTTP Status Message that appears in most web browsers when the file trying to be accessed doesn't exist or isn't available, because the file might have been deleted or the user typed the URL improperly. * adjacency: The relationship between words, particularly words used in a search engine query. Search engines usually assign higher value to pages where the search terms appear next to one another than to pages where the search terms are separated by other words. * adware: Software that may have been installed on your computer by a web site. Many free utilities that you download from the internet may install hidden software that sends details of the websites you visit and other information from your computer. See spyware. * anchor text: Visible text for a hyperlink. Also known as link text. For example: <a href="hxxp://vvv.address.com/">anchor.text</a> * Apache: A free open source web server for Unix, Windows, Linux, and other platforms. It provides a full range of web server features, including CGI, SSL, and virtual domains. * API: Application Program Interface. Interface for programmers. API specifies how application programs access the operating system and other services. * ASP: Active Server Pages. Microsoft's technology, which enables HTML pages to be dynamic and interactive. * Atom: A publishing standard for personal content and weblogs. With an Atom feed enabled program you can follow many blogs without visiting many websites to see new content. * ATW: AlltheWeb. A search engine. * AV: AltaVista. A search engine. * back door: A channel crackers can use to access your system. * back link: A link on another page that points to the subject page. Same as IBL. * banned: When a web site is banned from Google's index, none of the pages are indexed by Google anymore, which means you can't find any of the pages with the site search (site:example.com). See penalized. * blog: Short for web log. A web site or web page that is constantly updated with new commentary and links about a particular topic. May contain a directory, news, message board, on-line diary and other personal information. * browser: A program that displays files (usually web pages). For example Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, Amaya, w3m, and lynx. * cache: Several meanings, here are two: 1. A snapshot of a web page. 2. A region of computer memory where frequently accessed data (for example web pages) can be stored for rapid access. * CGI: Common Gateway Interface. CGI defines how data is passed from a server to a CGI program, so that the content of a web page can come from a program, rather than from a static HTML page. CGI programs can be written in a variety of languages (for example C, C++, and Perl). * click through: Several meanings, here are two: 1. The process of clicking on a link in a search engine results page to visit an indexed site. Good ranking can be useless, if visitors do not click on the link, if the title isn't descriptive, accurate and interesting. 2. The act of clicking on a banner advertisement to visit the advertised site. See CTR. * client: A computer, program or process which makes requests for information from another computer, program or process (usually called server). * cloaking: Process of delivering one version of a page to a user, and a different version to another user such as a search engine. Normally used as a method for stopping page thieves from stealing optimized pages, but also used for the hope of a better ranking in search engines. Many search engines will penalize a site if they discover that it is using cloaking. * cookie: A small string of text sent by a web server to a web browser that the browser is expected to save and to send back to the server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the server. Cookies allow web sites to keep track of your settings and other information. * CPA: Cost Per Action. Cost to an advertiser for each visitor that takes some specifically defined action in response to an advertisement, such as subscribing to a newsletter or purchasing something from a web site. * CPC: Cost Per Click. Cost the advertiser pays each time a visitor clicks on the advertisement on a search engine page or on some other page. See PPC. * CPM: Cost Per Thousand impressions. This means how much an advertiser pays for 1,000 page views or impressions of its banner. * cross-post: To post an article simultaneously to several newsgroups. Many people don't like cross-posting, especially when cross-posting is done to more than two or three newsgroups or to inappropriate newsgroups. * CSS: Cascading Style Sheets. A language that is used to attach style (for example fonts, colors and spacing) to structured documents (for example HTML and XML). * CTR: Click-Through-Rate. A method of rating how many times a banner (or a link) is clicked on. A ratio of the number of times a banner is shown on a web page to the number of times it is clicked on. * dead link: An internet link which doesn't lead to a page or site, probably because the server is down or the page has moved or no longer exists. * Deepcrawler: Term used for the first mode of operation of Google spiders. First mode called "Deepcrawler" indexes all the web sites about once a month or so. See Freshbot. * DejaNews: A Usenet archive and a Usenet discussion service, which was acquired by Google in year 2001. * DHTML: Dynamic HTML. Marketing term for a way of creating dynamic web sites by using a mixture of HTML, CSS, DOM, and scripting (for example JavaScript). * directory: Directories use humans to review and place websites in categories and sub-categories. For example DMOZ. * DMOZ: Directory Mozilla. Same as ODP. * DOM: Document Object Model. Interface that will allow programs and scripts to dynamically access and modify the content of documents. * domain: Part of an internet address. A group of computers whose hostnames share a common suffix. For example google.com. * doorway page: The only purpose of a doorway page is for driving traffic to another page. Doorway pages are usually designed and optimized to target one specific keyphrase. Doorway pages rarely are written for human visitors. They are written for search engines to achieve high rankings and hopefully drive traffic to the main site. These pages are often designed to be visible to a search engine spider, but hidden from a human visitor. Treated as spam by many search engines. Also called gateway page, bridge page, entry page, portal page, etc. * download: The process of transferring one or more files from a remote computer to your local computer, usually over a modem or network. * dynamic content: Information on web pages which changes or is changed automatically, e.g. based on database content or user information. See ASP, CGI, JavaScript, and PHP. * dynamic web page: A web page that responds to users' requests and gathers information from them. * element: An HTML element usually consists of three parts: a start tag, content, and an end tag. For example: <p>paragraph</p> * email: Electronic mail. A way of sending messages electronically from one computer to another. * email client: A program used to compose, read, send, and receive email messages. For example Microsoft Outlook Express, Eudora, Free Agent, Pegasus, pine, elm, mutt. * end tag: An HTML end tag ends an element. For example: </b> * Everflux: Term used for phenomenon where search results appear to be updated daily between Google's major updates. See Freshbot. * FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. Generally, FAQ is a list of questions and answers about a specific subject. Newsgroup FAQ contains questions that have been asked many times before. Many newsgroups have FAQs, which should be read before you post any articles to them. One way to find the FAQ for a newsgroup, is to enter "faq" and the name of the newsgroup in the search box in Google Groups or in Google Web Search. See netiquette. For example http://www.faqs.org/faqs/faqs/about-faqs/ * FFA: Free For All. A website that allows anyone to add a link to any page. * Flash: Short for Macromedia Flash. A file format for delivering interactive vector graphics and animation. See Shockwave. * forum: Several meanings, usually means a message board, sometimes a chat room, or a newsgroup. * frames: A technique for combining two or more separate HTML documents within a single web browser screen. A framed web site may not be indexed correctly by search engines. All browsers don't support frames. * Freshbot: Term used for the second mode of operation of Google spiders. The second mode called "Freshbot" indexes high ranking or frequently updated pages approximately every one to three days. See Deepcrawler, Everflux. * fresh crawl: The idea behind the fresh crawl is to update pages that change regularly. This allows Google to serve results that are up-to-date with current events. The fresh crawl not only adds modified pages but also new pages. See Everflux. * FTP: File Transfer Protocol. The protocol for transferring files from one computer to another. * GG: Several meanings, here are two: 1. Google Groups. 2. Google. * GG1: Google Groups 1, or the Original Google Groups. A Usenet archive and a Usenet discussion service, which is based on Dejanews, which Google acquired in year 2001. * GG2: Google Groups 2, published in year 2004. With GG2 you can read Usenet newsgroups, but also create your own discussion forums / mailing lists. You can also access groups with Atom feed. * GG3: Google Groups 3, published year 2006. Same features as the previous version, but with GG3 you can also change some of the visual elements of your group, and add pages and upload files to your group to their own sections. * Google bombing: The practice of setting up a large number of web pages using anchor text to make a specific web page show up in the SERPs under keywords that are out of context for that page. Some blogs have been used for Google bombing. See blog. * Google FAQ: FAQ about Google. For example http://www.google.com/help/faq.html * Google newsgroup: Newsgroup about Google. For example google.public.support.general or google.public.translators. * Google sandbox effect: Name given to a phenomenon where a new web site doesn't immediately receive good ranking in search results for its most important keywords. The web site might even be search engine friendly, it might have good content and have many incoming links and from high PageRank web pages, but it is not ranked well in search results. The phenomenon discourages web sites to try to rank high in search results for the first few months by using spam techniques such as link trading schemes or paying for incoming links from high PageRank sites or creating web sites to link to a new web site. Without the phenomenon sites could more easily use spam techniques to rank well in search results for a while, getting banned and repeating the process. * gopher: Method of making menus of material available over the Internet. It has been supplanted by hypertext. * g.p.s.g.: Acronym for the newsgroup google.public.support.general. * HB: HotBot. A search engine. * hit: Several meanings, here are two: 1. A single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server. A single item can be for example a web page or an image on a web page. A visitor opening a page with 8 images will generate 9 hits. 2. A measure of the number of web pages matching a query returned by a search engine or directory. * HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. Coded format language used for creating hypertext documents. * HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The protocol for moving hypertext files across the internet. * HTTP Status Message: A three-digit integer result code for a request. The first digit of the status-code defines the class of response: 1xx is for informational purposes (e.g. 100 Continue), 2xx is for successful actions (e.g. 200 OK), 3xx is for redirections (e.g. 301 Moved Permanently), 4xx is for client errors (e.g. 404 File Not Found), and 5xx is for server errors (e.g. 500 Internal Server Error). * hypertext: Generally, any text that contains links to other documents. * IBL: In Bound Link. A link on another page that points to the subject page. Same as back link. * IIS: Internet Information Services. Microsoft's web server integrated with Windows servers. * image map: An image or graphical area containing regions (hot-spots), which are usually links to different pages. Search engines may not be able to index the pages to which an image map links. * index: A searchable database of documents stored by a search engine or directory. Also called catalog. * internet: A worldwide network of computer networks. * IP address: The numeric address of a computer on the internet. An IP address is written as a set of four numbers separated by periods. For example: 216.239.33.98. * ISP: Internet Service Provider. Provides services such as internet access, email, and web hosting. * Java: A programming language, which is designed for writing programs that can be downloaded to your computer through the internet. * JavaScript: A scripting language, which is designed to be embedded into HTML documents. Commonly used to add interactive features to web pages. For example it can be used to tell users whether they have filled out a form correctly. Many search engines are unable to index these scripts properly. * keyword density: The number of times a keyword appears in a page as a percentage of all the words in the page. Also called keyword weight. * keyword frequency: Denotes how often a keyword appears in a page or in an area of a page. * keyword prominence: Denotes how close to the start of an area of a page a keyword (or a phrase) appears. Having the keyword closer to the start of an area (for example title, heading, or paragraph) may lead to an improvement in the search engine ranking of a page for that keyword. * keyword proximity: How close together the individual words that make up a keyword phrase are to one another, and in what order. * keyword stuffing: Repeating keywords or keyword phrases excessively in body copy, hidden text, meta tags, or any other code on a page. Originally done in order to increase rankings in search engines. This tactic is now penalized by many search engines. * keyword targeting: The practice of optimizing certain pages of a web site to rank well in a search for specific keywords. * link farm: A group of separate, highly interlinked websites for the purposes of inflating link popularity. Engaging in a link farm could be grounds for banning from a search engine. * link popularity: Measurement of a combination of factors that are designed to weigh the importance of each incoming link. Links from sites with high link popularity will have more weight in a search engine algorithm than links from unpopular sites. Links from sites with complimentary content count as more than links from sites that have no relevance. * mail: To send email message (not the same as "posting" to a newsgroup or a message board). * message board: A web based message center, where users may post messages, which are converted into web documents. * meta element: An HTML element that often describes the contents of a web page, and is placed near the beginning of the page's source code. For example: <meta name="author" content="name.here"> * misspelling: People sometimes spell words incorrectly when making queries with search engines. Some people include common misspellings of words into web pages in hope of receiving extra hits. For example goggle, gogle, googel, googl, and googlr are misspellings of google. * mirror: A near identical duplicate of a website (or a page). * netiquette: Internet etiquette. An informal group of rules and ways of behaving on the internet. As with real-life etiquette, netiquette often varies according to community and context. The key element in netiquette is remembering that actual people are on the other end of a computer connection, and offensive comments or actions are just as offensive even if you can't see your recipient. See FAQ. * newbie: Someone who is new to a particular group, topic, field, or to the internet in general. * newsgroup: A discussion group, which is devoted to the discussion of a specific topic. There are public Usenet newsgroups and also many semi-private newsgroups that are not propagated beyond their own server. * newsgroup message: A single article in a newsgroup. * newsreader: A program that lets you read and post newsgroup messages. For example Microsoft Outlook Express, Free Agent, Xnews, slrn, tin. * NG: Newsgroup. * NNTP: Network News Transfer Protocol. The protocol for sending, distributing and retrieving Usenet messages. * ODP: Open Directory Project. Same as DMOZ. * outbound link: A link to a site outside of your own. * page view: Number of times a web page has been accessed. Also known as page impression or page request. * PDA: Personal Digital Assistant. A handheld device, which is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. PDA usually includes a clock, date book, address book, task list, memo pad and a calculator. You usually can synchronize data with a PDA and a computer. You also may be able to send and receive email, do word processing, play music files, get information from the internet, and play video games. For example Palm Pilot, PocketPC, HP iPAQ, Sony CLIE, Psion, Casio Cassiopeia. * penalized: When a web site is penalized, some, but not all, of the pages might have been removed from Google's index or labeled as supplemental results, which usually means those pages probably rank lower in search results for various keywords. You still should find some of the pages with the site search (site:example.com). See banned. * PFI: Pay For Inclusion. Many search engines offer a PFI program to assure indexing of a site (or page). PFI does not guarantee that a site will be ranked highly (or at all) for a given search term. * PHP: PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. A scripting language used to create dynamic web pages. * pop up: A new browser window usually containing an advertisement. A pop up is automatically opened when a user performs a specified action, like opening a page, or clicking a link. * portal: A web site that offers services to entice internet surfers to use the site as their main "point of entry" (first place people see when using the web) to the web. Typically, a portal has a directory of web sites or a search engine, or both. A portal site also may offer news, weather, free email, and other services. For example www.yahoo.com. * post: To broadcast an article to a newsgroup or to a message board (not the same as "mailing" an email message). * PPC: Pay Per Click. The advertiser is charged depending on the number of times visitors click on the advertisement on a search result page or some other page. See CPC. * PR: PageRank. The name given to Google's link popularity measuring system. * query: A request for information from a database or search engine. A query is a word, a phrase or a group of words, possibly combined with other syntax used to pass instructions to a search engine or a directory in order to locate web pages. * reciprocal links: Outbound links exchanged for inbound links. Also called link swapping and link exchange. * referrer: The URL of the web page which a visitor came from. This information is stored in the server's referrer log file and can be used to discover which search engines or web pages drive traffic to a web site. * robots.txt: A file which spiders read to determine which parts of a website they may visit. Robots that comply with the "Robots Exclusion Standard" will obey the commands in this file. The primary purpose of the robots.txt file is to direct spiders to ignore directories that may contain private or unnecessary information. * search engine: A server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing web pages, storing the results and returning lists of pages which match particular queries. Indexes are normally generated using spiders (or bots). * SEM: Search Engine Marketing. Methods of drawing traffic to a web site through search engines by paid advertising listings. May include SEO. * SEO: Search Engine Optimization. The changes that are made to the content and code of web pages so that they rank as high as possible in search engine results for particular search queries. See PPC and SEP. * SEP: Search Engine Positioning. See SEO. * SERP: Search Engine Results Page. * server: A computer (or a software application) that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on some other computer. For example a web server or a news server. * SGML: Standard Generalized Markup Language. A metalanguage in which one can define markup languages for documents. SGML is not in itself a document language, but a description of how to specify one. HTML and XML are based on SGML. * Shockwave: Short for Macromedia Shockwave. A technology that enables web pages to include multimedia objects such as audio, animation, and video. Used for games, music and rich-media chat. See Flash. * site map: An overview on a web page that contains a listing of text links usually to all sections of a website. * spam: Several meanings, here are four: 1. Any large amount of output. 2. To cause a newsgroup to be flooded with irrelevant or inappropriate messages. 3. Unsolicited email message sent to large numbers of people to advertise services or products. 4. Manipulation technique designed to achieve higher ranking in search engine results. Can be grounds for banning. * spamdexing: From words spamming and indexing. The practice of creating or modifying web pages to increase the chance of them being placed high on search engine results. Also known as spamming or spoofing. * spiders: Software programs that vary in purpose from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting email addresses for spammers. Web spiders scan the web by following links to visit web sites. Also called crawlers, bots, worms. * spyware: Software that installs itself secretly to a computer. Spyware usually doesn't allow for easy uninstallation or removal. It monitors or tracks users actions without the users awareness or consent. It may alter the behavior or settings of other programs. See adware. * SSL: Secure Socket Layer. A protocol used for secure internet communications. It is implemented in web browsers so you can visit secure websites. SSL is designed to prevent others from capturing or viewing the data being exchanged. * start tag: An HTML start tag starts an element. For example: <b> * stop word: Word that is so commonly used that it has no impact on the relevancy of a search query and because of that it is ignored by search engines when indexing web pages and processing search queries. Stop words are common words such as "the" and "is". * submission: The process of submitting information about a web site (for example URL and title) to a search engine or directory in order for it to be indexed. * thread: A continuous chain of messages on a single topic in a newsgroup or message board. * title element: An HTML element that contains the title of the current document, which is usually shown in the top of the browser window. Having keywords in the title element may increase the search engine ranking of the page for those keywords. For example: <title>title.here</title> * TLD: Top-level domain. Last part of the Internet domain name. For example "com" (as in domain name google.com) is meant for commercial organizations and "uk" for United Kingdom (google.co.uk). * trojan: A software program in which harmful or malicious code is contained within another seemingly harmless program. Trojans can carry viruses and other programs that may damage your computer once you run the program that the trojan is hidden in. Trojans can be used to gain backdoor access to a user's computer. * URI: Uniform Resource Identifier. A compact string of characters for identifying a resource on the web. URI can be for example a URL or URN. * URL: Uniform Resource Locator. Unique address of a document or a resource on the internet. For example http://www.google.com/ or news:alt.fan.dejanews. * URN: Uniform Resource Name. URNs are intended to serve as persistent, location-independent, resource identifiers. URNs provide stable names for resources whose location may change over time. URLs, on the other hand, refer to specific locations. * Usenet: A worldwide messaging system, which contains more than 42,000 newsgroups (February 2004), which can be accessed through the internet. * Usenet message: A single article in a Usenet newsgroup. * validator: A program or script which is used to check the validity of for example HTML markup, or to detect bad or deprecated elements. A validator helps to ensure that the document can be read and used by all browsers and search engines. For example W3C HTML Validator. * virtual server: An account on a hosting company server. The idea is you don't have to purchase your own web server with the appropriate software and connection to the internet for your website. Many virtual servers may reside on the same computer host and share an IP address with other virtual servers on the same machine. * virus: A program or piece of code designed to replicate itself by infecting files or other parts of a system (for example boot sectors). Viruses can be transmitted by downloading programs from web sites, or opening file attachments in email messages or they can be present on a diskette. Viruses may make the computer crash, damage files or delete files. Boot sector viruses infect boot sectors. Macro viruses infect word processing or spreadsheet documents that use macros. Web pages may contain JavaScript or other types of executable code to spread viruses or other malicious code. * visitor: One person coming to a web site. Also known as user. * WAP: Wireless Application Protocol. Standard for accessing the internet with wireless devices, e.g. mobile phones, communicators and some PDAs. * web: Short for World Wide Web. Also known as WWW or W3. * web based newsreader: A web based system, which allows users without NNTP access to read newsgroups. * WWW: World Wide Web. Several meanings, here are two: 1. A collection of resources on the internet that can be accessed using gopher, FTP, HTTP, Telnet, Usenet, or other tools. 2. A network of hypertext servers on the internet, which provide users a way to access global information consisting of text, graphics, sound and video. * XHTML: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language. Successor of HTML. * XML: Extensible Markup Language. A simplified subset of SGML, capable of describing many different kinds of data. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured text and information across the internet. It allows designers to create their own tags to indicate specific information. * XSL: Extensible Stylesheet Language. A stylesheet language which allows one to describe how files encoded in XML are to be formatted. * YH: Yahoo. A portal, which includes for example a search engine and a web directory. * zone: Some search engines allow users to limit a search to specific zone, which can be a certain geographic area. Copyright (C) 2004—2009: Tomi Häsä (tomi.hasa@gmail.com), Craig Payne (cbpayne@gmail.com), Martin Hagstrøm (mha@altavista.net), and JB (jtb5358@yahoo.com).Disclaimer: This article is provided as is without any express or implied warranties. While every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this article, the contributors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.FAQ main page

Last modified: January 9th, 2009

Author: Tomi Häsä (tomi.hasa@gmail.com)

URL: http://sites.google.com/site/tomihasa/google-general-faq