Glossary [A–C]   [D–J]   [K–M]   [O–R]   [S–Z]

Delisting: When a search engine removes a page from its index.

Directories: Website listings compiled by humans, not crawlers. A staff reviews, summarizes, and categorizes websites for inclusion in the search engine’s directories.

Doorway Page: A web page designed only to appeal to search engines in order to increase rankings for specific keywords. These pages provide little content to visitors, who typically are forwarded to the actual site automatically or must click to enter it. Also referred to as bridge, gateway, and jump pages.

Frames: A method of combining multiple web pages into one. Framed websites make it more difficult for search engines to index pages properly.

Hidden Text: Words that are hidden in web pages by methods such as making the text the same color as the background. Designed to increase search engine rankings, this practice is against most search engines’ guidelines and can result in pages being banned.

Hit: When a user visits a web page, the images and other files utilized by that web page are requested from the server. Each file requested is considered a hit.

Impression: When a site visitor has the opportunity to view a website listing or advertisement, this is considered one impression. 

Index: A search engine’s collection of web pages that can be queried.

Indexed Pages: Web pages that are stored in a search engine’s index and have the potential to appear in search results.

Java Applets: Programs created by the Java programming language that can be embedded in web pages. Navigation or content contained within a Java applet will not be indexed by search engines, as they cannot run applets.

JavaScript: A programming language that runs on the user's computer instead of the website’s server. Search engines cannot run JavaScripts, so content or navigation embedded in a JavaScript may not be indexed.