Google Secrets glossary for SEO, search engine optimization, ranking & web traffic

Google Secrets SEO Glossary - G

The following terms are used in Google Secrets and cover the spectrum of search engine optimization (SEO) - from keywords to meta tags to PageRank to link popularity to web traffic.

Googlebot. The name given to the main Google spider that deep crawls sites once a month. See also Freshbot.

Google AdWords^TM. Google's Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising program, whereby your site is listed in the right-hand side of Google search result pages in a small box. For every visitor that clicks on your AdWords link, you pay Google a fee, up a maximum daily limit. This type of advertising involves an auction where you bid, along with your competitors, for the cost per click for a specific keyword.

Google bombing. Term used to describe the process of artificially altering the ranking of a page by the use of links. It requires a concerted group effort from many different site owners who all agree to use the exact same link text in links that point to the same site. The linked-to site however may not even contain the text used anywhere on the page.

Google Dance. The period of time at the end of every month where Google updates their index, which results in site rankings that jump around, sometimes minute by minute. This is specifically caused by Google running PageRank calculations for all pages repeatedly until the values reach a steady-state.

Google Directory^TM. The Google Directory lists those websites that are in the Open Project Directory (OPD), then ranks them according to PageRank alone. The Google Directory PageRank bar goes from 1 to 7 (unlike the Google Toolbar PageRank, which goes from 1 to 10).

Google Toolbar^TM. A downloadable program that attaches to your browser, allowing you to see an approximation for the PageRank (PR) value of a page, along with the external sites that link to that page.