Does SEO Terminology Confuse You?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, September 6, 2008 Comments (3)

The world of SEO is full of abbreviations and acronyms and many people find these confusing. One of the most confusing areas relates to websites (and blogs) and the search engines. Let’s clear up a few off these confusions:

Search Engine Crawler:
A search engine crawler is really nothing more than a piece of software that sends out feelers to websites. It reads the websites and notes any changes. It also follows any links to see where they are going.

Search Engine Spider:
The search engine spider and the search engine crawler are the same thing.

Search Engine Index:
The search engine crawler (or spider) visits pages on the web and ‘reads’ them. It passes that information back where it is stored in an index. When someone searches for a term, that search term is looked up in the index. In theory, the most appropriate answers are taken from the index and ranked. The ranking determines the order the results are printed in.

Search Engine Algorithm:
This is the heart of the search engine. An algorithm is simply a mathematical formula that takes all the small variables and creates a score based on the search query. Results from a search engine query are rated using the search engine algorithm.

These are four terms that you will come across a lot when attempting to undertake your own SEO program. Gain an understanding of them and you will help place your site above the rest.

Comments (3) Category: SEO

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3 Comments

Comment by Barbara

Made Thursday, 2 of October , 2008 at 11:43 am

Thank you so much for providing the very clear and understandable meanings of the terms.
For the first time since I have heard them, I have a good understanding of what they mean as well as their importance to the success of my web based business.

Sincerely,Barbara J.Henry,author of the Self Help book- Journaling:Twenty Plus Reasons Why You Should Start Now!

Comment by Chris Morin

Made Monday, 6 of October , 2008 at 5:19 pm

Thanks for this Nick… I’ve been working on an FAQ for my clients and this info would be a great addition!

Comment by Muqtadir

Made Wednesday, 11 of February , 2009 at 5:58 am

Hi, Excellent blog i was searching for the information of search engine crawler and spider, fortunately i got this blog and comes to know fact about the crawler and the spider, still i was confuse with these two things due to confusion created by my colleagues.

thanks a lot Nick………….