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Resources

This section contains links and information that should help you build a website and conduct your Web Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns quickly and efficiently. Far from being exhaustive, this list, nonetheless, is based on years of personal use and successful positioning. All links have been hand-picked and carefully researched.

These resources are best suited for small and medium-size businesses. If your marketing budget is low, but your standards are high, the links in this section will come very handy. Enjoy, and if you need our help, do not hesitate to contact us.

How to Search on Search Engines

Type the following combinations in Google (or other engines) search bar to limit your search. Pay attention to spacing, must be used precisely. Limit your search to the following:

Web page title

allintitle:seo ottawa
intitle:seo ottawa

Web pages that contain link titles with your desired term

allinanchor:seo ottawa

Website or Domain

site:whitehouse.gov “global warming”

site:edu “global warming”

File type

filetype:ppt

site:edu “global warming”

Definitions

define:pixel
define:“due diligence”

Specify exact phrase

“tom bates”
“what you're looking for is already inside you”

Exclude or require a word ('minus' or 'plus' with no space after)

proliferation -nuclear
seo +internet marketing

Source: Research quality web searching from U of Berkley

How Search Engines Work

Search Engines for the general web (like all those listed below) do not really search the World Wide Web directly. Each one searches a database of the full text of web pages selected from the billions of web pages out there residing on servers. When you search the web using a search engine, you are always searching a somewhat stale copy of the real web page. When you click on links provided in a search engine's search results, you retrieve from the server the current version of the page.

Some of the major search engines are Google,  AltavistaMSN,ExciteHotbotInfoseekLycos, and Webcrawler. Note that Yahoois a directory, not a search engine. The term Search Engine is also often used to describe both directories and search engines.

Search engine databases are selected and built by computer robot programs called spiders. Spider is that part of a search engine which surfs the web, storing the URLs and indexing the keywords and text of each page it finds. For example, Google's spider, also referred to as a "crawler", is named Googlebot. Although it is said they "crawl" the web in their hunt for pages to include, in truth they stay in one place. They find the pages for potential inclusion by following the links in the pages they already have in their database (i.e. already "know about"). They cannot think or type a URL or use judgment to "decide" to go look something up on the Internet.

If a web page is never linked to in any other page, search engine spiders cannot find it. The only way a brand new page - one that no other page has ever linked to - can get into a search engine is for its URL to be sent by some human to the search engine companies as a request that the new page be included. All search engine companies offer ways to do this.

After spiders find pages, they pass them on to another computer program for "indexing." This program identifies the text, links, and other content of the page and stores it in the search engine database's files so that the database can be searched by keyword and whatever more advanced approaches are offered, and the page will be found if your search matches its content.

Some types of pages and links are excluded from most search engines by policy. Others are excluded because search engine spiders cannot access them. Pages that are excluded are referred to as the "Invisible Web", i.e. what you don't see in search engine results. The Invisible Web is estimated to be two to three or more times bigger than the visible web. (Source: University of Berkeley).

Here is a short but great overview page on search engines from U of Berkley. Some useful tips are included.

Statistics on search engines from WordTracker

According to Wordtracker (2005 info), three search engines get roughly 70% of all traffic, with the following distribution among them:

  • Google gets 47.0500% of all search engine traffic (approx. 268 million a day).
  • MSN gets 9.0000% of all search engine traffic (approx. 51 million a day).
  • Yahoo engine gets 12.7700% of all search engine traffic (approx. 73 million a day). Yahoo gets 12.7700% of all search engine traffic (approx. 73 million a day).
    The table below shows only the engines included in the WordTracker system; who they power, and who powers them. Pay per bid engines other than Overture have not been included.

The table below shows only the engines included in the Wordtracker system; who they power, and who powers them. Pay per bid engines other than Overture have not been included.

Included EngineMain Results FromPowers
AllTheWeb Yahoo! Search Marketing, Yahoo None
Altavista Yahoo! Search Marketing, Yahoo, Open Directory None
Google Open Directory Lycos, AOL, Ask, Hotbot, Dogpile, Netscape, Alexa
HotBot Ask, Open Directory, Google None
Lycos Looksmart None
LookSmart Inktomi Lycos
MSN Yahoo! Search Marketing Dogpile
Open Directory None Lycos, Altavista, Google, Netscape, Alexa, AOL, Hotbot
Ask Google Lycos, Dogpile, Hotbot
Yahoo Yahoo! Search Marketing Altavista, Alltheweb, Dogpile
Yahoo! Search Marketing None Altavista, Alltheweb, Yahoo, MSN, Dogpile

Useful Links

The following links are about the relationships between the search engines, directories, and pay-per-clicks:

Search Engine Links

International Directory of Search Engines
An international directory of search engines featuring links to search engines from 195 countries and 38 territories around the world. You may use either English, French, Spanish, or German when using Search Engine Colossus. Global, country, and subject based search engines are listed.

Search engines statistics
Although sometimes outdated, this site nevertheless offer good information about search engines. Find reports on how various search engines rank in terms of size, freshness, change over time, database overlap, unique hits reports, and dead links report. Google has the largest database of web pages, including many other types of web documents (e.g., PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint documents).

Excellent info about search engines from UC Berkeley
This is an excellent source for information about search engines. Consider reading some of their tutorials.

Service that monitors search engines and directories
Most of the site's content is offered free to the public.

Poodle Predictor
See your pages the way search engines do.

Webmaster Tools from Google
An absolute must read for everyone. Note that Google offers great features to help you analyze your own site (how many internal links, external link, page rank, crawl problems, etc.), if you verify that you are, indeed, the owner of the site. To do that, all you need is to copy and paste on your home page a verify meta tag Google will generate for you. Highly recommended!

Google guidelines for selecting an SEO consultant
Another absolute must read. 

SEO basics from Google
This page is an excellent summary of the SEO basis from Google. An absolute must to read.

Google Tools - NEW!
Ever wonder where all those cool tools are stored on Google and how to keep track of them? Well, simply take some time to explore this page and bookmark it! You can also type 'Google tools' in the search box on Google.

How to use Google AdWords
Clear and concise step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe and use Google's AdWords program. Note, for AdWords high click-through-rate (CTR) does not mean high quality of a landing page.

Here is Google AdWords Guide in pdf.

Google Sponsored Links
Use Google Sponsored links to see what keywords your competitors are buying.

Google Suggest
As you type, Google will offer keyword suggestions and you will immediately see how many search results each of them will generate. Very cool!

Google Analytics
Keep an eye on what's new at Google Analytics.

Inside AdWords
In July 2005, Google has created "Inside AdWords". This new blog provides you with the most up-to-date information about AdWords improvements, news, and tips in one location. Their product team updates the site frequently, so you'll know what happens when it happens. In 2007, Google introduced a new type of AdWords - Pay-per-action advertising.

Google Pay-Per-Action FAQs NEW!
Pay-per-action advertising is a new pricing model that allows you to pay only for completed actions that you define, such as a lead, a sale, or a pageview, after a user has clicked on your ad on a publisher's site. You'll define an action, set up conversion tracking, and create ads that publishers in the Google content network can then choose to place in new ad units on their site.

How to Use Gmail as a Business Diary and More Tips -NEW!
Want to be run your business on the go? Want to be organized and stay organized in ONE place? Want to be fast yet efficient? Want to use convenient tools? Then this tutorial is a must. Highly recommended.

Google's information for Web masters
It is advisable to verify everything you learn about SEO with search engines themselves. This page was created by Google specifically for webmasters, treat it as the ultimate authority in the SEO world. Checking this page is particularly important if you've heard conflicting bits of information.

Check your page ranking on Google and Yahoo
This is an excellent free service not affiliated with Google. To use it, you would need a Google API key, which is sent to you by email free of charge. The whole process only takes a minute. Note, that new APIs are no longer issued.

Track your visitor-to-user conversion rate free
Before you can track your visitor-to-user conversion rate, you need to sign up for Google's AdWords (you would need to do this anyway). Conversion tracking feature allows you to track how many ad clicks convert to purchase, sign-ups, page views and leads – free of charge. You will get AdWords conversion data right down to the keyword level in your reports and this is information that can help you better measure your return on investment. For detailed information about this new AdWords feature, please read Google AdWord FAQ or take Google AdWord demo.

Google's tutorials and guides on how to use AdWords
As always, for best results if you have any questions, consult with search engines themselves. This page contains great information and will help you get maximum ROI from your AdWords subscriptions.

Googling to the max 
New web page and one-hour course on using Google and Google's many features effectively. Google is widely recognized as the best general web search engine. The course teaches how to use Google really well, taking advantage of its features and negotiating around its weaknesses.

FAQs about Google's spider
This is an excellent page that gives you all you need to know to understand how Google works.

The Googlerankings Search Engine Optimization link directory
Some of the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) links on the Web, sorted by categories (tools, tips, blogs and forums) and ordered by our preference and their Google PageRank.

Search Engine Position Checker by Keyword
Check your site's position on search engines for specific keywords. This tool checks the first 50 results only. Check out other tools there.

Keywords analysis and competitive analysis tools - NEW!

Keyword analysis and competitive analysis tools have become very popular and very much in demand. In 2008, a monthly subscription runs at $80 on average. But there are plenty of excellent free tools available that, if used in combination and consistently, would generate fantastic results without any subscriptions.

Wordtracker tool for targeted keyword selection
Wordtracker is famous in the SEO circles (although definitely not for this "keyword research guide" (pdf)  that you are offered to download free of charge after you've made a purchase). Wordtracker is considered one of the best keyword selection tools on the market, as it allows you to analyze and predict performance of your potential keywords. Wordtracker is indeed a simple sweet tool to use. The best value of this tool is that it actually shows you the number of times users typed particular keywords in the last 90 days. The tool is subscription based, so you can login to your account from anywhere you want.  They offer a free trial, but the trial version is not very helpful, since you can't get data from Google. If you are working on a small project, purchase a one-month subscription. We recommend using Wordtracker together with Google's Suggest and Google Keyword Tool as well as Google Sponsored Links that shows you what companies buy ads on Google Adwords for the keywords in question (all free).

Here is a sample of Wordtracker's paid tool keyword report for Search Engine Optimization and Web Design

Google Sandbox Tool
This free tool is provided by Google and is very helpful for selecting keywords for your SEO campaigns. Type your keywords, and the tool will return synonyms and variations. This tool helps you get ideas for new keywords that can help you plan your SEO campaign.

Google Suggest
As you type, Google will offer suggestions and you will immediately see how many search results there are for each possibility. Very cool!

All you need to know about AdWords directly from Google
It is best to learn about AdWords directly from Google. Note that it will take you approximately 5-6 hours to go through all lectures and associated quizzes. But these lectures will also help you if you decide to become a Qualified AdWords Professional, a lucrative designation offered by Google. We recommend joining the program, as it offers good financial incentives. Please note that you will need to satisfy a number of requirements, but none of them are challenging. You need to know how AdWords work and you need to make sure that you spent US $1,000.00 on AdWords in the last 90 days, either on your own account or for your clients. There is also an online multiple-choice exam that you need to pass by getting at least 75% answers correctly. If you've used Google Adwords yourself and reviewed a few lectures posted in the AdWords Learning Center, you will have no problem passing this exam.

Keyword Density Analyzer
Be patient and check all your static pages, one by one.

Analyze and check quality of your pages
Free online service from Ottawa-based Watchfire that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, andprivacy issues. Enter a URL in a search box and see how many outgoing links it contains, how many broken links, how many spelling mistakes, etc. A nice tool!

Yahoo Site Explorer
Yahoo offers this great tool that lets you explorer your site and your back links. More detailed analysis, you will need to authenticate your site by pasting a meta tag on your home page.

Niche Watch
A beautiful free tool to analyse your own site and your competitors'.

Build links by buying them from reputable brokers- NEW!

Analyze your links - NEW!
A great free tool to see how many pages are linked to you, how many links to others, how many pages indexed by Google. Also this back link checker is pretty accurate:http://www.iwebtool.com/backlink_checker

Measure link popularity one search engine at a time
A free service that lets your measure page popularity. Simply type your domain name and see what sites are pointing at you.

Google's webmaster portal
An absolute must read for everyone. Note that Google offers great features to help you analyze your own site (how many internal links, external link, page rank, crawl problems, etc.), if you verify that you are, indeed, the owner of the site. To do that, all you need is to copy and paste on your home page a verify meta tag Google will generate for you. Highly recommended!

Compare your site's popularity with other sites
This site lets you compare the popularity of your site (measured in number of links) against three other sites, or verify how effective your chosen keyword combination is.

Check your links and indexed pages directly with Google.
If you are not a tool person, simply Google the required information by using a few formulas shown in the 'result' column.
 

Operator Description Result
site: Indexed pages in your site site:www.yourdomain.com
link: Pages that link to your site link:www.yourdomain.com
cache: The current cache of your site cache:www.yourdomain.com
info: Information we have about your site info:www.yourdomain.com
related: Pages that are similar to your site related:www.yourdomain.com

Google Analytics
A very convenient tool, especially for checking your back links. Since Google's tool for checking back links is not reliable (link:www.domain.com), it only displays a small number of links that actually exist, Yahoo Site Explorer will give you a better idea of how many back links you actually have. A back link is an external link pointing to your site on a page-by-page basis. It is probably the most important factor for high SEO ranking.

Check your site's Page Rank (PR)
Google updates its PR every 3-4 months, it seems. Use this free tool to check your rank. Keep in mind that even sites like Yahoo only get 9 out of 10. Anything over 3 is good. 5/10 is excellent!

Yahoo Site Explorer
A very convenient tool, especially for checking your back links. Since Google's tool for checking back links is not reliable (link:www.domain.com), it only displays a small number of links that actually exits, Yahoo's Site Explorer will give you a better idea of how many back links you really have. A back link is a link pointing to your site from another (external) site.

Sourceforge.net 
This is the world's largest development and download repository of Open-Source code and applications. This resource would save you incredible amount of time and money. For site statistics, search for "web logs" and select from hundreds of free programs.

Web analytics and management tools
This is a list of priprietory web analytics tools. Note that in our experience, small and medium sized businesses seldom need to resort to expensive tools. Google Analytics is usually enough, and it is free. If you really need more information, use sourceforge.net:  search for "web logs" and select from hundreds of free programs.

For very detailed breakdowns and very particular slicing and dicing, consider the following providers:

  • Did-it’s Maestro
  • Atlas One Point
  • SearchIgnite
  • Webtrends
  • Hitbox Professional
  • Omniture
  • Core Metrics

Traffic analysis by Alexa
This is a sweet free tool. Use it for your own site and to analyze your competition. We also recommend downloading their famous toolbar, it is also free.

Evaluating web pages: Questions to ask 
This page presents an excellent method of evaluating web pages, but it can also be used in relation to any other written document. Learn how to develop a "healthy skepticism" and recognize real quality. Take a look at the top right corner, they even provide a web page check list in .pdf format!

Free SEO tools
A large repository of free SEO tools ranging from AdSense calculator to keyword density checker to link popularity and other useful metrics.

WebsiteGrader
Excellent site analysis reports, but as with all tools, certain entries are questionable.

Search Engine Links

International Directory of Search Engines
An international directory of search engines featuring links to search engines from 195 countries and 38 territories around the world. You may use either English, French, Spanish, or German when using Search Engine Colossus. Global, country, and subject based search engines are listed.

Search engines statistics
Although sometimes outdated, this site nevertheless offer good information about search engines. Find reports on how various search engines rank in terms of size, freshness, change over time, database overlap, unique hits reports, and dead links report. Google has the largest database of web pages, including many other types of web documents (e.g., PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint documents).

Excellent info about search engines from UC Berkeley
This is an excellent source for information about search engines. Consider reading some of their tutorials.

Service that monitors search engines and directories
Most of the site's content is offered free to the public.

Keywords analysis and competitive analysis tools - NEW!
Keyword analysis and competitive analysis tools have become very popular and very much in demand. In 2008, a monthly subscription runs at $80 on average.

iWebTools - NEW!
Search Engine Positioning and other great tools. One of our favourite resources. Fantastic collection of various free SEO and Internet Marketing tools that actually work.  They also sell back links at affordable prices.

AWStats - NEW!
Like Google Analytics, AWStats is a free powerful and feature-rich tool that generates advanced web, streaming, ftp or mail server statistics, graphically. This log analyzer works as a CGI or from command line and shows you all possible information your log contains, in few graphical web pages. It uses a partial information file to be able to process large log files, often and quickly. It can analyze log files from all major server tools like Apache log files (NCSA combined/XLF/ELF log format or common/CLF log format), WebStar, IIS (W3C log format) and a lot of other web, proxy, wap, streaming servers, mail servers and some ftp servers.

Joomla
Free open-source website content management system. It can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Additional fancy add-on components are also available and very inexpensive: CRM, email management, real estate management, what have you - all for a nominal price. Joomla is known to have the largest support community.

DotNetNuke 
It is an open-source framework (content management system) ideal for creating Enterprise Web Applications.  It is a very powerful piece of software but it does require quite a bit of learning and it does have its weaknesses.

Drupal
Another free open-source website content management system. Also very good. Some argue it is better than Joomla. But there are rumours is it less user friendly.

Sourceforge.net 
This is the world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications. If you have some programming knowledge, this resource would save you incredible amount of time and money. For site statistics, search for "web logs" and select from hundreds of free programs.

phpBB.com
Create and add a fully-loaded forum to your website in a matter of minutes and free of charge. phpBB2 is the successor to the highly popular phpBB opensource bulletin board system. Re-written from the ground up to be even more flexible, secure and feature packed than its predecesor. phpBB 2.0 features all that was good about phpBB 1.x; one-click install, multiple language packs, simple and intuitive user interfaces, support for BBCode and powerful administration features. It extends this offering complete customisation through a powerful template system, fulltext based searching, advanced permissions system, powerful modularised administration controls, multiple database support, new moderator functions and much more. phpBB is released free of charge.

SnipURL
Shorten your URLs to make them look presentable.

Web scripts free to download
Large selection of scripts that can be used to quickly implement various web components, such as weblogs, website stats, scheduling systems, etc.

World Press - Open Source Blogging Platform
WordPress is a semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. It has a nice looking interface and offers a lot of features. WordPress is free to download. Excellent quality!

Build a professional website in a matter of minutes
This site provides unbelievable links. Follow those links, and you will find all you need to build a professional website with dynamic content in a matter of minutes (if you are a techie, of course).

Complete Web building library 
A collection of free HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DHTML, XML, XHTML, WAP, ASP, SQL tutorials with lots of working examples and source code.

Analyze, test, and manage your pages and links
Free online service from Ottawa-based Watchfire that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacyissues. Enter a URL in a search box and see how many outgoing links it contains, how many broken links, how many spelling mistakes, etc. A great tool!

Web application information for complex sites
This page contains information that is an absolute "must read" if you are thinking of launching a complex dynamic website or deciding to re-design an existing one (e.g. online sales, banking, bidding, posting, auction, etc.). In addition, we also recommend this page if you are simply looking for quality information about web applications, their types, life cycle, methodologies and customization issues.

SurveyMonkey: Create web-based surveys using templates
This popular website allows you to create web-based surveys quickly and easily. A basic subscription is totally free.  It's a great option for individuals, students, and anyone who doesn't need the advanced features. Basic subscribers are limited to a total of 10 questions and 100 responses per survey. Pay $120 per year and add as many questions as you want.

Zoomerang
This website allows you to conduct more sophisticated online surveys and polls. Basic service is free. Upgraded service is $599 per yet, but it seems to be worth it, as it lets you export the results of your surveys into spreadsheets and business reports; brand your survey to enhance your professional look; save your data indefinitely; deploy an unlimited number of surveys to ensure you reach all your customers or constituents.

Free SEO tools
A great resource of simple free SEO tools to help you analyze your and your competitors' back links, site maps, keyword density, page ranking and much more. This free SEO tools for competitive analysis is our favourite.

Free SEO tools from Google
Even if you are very busy, we recommend that you review this resource carefully. It will save you hours of hours and thousands of dollars spent on SEO conusltants.

Collection of free SEO tools
A very large collection of free SEO tools. Highly recommended. 

27 SEO tools every marketing person should use
Those are really good useful tools. All free. In addition, these tools are pretty good as well:

SlideShare.net 
SlideShare.net is website where people can upload their Powerpoint presentations (also works with Open Office and PDF files) to share with the world. The site is very slow, so be patient.

SitePal - Add voice to your site
Copy a few lines of code and add a greeting voice to your site. This tool can be of great help to online stores and other consumer-oriented businesses.

Cool widgets for your websites

In short, Web 2.0 can be described as online user collaboration supported by user-generated content. Hence, the term social networking and social media. A Web 2.0 site typically invites users to create and share something (write and share hotel reviews, share travel trips, add comments to blogs, share bookmarks, share favorites, share photos and videos, etc.) so that other users can benefit from this collective knowledge. It is a fascinating movement, but one gets quickly overwhelmed. Below are a few hand-researched resources that should help you get acquainted and feel comfortable in this space.

Definitions

Best tools for creating blogs

Blogger (by Google)
Fantastic service, loaded with features, ability to streamline AdSense ads and many other perks. Everything is totally free.

Wordpress.org
Create a nice-looking blog with fancy features in less than 2 minutes, absolutely no technical skills required, everything is free, including hosting. Charges apply for advanced features and additional users. External hosting is allowed.

BlogRolling
Add links to your blog as you surf, on the fly, without opening up your HTML template.

Drupal 
An advanced portal with collaborative book, search engines friendly URLs, online help, roles, full content search, site watching, threaded comments, version control, blogging, news aggregator.

Nucleuscms
A powerful blog script featuring multiple blogs, multiple authors, drafts and future posts, bookmarklets.

WebsiteGrader
Check your site rating with Google, Alexa, Technorati and others. Receive basic SEO analysis of your site (note that like with all tools, some entries are questionable).

BlogPatrol
Track your blog stats free of charge.

Best tools for finding blogs

Google blog search

Technorati

Feedster

Blog Digger

StumbleUpon (very cool service, not only for blogs)

Widgets


Weblog and Social Media resources

Weblog and Social Media guides

Most popular syndication feeds

Creating your own syndication feed

Blog and RSS directories (submit your blog or RSS):

Press & News Release Distribution

Create a few paragraphs describing your services and send this information to the outlets below. Your will get fantastic results for under $1000. Make sure your paragraphs are enticing to read, contain your most desired keywords and calls to action. Select those PR outlets that allow you to include images, links and your own anchor text (i.e. link description).

Email newsletter distribution, mailing lists

  • NetAtlantic (very inexpensive)
  • SparkList (more expensive, but still easily affordable)
  • TechOnline (hosted webinars with email promotion, great for technology companies, prices start at $12K, but excellent results)
  • Vizu (create a poll and post it on hundreds of websites, receive answers in real time, $99)

Making money off blogs and writing

Very few people make good money off their blogs. As a rule, you can expect to earn a few hundred dollars per month, and that if you are disciplined and very well organized. Below are a few resources that could help you generate better income, if used collectively and systematically.

  • AdSense
    AdSense allows bloggers to display up to three content-specific "ad units" (boxes that can hold up to four ads each) per page. Free to join.
  • BlogAds
    BlogAds lets you join its database free and set your own ad prices.
  • PayPerPost
    Write posts on your blog and get paid. Your blog must be at least 90 days old and active. Ranking on technorati and Alexa plays a role in how much you will get paid (but not always). You are limited to 2 posts per day. The way the system works puts small blog owners somewhat at disadvantage, as there is huge competition among bloggers.
  • Smorty
    Similar to PayPerPost, but without the 90-day age requirement. No limitation on how many posts per day can be created, but opportunities are nonetheless almost as scarce as with PayPerPost.
  • Blogitvit
    Likewise, create posts on demand and get paid. Bloggers have a higher degree of control over content. Bloggers that have a WordPress blog on their own domain name and must have been around for at least 30 days.
  • ShareASale
    Reputable affiliate distribution program. More than 2000 merchants. There is no charge for Affiliates. There is a charge for Merchants.
  • SponsoredReviews
    With SponsoredReviews, you set your own price. Depending on the size of your readership and the quality of your blog posts, you can earn anywhere from $10 to $1000 per review. If you are a major site, you might be able to get even more.
  • Suite101
    Suite101 is an online magazine for independent journalism and expert advice. This network has over 1900 freelance writers. Apply if you are a freelance writer, non-fiction author, journalism student or knowledge junkies who can publish 10 articles every 3 months.
  • ReviewMe
    Write reviews for cash. Prices range from $60 to $250 and more per review. A typical review is expected to be quite long, roughly 2000 words.
  • AcademicExperts
    Write reviews at $7 per 275 words.
  • SurveySavvy 
    You are paid a flat rate for every survey you complete. Each survey takes between 5 - 15 minutes to complete and the pay is $2. They send you an email every time there is a new available survey.
  • Greenfield Online
    Get paid to share your opinions and participate in easy online surveys. There is a qualification process. Paid surveys are about $4 each. Non-paid surveys get you some benefits as well.
  • SurveyMonster
    Make some extra cash in your spare time doing free paid online surveys. No limit to how many surveys you can take in a day. They also have other programs that you can participate in like paid to read emails, etc. Many surveys here pay $10 each.
  • TikTikCash
    This one is just like Survey Monster but it has more ways you can earn money, such as by playing games. Each survey pays between .35 cents and $4.00. Surveys are really short. Earn about $2 for every person you refer. You get a free $5 just for registering.
  • Panda Research
    Receive Cash for Survey offers, coupons, discounts, Gifts, Rewards and giveaways, targeted to your specific needs based on how you answer our survey. The type and amount of incentive vary from $5 - $35 or more and are based on the type and size of survey and offer, the respondent profile required by the contract. No fees at all. 
  • Text Links Ad
    You will be selling small text ads on your site, split the revenue with them 50-50, deposit earnings directly into your PayPal account.
  • Kontera
    Place contextual links in your posts. Those are the mouse-over boxes with a snapshot overview of the link. They look really nice and not intrusive.
  • Vizu Answers
    Post a poll on your site and earn money every time someone answers. Idea similar to AdSense.
  • Blurb - free self-publishing book software
    Create a professional looking book in a matter of hours. Blurb offers free software that lets you transform your content into a professional looking book in a matter of hours. Pay from $12 to $30 for soft or hardcover printing.
  • There are other companies that help people self-publish. Lulu.com lets people publish books, print on demand and set their own price, but the company takes a commission on books sold (and so does Blurb). Xlibris is more of a traditional publisher in that it charges a fee, pays royalties and provides copyediting and marketing services. Similarly,iUniverse charges fees, pays royalties and offers editing and distribution services. Apple's iPhoto service lets people turn their photos into a book, but it is much more expensive than Blurb and less flexible. Most publishers charge fees and take commission, but there are some that don't. Joffee Publishing does not charge any fees, and it was recommended to us by one of their users. Also, SharedBooklets you convert your online content into a book on demand.
  • Helium
    Write articles and get paid. Best rated articles generate most money.
  • SpiderMetrix
    Complete surveys, earn points, cash points.
  • My Essays
    You can charge up to $25 per essay being a free member, you can charge more than that if you are a paid member.
  • GAF
    GAF is a way to get your freelance services out to the world, there is everything from forum posting to coding, you are sure to find something that suits your talents.
  • Wise Orb
    Write articles for people to read, when they read them you earn. Account are automatically paid out when they reach $100, but you can request smaller payouts.
  • Elance
    Create profile and bid on projects by category (web design, writing, translation, software development, etc). Membership fees apply. Three levels of memberships are available: $8 per months, $80 per month, and $120 per month. We used the services of Elance as a buyer on many occasions and are quite happy with them. Their business processes are very smooth, it costs nothing to post a project and invite service providers to bid on it. Free downloads of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and rights transfer agreements (for content, logo and other graphics) are available. Each service provider is rated by previous customers, so read customer reviews carefully before settling on the final bidder.
  • Guru
    Post your profile free of charge and bid on projects. Deduct 10% for project fees. Purchase membership from $100-200 per year and deduct 5% on project fees.
  • Ifreelancer.com
    Free membership.
  • Ifreelance.com
    Post your profile and bid on projects. Gold Membership is $7.00 per month.
  • Writers.MeetUp
    Join one of the existing groups or create a new one. A good networking and marketing tool.
  • CopyEscape.com
    Type an URL to see if your content has been used elsewhere. Note that you need to check individual pages one by one.
  • PayPal
    Place a donation button, if you feel it is appropriate for your blog.
  • ClickBank
    ClickBank is the Internet's largest digital marketplace, where thousands of the web's most popular products are sold every day. Become an affiliate and resell digital products. Setup is free, fast and you'll have instant access to over 10,000 products with commissions as high as 75%.
  • Work from home
    Extensive list of work-from-home opportunities.
  • LinkShare
  • Commission Junction

Top 25 Web 2.0 sites

Complete list of Top 25 Web 2.0 sites (updated real time)

Marketing Blogs

 

 Free Polls & Surveys

Blog Directory

Cool Web 2.0 Apps

  • http://clipmarks.com/ - you can clip the best parts of web pages
  • http://www.simplifythis.com/  - online invoicing
  • http://www.blinksale.com  - easy online client invoicing, integrated with Basecamp
  • http://www.basecamphq.com/index  - project management app
  • http://www.facebook.com  - social networking platform
  • http://www.viddler.com  - a web application that lets you upload, enhance, and share digital video quickly and easily inside your web browser.
  • http://www.popuri.us  - check your website statistics on Alexa, Google, Technorati - all at once, very neat!
  • http://www.domainlogbook.com  - similar idea to popuri.us, domainlogbook lets you track your domain statistics and performance
  • http://www.ejschart.com  - holy beauty! Javascript Charting application that uses AJAX to create zoomable, clickable, navigable charts.
  • http://synapselife.com/  - collection of 5 sweet and useful apps: People, Calendar, Lists & Ledger, Favorites and Feeds. Account sign ups are free and all the applications are accessible from any mobile device or cell phone.
  • http://www.senduit.com/  - upload your file, send a link to share with others, set expiration time.
  • http://www.slimtimer.com  - easy time tracking and reporting, liberation from time sheets.
  • http://www.snap.com/about/shots.php - appends sleek-looking previews to your links on mouse-over (used on this page). Totally free.
  • http://www.openlaszlo.org/ - an open source platform for creating zero-install web applications with the user interface capabilities of desktop client software. OpenLaszlo programs are written in XML and JavaScript and transparently compiled to Flash and, with OpenLaszlo 4, DHTML. The OpenLaszlo APIs provide animation, layout, data binding, server communication, and declarative UI.  
  • http://www.tripwiser.com - cool trip planning and itinerary building site for U.S. and Canadian travel, AJAX-powered, drag-and-drop scheduling, user-generated shared reviews, expert opinions, interactive online encyclopaedia, online reservations. 
  • http://wikkidapps.com/ - best reviews of cool Web 2.0 apps. 
  • http://mashable.com/ - thorough reviews of social networking sites and tools
  • http://www.webscriptlab.com/ - Ajax loading GIF generator

REVIEWS OF FREE AND PAID PRESS RELEASE DISTRUBUTION SERVICES - NEW!

Websites, Presentations, Newsletters, Images, Logos

Template Monster
This website is very well-known. It offers a good collection of professional looking website templates at good prices. Some of them are too "rich" in colors and layout, but some are very good. The only problem is that they have a huge network of resellers and virtually every company offering website templates through Google and other search engines (except the ones listed below in this section) is using their library. So your best option is to make a 'unique' purchase of a template, in which case the price jumps from $70-ish to $2000-ish. However, if your budget permits, we recommend doing so, if you would like to have a good looking site to be up and running quickly. Alternatively, you can buy a template and then customize it to make it different (we recommend not using too much Flash unless you are in the Entertainment or similar type of industry). At the very least, you can use their color schemes to provide examples and guidance to your graphic designers.

The Template Store
This site offers simple customizable templates starting from $20 Canadian. Some of their Flash templates are very nice, ideally suited for small businesses and independent consultants. The site also sells good corporate identity items, such as logos, business card templates, and letterheads. The templates are very easy to modify and enhance. You need to know only the very basics of such web publishing programs as Dreamweaver or FrontPage (for simple modifications, they are very similar to Word or PowerPoint).

Template Central
Apart from website templates, they offer logos, PowerPoint presentation templates, images, Word templates, etc. We find that their logos are overpriced for the type of models presented and their buttons are very old-fashioned. But overall, they nonetheless offer a great collection of templates, which you can download and customize either yourself or with the help of a graphic designer. You can also order a customized template from them for under $500 Canadian, but be prepared to be very patient and pay a top price for every stroke they make on a keyboard.

Stock Layouts
This website offers a decent collection of Newsletter, Brochure and Flyer templates made for print for under $200 Canadian. The desktop versions are all under $20. Once again, change a couple of colors by using a color palette, replace one or two images, copy and paste your own content - and you have a professional newsletter, brochure or flyer ready.

Smarter Templates
This website offers a wide range of templates, from business cards to newsletters to logos to websites, and more - all for a one time fee under $70 Canadian. We found their website template collection to be decent, although somewhat too rich in color and design layout, for our taste. A few of their Outlook templates look very professional. We also liked their brochures. We were not impressed with their logos and corporate identity templates. Overall, access to all their categories for a small one-time fee is undoubtedly a great value.

iStock Photo: Stock Photos and Images
This website offers a rich collection of stock photography. Some of the images are ready to be used, while others may require a bit of customization work. If you know Fireworks, Photoshop or even Paint at a basic level, you can already enhance and customize all of your web and marketing materials quite easily. Alternatively, supplying the required images to your graphic designer and giving them specific instructions on how you'd like the images to be modified (adding shading, color transition, oval borders or other enhancements) should also help you cut costs.

Getty Images: High Quality Photos and Images
One of the largest providers of imagery, photography, and other graphic components and related services. But keep in mind: everyone uses this resource!

Flickr
One of the largest social networking sites on the net specializing in photos and images. Free to upload, free to share, free to download.

Images & Photography Portals:

These portals are less known that iStockPhoto and Getty Images, so you have fewer chances of stumbling upon another website with your top image. In our view, quality, creativity and presentation are also higher at these portals. Prices range from $50 to $1550. To cut costs, search "royalty free" images and photos only.

Website Templates based on Joomla - NEW!

Below is a list of design agencies who supply quality templates based on Joomla (one of the most popular FREE content management systems). Select the template you like and order customization. This way, you can get a $15K site for a few hundred dollars.

Joomla Bliss
This is an Ottawa-based web design firm specializing in web design for SEO for small businesses. Some of the best web design packages in the industry.

Elance
This site is an excellent source for companies of any size. More expensive than Global Mart, Elance works like eBay. Buyers post their projects free of charge, service providers reply to them by posting their bids. The longer the bidding process, the larger the number of providers you would have available to chose from. However, be prepared to engage in lengthy email communication, which can be quite time-consuming and frustrating.

For a small business owner, the best way to get a high quality web presence is to purchase a website template and a logo and then post a project on Elance asking for a website template and logo customization. Given that conceptual work is what costs the most, the template enhancement should not cost you more than $200-800, and you can get a unique and highly professional site, fully loaded with powerful components (i.e. search, Site Map, polls, surveys, etc - all can be part of a template).

For a medium business, Elance can produce an exceptional quality of work with over 70% savings. Make sure to read all customer reviews on a given provider before selecting them as your final bid winner. Prepare to allocate additional 2 weeks for email correspondence and queues.

Overall, Elance delivers a great value for your money.

Usability Issues
Before you begin your website design, it if important to familiarize yourself with one of the most important factors for your future conversion rates, i.e. the factor of usability. This blog offers very valuable and interesting information, and it is a pleasure to read as well.

3d Architectural Renderings
Global 3D Arts has been working with architects and developers for over 20 years. Their artists have over a decade of experience working with architects and developers in architectural animation, rendering, and in building scale models.

SEO Web Design Guide for Beginners

Go Daddy
GoDaddy.com is the world's largest domain name registrar and is the flagship company of The Go Daddy Group, Inc. The Go Daddy Group of companies also includes Wild West Domains, Inc., a reseller of domains and domain-related products and services; Domains by Proxy, a private registration service; Starfield Technologies, a research and development affiliate; and Blue Razor Domains, a membership-based discount registrar.

The GoDaddy.com hosting services are very inexpensive, ranging from $4.29 to $79.99 per month.

HostGator
This is one of the best hosting companies for Joomla websites. Fantastic prices and fantastic support. Live support by chat and phone 24/7.

DreamHost
This is a very old USA-based hosting company, they go back 1997.  Great prices, great features, good reputation. Immediate response, good customer support.

Easy Hosting
This is a good Canadian web hosting company based in Toronto. Their hosting starts at $6 per month for simple websites. This company has a good reputation.

Venture Capital, Marketing, Legal, General Resources

VCs investing in web-based startups
This link will take you to a new page on this site that contains a list of some of the leading VCs that invest in internet startups. Good luck!

Raise start-up capital
The Ottawa Capital Network assists in creating efficiencies in the capital market through programs aimed at educating the entrepreneurial community, creating linkages among the investment community and providing knowledge and support to the business community. The Ottawa Capital Network (OCN) is a program of OCRI’s Entrepreneurship Centre. OCRI is a not-for-profit organization that builds on the strengths of the region to advance research and development, lifelong learning, professional development and community infrastructure.

Marketing Wisdom from Marketing Sherpa (pdf)
This is a 50-page PDF document created by 99 marketing agencies and contributors. The study was sponsored by WebTrends back in 2004, but it is still a must read piece for marketing.

Business and Marketing Plan Samples
Writing a plan is a tedious and time consuming work. But you don't need to start from scratch. Save yoursef a lot of time and effort by using an existing template. This website provides a great collection of business plans, marketing plans, cash flow analysis and reports - free of charge. Got of 'samples', select the type of plan you need, and then select the type of business you are in. Modify existing information to reflect your business situation.

Top tools selected and reviewed by users NEW!
Fantastic list of tools for all sorts of purposes, from free webconferencing to free course management to free movie editing software.

Name your business, product or website
Excellent free tool to help you find the right name for your business, product or website. We also liked their voice recognition software that liberates you from typing and lets you use your vocal cords (not good for cubicles!)

Startup kit from a pro
Tools for your virtual and physical office. Albeit its 2005 publication date, this is still a great resource.

Write a good business plan
Easy-to-read, concise, and clear step-by-step guide on how to write a winning business plan. Excellent information provided by the government of Canada.

Incorporate your business in Canada
This is a paralegal company widely used by lawyers in Canada as an outsourcing resource. Since 1995, Canadian Entrepreneurs and businesses have been able to Incorporate, Register Trade Name or Sole Proprietorship, order NUANS reports and name reservation reports, and complete Annual Return filings and Corporate updates using Arvic. This company provides excellent customer service.

Find a free service in exchange for your own
This is a small bartering website based in Canada (Ottawa). The goal of this service is to help small business owners get their businesses off the ground on a shoe string by exchanging skills, services, and goods with each other. The site supports posting, search, account management features, email alerts, and messaging. Everything is free to users.

Take care of your taxes
This site provides very useful information related to Canadian income taxes. Use their tables to play various scenarios, whether you are an independent proprietor or own a corporation.

How to Use Gmail as a Business Diary and More Cool Online Management Tips
Want to be run your business on the go? Want to be organized and stay organized in ONE place? Want to be fast yet efficient? Want to use convenient tools? Then this tutorial is a must. Highly recommended.

Free Web Conferencing and Webinar Software

Free web conferencing service
For teleconferencing, use +1-218-936-6666 (U.S. telephone number) free of charge. Note that long distance charges will apply. But you can buy a phone card at your nearest gas station and use it for North American calls. A $5-dollar card will usually give you over 300 minutes (we use Apple). If you are doing online training, buy a phone card for each user and send them PINs by email. This will keep your teleconferencing costs down, at the negligible level.

Mikogo - NEW!
Works very well, but the site goes down occasionally.

Yugma
Works well, but the latency is too high. It often takes 30 seconds for the screen to load. Don't expect much from their support if you are using their free service. They have paid options as well. For a full service with all features, they charge $14.95 per month as the most basic service.  Note that you will need a phone or a teleconferencing service if you are planning to have a web-based meeting, there is no voice services provided by Yugma (see the link above).

Zoho
web-based programmes for small businesses, including online presentations, planner, chat, wiki calendar, project management tools, etc.

Email Campaign Management Systems - NEW!

Vertical Response
This system has an excellent interface and a very intuitive flow. The features and capabilities are superb and yet extremely easy to use. They offer cross-reference tracking with Google Analytics and Salesforce.com, which is a great added bonus. The best program I've seen so far. They are also the most economical. You pay only when you send a campaign, there are no monthly fees. For 5000 email addresses, the cost is around $30. One issue we discovered with them is they do not support heavy HTML code. Emails with heavy HTML code get corrupted on delivery. So if you are using VerticalResponse, create simple designs, with no gradient effects, layered images, nested tables, etc.

iContact
Their interface is also nice and quite intuitive. Monthly fees start at $9.95. They provide good HTML support. Our heavy HTML format with a lot of fancy gradient backgrounds and layered images did not get corrupted.

GotMarketing, now Campaigner
Canadian email management system. Quite good, but not as cost-effective as Vertical Response or iContact.

Constant Contact
The interface is less intuitive than in other email management systems, and the cost is higher, but it is still a good service. They offer decent templates, which can save you a lot of time and effort.

Groupmail
Reports say that their support for heavy HTML code is fantastic. But it comes at a price. This system is best suited for businesses who rely on email marketing heavily. 

Document Management Software & Miscellaneous

Hidden treasures of Power Point. Things you'd wish you knew!
Have a nice presentation? Add your voice, a few buttons, post it on your website, and you have a self-running online seminar. You can add capabilities to collect user feedback, add button controls and other perks with a few mouse clicks. Read a few more pages about some advanced features and transform your online presence in a matter of minutes.

Create a blog quickly
A blog is a personal website where you share your thoughts, hobbies, and other things that matter to you with your readers, free of charge. Having been around for a few years, blogs are now becoming more and more popular and are being used by both small and medium businesses as marketing vehicles. If you are interested in starting a blog, this Google-owned site offers a simple 3-step solution: create an account, name your blog and choose a template for it. Blogger also allows you to streamline AdSense ads to your blog.

Discount computer gear
Here you will find a small sample of unique products that will make life easier and more fun. Products from lightweight laptops, high quality sound systems, accessories and programs to make your computing experience both enjoyable and productive.

Industry Blogs
Directory of blogs by industry. Excellent resource of information.

Rent email lists - NEW!
This is a good option if your have decent budget. In the long run, invest in building your own lists.

WebSiteGrader - NEW!
Check your site rating with Google, Alexa, Technorati and others. Receive basic SEO analysis of your site (note that like with all tools, some entries are questionable).

Popular links for startups - NEW!

Market yourself online - NEW!

Create a few paragraphs describing your main business advantages or services and send this information to the outlets below. Your will get fantastic results and can spend as little as $0.00 (zero). Make sure your paragraphs are well written.

Market yourself via media - NEW!

Free Conference - free web conferencing service
For teleconferencing, use +1-218-936-6666 (U.S. telephone number) free of charge. Note that long distance charges will apply. But you can buy a phone card at your nearest gas station and use it for North American calls. A $5-dollar card will usually give you over 300 minutes (we use Apple). If you are doing online training, buy a phone card for each user and send them PINs by email. This will keep your teleconferencing costs down, at the negligible level.

Yugma
This site provides free web conferencing tools. The service is good and the interface is very nice, but the latency is quite high (users experience delays). For a full service with all features, they charge $9.95+ per month, but their standard package is free.  Note that you will also need a teleconferencing service to conduct a webinar online, for example (see the link above).

Mikogo - free web conferencing service
Oyur favourite free web conferencing and online meeting tool. No latency, great service, but the site goes down occasionally for maintenance.

Joomla
Free open-source website content management system. It can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Additional fancy add-on components are also available: CRM, email management, real estate management, what have you - all for a nominal price. Joomla is known to have the largest support and website template community.

Drupal
Another free open-source website content management system. Also very good. Some argue it is less user friendly than Joomla.

DotNetNuke 
It is an open-source framework (content management system) ideal for creating Enterprise Web Applications.  It is a very powerful piece of software but it does require quite a bit of learning and it does have its weaknesses.

Sourceforge.net 
This is the world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications. If you have some programming knowledge, this resource would save you incredible amount of time and money. For site statistics, search for "web logs" and select from hundreds of free programs.

World Press - Open Source Blogging Platform
WordPress is a semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. It has a nice looking interface and offers a lot of features. WordPress is free to download.

More content management systems (CMS) from Wikipedia
An extensive list of various content management systems from Wikipedia.

Vertical Response
This system has an excellent interface and a very intuitive flow. The features and capabilities are superb and yet extremely easy to use. They offer cross-reference tracking with Google Analytics and Salesforce.com, which is a great added bonus. The best program I've seen so far. They are also the most economical. You pay only when you send a campaign, there are no monthly fees. For 5000 email addresses, the cost is around $30. One issue we discovered with them is they do not support heavy HTML code. Emails with heavy HTML code get corrupted on delivery. So if you are using VerticalResponse, create simple designs, with no gradient effects, layered images, nested tables, etc.

iContact
Their interface is also nice and quite intuitive. Monthly fees start at $9.95. They provide good HTML support. Our heavy HTML format with a lot of fancy gradient backgrounds and layered images did not get corrupted.

GotMarketing, now Campaigner
Canadian email management system. Quite good, but not as cost-effective as Vertical Response or iContact.

Constant Contact
The interface is less intuitive than in other email management systems, and the cost is higher, but it is still a good service. They offer decent templates, which can save you a lot of time and effort.

Groupmail
Reports say that their support for heavy HTML code is fantastic. But it comes at a price. This system is best suited for businesses who rely on email marketing heavily.

Email newsletter distribution, mailing lists

  • NetAtlantic (very inexpensive)
  • SparkList (more expensive, but still easily affordable)
  • TechOnline (hosted webinars with email promotion, great for technology companies, prices start at $12K, but results are excellent)
  • Vizu (create a poll and post it on hundreds of websites, receive answers in real time, $99)

Meebo - is out favourite, it is one of the original Ajax-based web instant messaging program which supports multiple IM services, including Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ  and Jabber. Your network administrator probably has this one already blocked.

Yahoo! Messenger for the Web is a Flash based Yahoo! Messenger program from Yahoo!.

MSN Web Messenger is the web-based version of MSN Messenger.

eBuddy supports MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GTalk and MySpace network. eBuddy can also be accessed from your mobile phones, iPhone and PDAs. It supports chat conferences too.

KoolIM supports a wide range of IM networks including Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Jabber, GTalk, Xfire and a few others. KoolIM does not require registration to use, but signing up for an account enables you to save your network IDs.

Mabber lets you chat with your AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google buddies and also send messages. Registration is required to use this service. Mabber is also available in your mobile phones.

EasyMessenger supports MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! and Jabber networks. Registration is required.

imo.im is yet another simple web based messaging service that supports MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, Google, MySpace and Skype network. This is the only web based service supporting Skype.

Communication Tube supports four IM networks namely ICQ, GTalk, MSN Messenger and IRC.

SEO forum recommended by Sergey Brin
In case you don't know it, Sergey Brin is one of the two founders of Google.

SEO Newsletter
An excellent free newsletter with over 100,000 subscribers. It is also quite entertaining. 

SEO News
Subscribe to receive daily or weekly SEO news. Good way to stay tuned to the SEO world.

SEO Articles
One of the largest collection of SEO resources on the Internet.

Web Marketing Information
Below is a list of sites that we find to be of good quality.

SEO Consultants in Canada
A comprehensive directory of SEO consultants in Canada by province.

SEO Companies
Directory of top Search Engine Optimization companies.

SEO and Internet Marketing Consulting Firms
Internet Marketing consulting firms from the ODP directory:

Seo-Today.com
Directory of everything related to SEO.

People interested in SEO by city (worldwide)
Social networks of people interested in SEO or providing SEO services

Our glossary contains over 100 popular terms used in the Web Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) field. For larger glossaries, we recommend the following:

Popular Search Engine Marketing Acronyms

  • CPM - Cost Per Thousand Impressions
  • CPA - Cost Per Action
  • CPC - Cost Per Click
  • CPS - Cost Per Sale
  • CTR - Click-Through Rate
  • CPM - Cost Per Impression
  • CPL - Cost Per Lead
  • PPL - Pay Per Lead
  • PFI - Pay For Inclusion
  • PFP - Pay For Performance
  • PPC - Pay Per Click

Web Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Glossary

AdWords, AdSense Heading Positioning
Blog or Web log Hidden text Query
Browse HTML Ranking 
Browsers HTTP Registration
Bot IE Relevancy ranking
Cache Invisible web Re-submission 
Cached link IP Robot
CSS Java robots.txt   
CGI Javascript RSS
Client Keyword Search engine  
Click through rate (CTR) Keyword density SEO (Optimization)
Cloaking Keyword domain name Server  
Cookie Keyword phrase Siphoning
Cost per click (CPC) Keyword purchasing Spamdexing
Crawler Keyword stuffing Spamming
Database Link (Hyperlink) Spider, Spyder
Dead link META tags Spoofing
De-listing Mirror sites (Doorways) Static page
Domain name Multiple Titles Stop words
Dynamic content NOFRAMES tag Tags (HTML tags)
Dynamically generated pages NOSCRIPT tag Traffic
Frames Page popularity Unique visitor
FTP Placement URL
Google Pop-up window Web copywriting


 If you prefer, you can view this SEO glossary in PDF format (252K)

AdWords

An advertising program that helps Google earn billions of dollars of revenue. In essence, it is a keyword purchasing program. If you want to understand it well, review the AdWords glossary.

See also Keyword purchasingClick through rate (CTR)Cost per click (CPC)

AdSense

An advertising program that helps Google earn billions of dollars of revenue. It is a keyword purchasing program whereby you display Google's AdWords ads on your site and share revenue with Google. Premium AdSense services are available for large sites, i.e. sites that receive 5 million+ search queries or 20 million+ content page views a month.

See also Keyword purchasingClick through rate (CTR)Cost per click (CPC)

Blog  or Web log

A blog (short for "web log") is a type of web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal (or log) for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. Blog software usually has archives of old blogs and is searchable. Frequently, blogging software is used by web pages providing excellent information on many topics, although very frequently the content is personal and requires careful evaluation.

Browse

To follow links in a page, to shop around in a page, exploring what's there, a bit like window shopping (but you can't type keywords to search). The opposite of browsing a page is searching it. When you search a page, you find a search box, enter terms, and find all occurrences of the terms throughout the site. When you browse, you have to guess which words on the page pertain to your interests. Searching is usually more efficient, but sometimes you find things by browsing that you might not find because you might not think of the "right" term to search by.

Browsers

Browsers are software programs that enable you to view web documents. They "translate" HTML-encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see. Microsoft Internet Explorer (called simply IE), Netscape, Mosaic are examples of browsers that enable you to view text and images and many other web features. They are software that must be installed on your computer.

Bot

A bot is a software tool for digging through data. You give a bot directions and it bring back answers. The word is short for a 'robot'. Google's crawler is nicknamed Googlebot, for example.

Cache

In browsers, "cache" is used to identify a space where web pages you have visited are stored in your computer. A copy of documents you retrieve is stored in cache. When you use GO, BACK, or any other means to revisit a document, the browser first checks to see if it is in cache and will retrieve it from there, because it is much faster than retrieving it from the server.

Cached link

In search results from Google, Yahoo! Search, and some other search engines, there is usually a cached link which allows you to view the version of a page that the search engine has stored in its database. The live page on the web might differ from this cached copy, because the cached copy dates from whenever the search engine's spider last visited the page and detected modified content. Use the cached link to see when a page was last crawled and, in Google, where your terms are and why you got a page when all of your search terms are not in it.

See also Link

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

A W3C recommended language for defining style (such as font, size, color, spacing, etc.) for web documents. This file is a hub that allows you to control style of all your site's pages from one place. 

Learn more about CSS in this CSS tutorial

CGI

CGI stands for 'Common Gateway Interface' - a standard interface between web server software and other programs running on the same machine.CGI Program is any program which handles its input and output data according to the CGI standard. In practice, CGI programs are used to handle forms and database queries on web pages, and to produce non-static web page content.

Client

A computer, program or process which makes requests for information from another computer, program or process. Web browsers are client programs. Search engine spiders are (or can be said to behave as) clients.

Clickthrough rate (CTR)

The number of times visitors click on a hyperlink (or advertisement) on a page, as a percentage of the number of times the page has been displayed. Good ranking may be useless if visitors do not click on the link which leads to the indexed site. The secret here is to provide a good descriptive title and an accurate and interesting description.

Cloaking

The hiding of page content. Normally carried out to stop page thieves stealing optimized pages.

Cookie

Information from a web server, stored on your computer by your web browser. The purpose of a cookie is to provide information about your visit to the website for use by the server during a later visit. It's like us getting a ticket or a customer card at a shop, spa or movie cinema when we go there for the first time. This card ensures that we are remembered when we come back and helps the service provider give us a better (i.e. personalized) service. In technical terms, a message from a web server computer, sent to and stored by your browser on your computer. When your computer consults the originating server computer, the cookie is sent back to the server, allowing it to respond to you according to the cookie's contents. The main use for cookies is to provide customized Web pages according to a profile of your interests.

Cost per click (CPC)

This is a measure of what you pay Google and other search engines for displaying your ad. As a rule, every time someone clicks on your ad, you get charged a certain amount, i.e. your CPC.

See also AdSense, AdWords

Crawler

That part of a search engine which surfs the web, storing the URLs and indexing the keywords and text of each page it finds. Google's crawler is called Googlebot.

See also SpiderBot

Database

Data stored in a computer in such a way that a computer program can easily retrieve and manipulate the data. A database system is a computer program (like MS Access, Oracle, and MySQL) for manipulating data in a database.

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. Most search engines have techniques for removing such pages from their listings automatically, but as the Internet continues to increase in size, it becomes more and more difficult for a search engine to check all the pages in the index regularly. Reporting of dead links helps to keep the indexes clean and accurate, and this can usually be done by submitting the dead link to the search engine.

See also Link

De-listing

The removal of pages from a search engine's index. Removal can occur for various reasons, including unreliability of the machine that hosts a site or because of perceived attempts at spamdexing. Note that search engines contain an automatic de-listing function in their algorithm, and errors do occur. If you think that your site has been unjustly de-listed, contact the search engines' support department, explain your story, be very nice and polite, and request to be re-included in the index. You may need to so do a number of times before you get to hear from them.

Domain name

A name that identifies one or more IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.google.com/about.html, the domain name is google.com.

Dynamic content

Information on web pages which changes or is changed automatically, e.g. based on database content or user information. You can spot that that dynamic content is being used, if the URL ends with .asp, .cfm, .cgi or.shtml. But it is also possible to serve dynamic content using standard (normally static) .htm or .html type pages. Search engines will currently index dynamic content in a similar fashion to static content, although they will not usually index URLs which contain the ? character.

Dynamically generated pages

Pages created as the result of a search are called dynamically generatedpages. The answer to your query is encased in a web page designed to carry the answer and sent to your computer. Often the page is not stored anywhere afterward, because its unique content (the answer to your specific query) is probably not of use to many other people. It's easier for the database to regenerate the page when needed than to keep it around.

The opposite of a dynamic page is a "static" page. Static pages reside on servers, each identified by a unique URL, and waiting to be retrieved when their URL is invoked. Spiders can find a static page if it is linked to in any other page they "know" about. They follow links to it and retrieve it much as you would by clicking if you knew the link. Static pages are not invisible, although search engines might choose to omit them for policy reasons discussed below.

Frames

An HTML technique for combining two or more separate HTML documents within a single web browser screen. Compound interacting documents can be created to make a more effective web page presented in multiple windows or sub-windows.

A framed web site often causes great problems for search engines, and may not be indexed correctly. Search engines will often index only the part of a framed site within the <NOFRAMES> section, so make sure that the <NOFRAMES> section includes relevant text which can be indexed by the spiders.

If your site uses frames, include proper scripting to allow search engines "see" the framed content. Submit the main page, the one containing the <FRAMESET> tag to the search engines. If you use a gateway page, submit this separately.

See also NOFRAMES tag

FTP

File Transfer Protocol. Ability to transfer rapidly entire files from one computer to another, intact for viewing or other purposes.

Google

Google is play on "Googol"  - the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google was the name Larry Page and Sergey Brin selected for their future company in September 1998. Google Inc. is the developer of the award-winning Google search engine, which is designed to provide a simple, fast way to search the Internet for information. Offering users access to an index comprising more than 8 billion URLs, Google is the largest search engine on the World Wide Web. In 2004, Google became a publicly traded company, with over 5 billion dollars in revenue. Google created the largest and the best search engine in the world calledGooglebot.

Heading

Many search engines give extra weight and importance to the text found inside HTML heading sections. It is generally considered good advice to use headings when designing web pages and to place keywords inside headings.

Hidden text

Text on a web page which is visible to search engine spiders but not visible to human visitors. This is sometimes because the text has been set the same colour as the background, because multiple TITLE tags have been used or because the text is an HTML comment. Hidden text is often used forspamdexing. Many search engines can now detect the use of hidden text, and often remove offending pages from their database or lower theirpositioning.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language - the (main) language used to write web pages.

HTTP

HyperText Transfer Protocol - the (main) protocol used to communicate between web servers and web browsers (clients).

IE

IE stands for 'Microsoft Internet Explorer' browser. Browsers are software programs that enable you to view web documents.

Invisible web

Some types of pages and links are excluded from most search engines by policy. Others are excluded because search engine spiders cannot access them. Pages that are excluded are referred to as the Invisible web, i.e. what you don't see in search engine results. The Invisible Web is estimated to be two to three or more times bigger than the visible web.

IP

IP is an Internet Protocol number or Internet Protocol address. This is a unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2 Every machine on the Internet has a unique IP address. If a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines also have one or more domain names that are easier for people to remember.

See also Domain name

Java

A computer programming language whose programs can run on a number of different types of computer and/or operating system. Used extensively to produce applets for web pages.

Javascript

A simple interpreted computer language used for small programming tasks within HTML web pages. The scripts are normally interpreted (or run) on the client computer by the web browser. Some search engines have been known to index these scripts, in some cases presumably erroneously.

Keyword

A word which forms (part of) a search engine Query. The keywords are picked up by search engines based on their evaluation of your website's content and their "understanding" of your focus, i.e. what's most important to you as a business. Higher ranking means that when someone performs a search using keywords within your business or area of expertise, search engines display a web link to your site among the first few search results, i.e. on the first three pages. Depending on the size, specialization and location of a business,  keywords can be as broad as one term, e.g. 'sports', or as specific as a phrase (hence, the term 'key phrase'), e.g. 'healthcare jobs in Canada'.

See also Search engines 

Keyword density

A property of the text in a web page which indicates how close together the keywords appear. Some search engines use this property for positioning. Analyzers are available which allow comparisons between pages. Pages can then be produced with the similar keyword densities to those found in high ranking pages.  

Keyword domain name

The use of keywords as part of the URL to a website. Positioning is improved on some search engines when keywords are reinforced in the URL.  

Keyword phrase

A phrase which forms (part of) a search engine query.  

Keyword purchasing

The buying of search keywords from search engines, usually to control banner ad placement.

See also AdWords, AdSense

Keyword stuffing

The repeating of keywords and keyword phrases in links, META tags, copy of the page or elsewhere.  

Link (Hyperlink)

Link is a colloquial for a hyperlink. A pointer to another document. Most often a pointer to another web page. A hyperlink is also a synonym for a hotlink and sometimes called a hypertext connection to another document or web page.

META tags

HTML tags that are not visible on a formatted page, but are used by search engines for indexing purposes. The most common META tags (and those most relevant to search engines) are KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION.

The KEYWORDS tag allows the author to emphasize the importance of certain words and phrases used within the page. Some search engines will respond to this information - others will ignore it. Don't use quotes around the keywords or key phrases.  

The DESCRIPTION tag allows the author to control the text of the summary displayed when the page appears in the results of a search. Again, some search engines will ignore this information.  The HTTP-EQUIV meta tag is used to issue HTTP commands, and is frequently used with the REFRESH tag to refresh page content after a given number of seconds. Gateway pages sometimes use this technique to force browsers to a different page or site. Most search engines are wise to this, and will index the final page and/or reduce the ranking. Infoseek has a strong policy against this technique, and they might penalize your site, or even ban it by removing it from Index.

Other common meta tags are GENERATOR (usually advertising the software used to generate the page) and AUTHOR (used to credit the author of the page, and often containing e-mail address, homepage URL and other information).

<head> 
<TITLE>PulseHR: Recruitment of Foreign Nurses</TITLE>

<meta name="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="PulseHR is a recruiting agency specializing in recruitment of foreign nurses into the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom">

<meta name="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="recruitment of foreign nurses in USA, foreign nurse recruitment, foreing nurse recruitment, foreign nurses to Canada, foreign RNs, recruitment of foreign RNs, recruit foreign nurses, hiring foreign nurses, hiring international nurses, international nurses, international recruitment of foreign nurses, requirements to recruit foreign nurses, nursing immigration, employment based immigration of nurses, immigration of foreign nurses, foreign nurses immigration”>

<meta name="robots" content="noarchive"> 
</head>

See also Tagsrobot.txt

Mirror sites

Also known as Doorway pages or Doorway sites. Multiple copies of identical web sites or web pages, often on different servers. The process of registering these multiple copies with search engines is often treated asspamdexing, because it artificially increases the relevancy of the pages. Many search engines now remove multiple mirrors from the indexes.

Multiple titles

It used to be possible to repeat the HTML title tag in the header section of a page several times to improve search engine positioning. Most search engines now detect this trick. Below is an example of what would be considered multiple Titles or Title tags.

<head> 
<TITLE>PulseHR: Recruitment of Foreign Nurses</TITLE>
<TITLE>PulseHR: Foreign Nurse Recruitment</TITLE>
<TITLE>PulseHR: Recruitment of International Nurses</TITLE>

See also Multiple Keyword TagsSpamdexingTagsrobot.txt

Multiple Keyword Tags

The use of more than one Keywords META tag in order to try to increase the relevancy of the best keywords on a page. This is not recommended. It may be detected as a spamming technique, or all but one of the tags may simply be ignored.  

See also META Tagsrobot.txt

NOFRAMES tag

The NOFRAMES tag allows no-frames browsers see what's inside the frame. This is particularly important for search engine optimization. It is best not to use frames when designing a site, but if frames are used, the following example shows how to open the framed content for search engines:

<html>
<head>
</head>
<frameset border="1" cols="200,*" frameBorder="0" frameSpacing="4">
<NOFRAMES>
<body>
<p>
You should include HTML here to support webcrawlers and browsers that don't support frames. 
You may want to include a second copy of your index and set your colors in the BODY statement above the same as you would in your index file.
</p>
</body>
</NOFRAMES>
<frame name="left" src="/htmlindex.html">
<frame name="right" src="/htmlintroduction.html">
</frameset>
</html>

NOSCRIPT tag

The NOSCRIPT tag allows browsers to "see" what users would see when they push a button (i.e. view dynamic content). NOSCRIPT is shown by script-aware browsers if scripting is disabled or a scripting language which it did not understand was used. NOSCRIPT supports all core attributes, international attributes, and events, though they are not needed.

If you wish to make pages which are widely compatible and will work with the next generation of browsers without breaking, it is wise to use the Type AND Language attributes, while avoiding the Src, For and Event attributes. You should also provide alternate content. For example:

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/vbscript" LANGUAGE="VBScript">
<!--
script data
'-->
</SCRIPT>
<NOSCRIPT>
alternate data
</NOSCRIPT>

Page popularity

A measure of the number and quality of links to a particular page (inbound links). Many search engines (and most noticeably Google) are increasingly using this number as part of the positioning process. The number and quality of inbound links is becoming as important as the optimization of page content. A free service to measure page popularity can be found athttp://www.linkpopularity.com.

See also SEO (Optimization)Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Placement

See PositioningSEO (Optimization)Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Pop-up window

A small box that appears over a visited page to deliver information or display an ad.

See also NOSCRIPT tag

Positioning

The process of ordering web sites or web pages by a search engine or a directory so that the most relevant sites appear first in the search results for a particular query. There are a number of software programs that can be used to determine how a URL is positioned for a particular search engine when using a particular search phrase.

See also SEO (Optimization)Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Positioning technique

A method of modifying a web page so that search engines (or a particular search engine) treat the page as more relevant to a particular query (or a set of queries).

See also SEO (Optimization)Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Query

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.

Ranking

See PositioningSEO (Optimization)Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Registration

The process of informing a search engine or directory that a new web page or web site should be indexed.  

Relevancy algorithm

The method a search engine or directory uses to match the keywords in a query with the content of each web page, so that the web pages found can be ordered suitably in the query results. Each search engine or directory is likely to use a different algorithm, and to change or improve its algorithm from time to time.  

Relevancy ranking of search results

The most common method for determining the order in which search results are displayed. Each search tool uses its own unique algorithm. Most use "fuzzy and" combined with such factors as how often your terms occur in documents, whether they occur together as a phrase, and whether they are in Title or how near the top of the text. Popularity is another ranking system.

See also SEO (Optimization)Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Re-submission

Repeating the search engine registration process one or more times for the same page or site. Under certain circumstances, this is regarded with suspicion by the search engines, as it could indicate that someone is experimenting with spamming techniques.

The Infoseek and Altavista search engines are particularly vulnerable to spamming because they list sites very quickly, and are thus easy to experiment with. Both engines de-list sites for repeated re-submission and Infoseek, for example, does not allow more than one submission of the same page in a 24 hour period. Occasional re-submission of changed pages is not normally a problem.    

Robot

Any browser program which follows hypertext links and accesses web pages but is not directly under human control. Examples are the search engine spiders, the "harvesting" programs which extract e-mail addresses and other data from web pages and various intelligent web searching programs. A database of web robots is maintained by Webcrawler.

robots.txt

A text file stored in the top level directory of a web site to deny access byrobots to certain pages or sub-directories of the site. Only robots which comply with the Robots Exclusion Standard will read and obey the commands in this file. Robots will read this file on each visit, so that pages or areas of sites can be made public or private at any time by changing the content of robots.txt before re-submitting to the search engines.

Take a look this simple example provided by Google: <META NAME="Googlebot" CONTENT="nofollow">
In this example, a robot should neither index this document, nor analyse it for links. <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="noindex, nofollow">
In this example, you are asking robots not to archive your pages, so that your old pages, the ones you have removed, for example, do not get displayed in search results. <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="noarchive">

For more information about robots.txt see also HTML Author's Guide to the Robots META tag. Note, however, currently only few robots support the robot tag.

See also Meta TagsTags

RSS

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary. A machine-readable file format designed for syndicating content of websites. It is a format for distributing and gathering content from sources across the Web, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs. News sites publish via RSS, and then individuals and websites automatically get the updated content.

Search engine

A server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing Internet web pages, storing the results and returning lists of pages which match particular queries. Some of the major search engines are GoogleAltavistaMSNExciteHotbotInfoseekLycos, and Webcrawler. Note that Yahoo is a directory, not a search engine.  

The term Search Engine is also often used to describe both directories and search engines.    

Search Engines for the general web (like all those listed above) do not really search the World Wide Web directly. Each one searches a database of the full text of web pages selected from the billions of web pages out there residing on servers. When you search the web using a search engine, you are always searching a somewhat stale copy of the real web page. When you click on links provided in a search engine's search results, you retrieve from the server the current version of the page.

Crawler-based search engines have three major elements. Search engine databases are selected and built by computer robot programs called spiders, the first major element. Spider is that part of a search engine which surfs the web, storing the URLs and indexing the keywords and text of each page it finds. Google's spider, also called crawler, is calledGooglebot. Although it is said they "crawl" the web in their hunt for pages to include, in truth they stay in one place. They find the pages for potential inclusion by following the links in the pages they already have in their database (i.e., already "know about"). They cannot think or type a URL or use judgment to "decide" to go look something up on the Internet.

If a web page is never linked to in any other page, search engine spiders cannot find it. The only way a brand new page - one that no other page has ever linked to - can get into a search engine is for its URL to be sent by some human to the search engine companies as a request that the new page be included. All search engine companies offer ways to do this.

After spiders find pages, they pass them on to another computer program for "indexing." The index is the second major element of a search engine. Sometimes called the catalog, the index is like a giant book containing a copy of every Web page that the spider finds. If a Web page changes, then this index is updated with new information. Sometimes it can take a while for new pages or changes that the spider finds to be added to the index. Thus, a Web page may have been "spidered" but not yet "indexed." Until it is indexed – (added to the index) -- it is not available to those searching with the search engine. 

The third part of a search engine is the search engine softwarethat sifts through the millions of pages recorded in the index to find matches to a search query and rank them in order of what it believes is most relevant.

Some types of pages and links are excluded from most search engines by policy. Others are excluded because search engine spiders cannot access them. Pages that are excluded are referred to as the "Invisible Web", i.e.  what you don't see in search engine results. The Invisible Web is estimated to be two to three or more times bigger than the visible web. (Source: Berkeley University).

More information about how different search engines work:http://comparesearchengines.dogpile.com/OverlapAnalysis.pdf

SEO (Optimization)

Usually, search engine optimization (SEO) of a website is defined as a set of techniques applied to the website to improve its ranking and positioning with search engines, with the goal of helping visitors or potential customers find a website through a keyword search on search engines. Optimization may involve design/layout changes, new text for the TITLE tags,  METATAGS, alt- attributes, headings, and above all, changes to the main text. Additionally, it is also advisable to supplement "organic" site optimization with paid-per-click campaigns, such as Google's AdWords, for example.

Below are a few SEO rules:

  • Quality links, especially incoming links, should be created.
  • Keyword-rich copy (content) should be present on all pages.
  • Content of the Title tag and META tags should be page relevant, i.e. these tags should contain keywords that are repeated throughout the body (content) of a particular page.
  • Large sites with heavy long pages rank higher than small sites.
  • Supplementary documentation in .PDF and other formats add great SEO value (articles, manuals, white papers).
  • A link to a 'Site Map' should be placed on every page (avoid using 'include' files, if possible).
  • Frames should be avoided (unless proper coding is implemented).<

See also Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Server

A computer, program or process which responds to requests for information from a client. On the Internet, all web pages are held on servers. This includes those parts of the search engines and directories which are accessible from the Internet.

Siphoning

The use of various means to steal another site's traffic. Techniques used include the wholesale copying of web pages (with the copied page altered slightly to direct visitors to a different site, and then registered with the search engines) and the use of keywords or keyword phrases "belonging" to other organizations, companies or web sites.  

Spamdexing

The alteration or creation of a document with intent to deceive an electronic catalog or filing system. Any technique that increases the potential position of a site at the expense of the quality of the search engine's database can also be regarded as spamdexing, also known as spamming or spoofing.Note that search engines contain an automatic de-listing function in their algorithm, and errors do occur. If you think that your site has been unjustly de-listed, contact the search engines' support department, explain your story, be very nice and polite, and request to be re-included in the index. You may need to do so a number of times before you get to hear from them. 

Spamming

Spamming is also used more generally to refer to the sending of unsolicited bulk electronic mail, and the search engine use is derived from this term.

See also Spamdexing

Spider, Spyder

That part of a search engine which surfs the web, storing the URLs and indexing the keywords and text of each page it finds. Please refer to the Search Engine Watch SpiderSpotting Chart for details of individual spiders. See also Robot.

Spidering

The process of surfing the web, storing URLs and indexing keywords, links and text. Typically, even the largest search engines cannot spider all of the pages on the net. This is due to the huge amount of data available, the speed at which the new data appears, the use of politeness windows and practical limits on the number of pages that can be visited in a given time. The search engines have to make compromises in order to visit as many sites as possible, and they do this in different ways. For example, some only index the home pages of each site, some only visit sites they're explicitly told about, and some make judgment about the importance of sites (from number and quality of inbound links) before "digging deeper" into the sub-pages of a site.

Spoofing

See also Spamdexing

Static page

Static pages reside on servers, each identified by a unique URL, and waiting to be retrieved when their URL is invoked. Spiders can find a static page if it is linked to in any other page they "know" about. They follow links to it and retrieve it much as you would by clicking if you knew the link. Static pages are not invisible, although search engines might choose to omit them for policy reasons discussed below.

The opposite of a static page is a "dynamically generated" page. Pages created as the result of a search are called dynamically generated pages. The answer to your query is encased in a web page designed to carry the answer and sent to your computer. Often the page is not stored anywhere afterward, because its unique content (the answer to your specific query) is probably not of use to many other people. It's easier for the database to regenerate the page when needed than to keep it around.

See also  Dynamically generated page 

Stop words

In database searching, "stop words" are small and frequently occurring words like and, or, in, of that are often ignored when keyed as search terms. Sometimes putting them in quotes " " will allow you to search them. Sometimes + immediately before them makes them searchable. As a rule, it is advisable to check with search engines themselves as to what they omit and what not. 

See also how Google works

Tags

Notifications or commands written into a web document. Tags is a colloquial name for 'HTML Tags', a code to identify the different parts of a document so that a web browser will know how to display it. Tags are usually included in the brackets: <tag content>.  The end of a tag is identified as </tag content>.

Some of the most important tags from the SEO perspective are the following:

Title tagMETA tagsNOFRAMES, NOSCRIPT, andNOARCHIVE. Also see info on robot.txt

Title

The title tag is used to identify a page. Title text is important because it normally forms the link to the page from the search engine listings, and because the search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing the page. Don't confuse this text with heading text within the web page which often looks like the title. Usually this will be rendered either using the HTML heading tags or just rendered with a large font size. Note that placing multiple Title tags is considered spam (see Multiple titles). 

<head> 
<TITLE>Anna Tulchinsky: Helping you attract customers through Search Engine Optimization</TITLE>
...

See also Tags

Traffic

The visitors to a web page or web site. Also refers to the number of visitors, hits, accesses etc. over a given period.

Unique visitor

A real visitor to a web site. Web servers record the IP addresses of each visitor, and this is used to determine the number of real people who have visited a web site. If for example, someone visits twenty pages within a web site, the server will count only one unique visitor (because the page accesses are all associated with the same IP address) but twenty page accesses.

URL

Universal Resource Locator. An address which can specify your website uniquely. For example: www.AnnaTulchinsky.com.

Web copywriting

The writing of text particularly for a web page. Similar to the writing of copy for any other type of publication, good web copywriting can have a great effect on search engine positioning, and it forms a major part of search engine optimization.  

See also SEO (Optimization)Web definitions of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 

 

Finding out return-on-investment (ROI) metric on search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns

SEO ROI Calculator
The ROI metric for SEO and web marketing campaigns can be successfully calculated using the following formula:

100% x (Revenue - Cost)/Cost = ROI %

SEO News
Subscribe to receive daily or weekly SEO news. Good way to stay tuned to the SEO world.

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One of the largest collection of SEO resources on the Internet.

 

2007 - Online Ad Spending to Total $19.5 Billion in 2007

2006 - Search Engine Marketing Is a Rocket: Spending Is Up 62%; Advertisers Spent. Total of $9.4 Billion in 2006, according to SEMPO Survey of SEM Industry

Direct sales ROI and expanding small business market are two main factors driving SEM growth.

WAKEFIELD, MA - February 8, 2007

North American advertisers spent $9.4 billion on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) in 2006, a 62 percent increase over 2005 spending, according to an annual industry survey conducted by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)www.sempo.org. SEMPO researchers also estimate SEM spending to double by 2011, at an aggregate spending total of $18.6 billion.

The report, "The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006," collected data on spending trends by agencies and in-house advertisers. The SEM programs surveyed include paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search engine optimization (SEO) and SEM technology platforms. The report is based on an industrywide survey of 587 respondents - both agency and in-house advertisers - conducted in November and December 2006 by Radar Research, LLC and Intellisurvey.

"These spending figures show that 2006 was a watershed year for the SEM industry".Read full report

Spending Trends

SEMPO's survey found organic SEO (tactics for improving a website's non-advertising rank in search engines) is still the most popular form of SEM, with almost three-quarters of advertisers using this method, with paid placement a very close second at 71 percent. However, in dollars, paid placement accounted for 86 percent of total spending, or $8 billion. Organic SEO accounted for $1.1 billion in spending, or 12 percent. Paid inclusion continues its decline, accounting for one percent of total spending, or $94 million. SEM technology platforms account for the remainder, at 1.3 percent, or $122 million in spending. Read full report

MSN Gaining on Competition

The SEMPO survey also found that MSN is gaining on Google and Yahoo!, now ranking third in paid placement SEM. In one year, MSN has made tremendous progress: in 2005 only 29 percent of respondents said they were using MSN; in 2006 that number rose to 68 percent.

Google AdWords continues its reign as most popular search advertising program, used by 96 percent of respondents. Yahoo registered 86 percent of respondents saying they used the program.

In other trends:

  • 75% of advertisers said they could afford a mild increase in paid placement; the remaining 25% say they have topped out in cost per lead spending 
     
  • SEM continues to poach budget from other marketing channels, especially offline marketing programs 
     
  • In-house marketing programs continue to grow, portending further consolidation on the agency side of the business Read full report

Canadian Spending on Search Marketing

IAB Canada reported that online ad spending in Canada hit CAD$1.01 billion in 2006, up 80% over 2005, with a projection of 32% growth in 2007, to reach $1.33 billion in sales. Broken down by category, online classifieds and directories had the biggest growth in '06, rising 120%, while email advertising was up 82%, paid search rose 79% and display ads were up 58%.

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The OttawaStart website includes a directory of local Web links, as well as free classifieds, movie listings, giveaways and more. Sign up for free gas prices updates, free car pool info and more!   Founded in 1998 by Glen Gower, a local producer, the site now serves 20,000 visitors every week.

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The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) is one of Canada's most successful partnership organizations. Through its more than 600 members, OCRI brings business, education and research together to create the winning economic conditions that allow Ottawa's companies to thrive locally and compete globally.

Ottawa Capital Network
The Ottawa Capital Network assists in creating efficiencies in the capital market through programs aimed at educating the entrepreneurial community, creating linkages among the investment community and providing knowledge and support to the business community. The Ottawa Capital Network (OCN) is a program of OCRI’s Entrepreneurship Centre. OCRI is a not-for-profit organization that builds on the strengths of the region to advance research and development, lifelong learning, professional development and community infrastructure.

The Ottawa Network
The Ottawa Network (TON) is a grass roots, community based, volunteer organization founded in the fall of 2001. Since then, The Ottawa Network has been very successful in creating a community of budding Ottawa entrepreneurs that support and learn from each other. There were over 700 members of the “network”, as of the fall 2003, including entrepreneurs, professionals and supporters.

Ottawa Wireless Cluster
The Ottawa Wireless Cluster holds regular events that include networking and presentations from industry experts on topics ranging from wireless technologies, business models, marketing and investment.

Ottawa e-Business Cluster
The Ottawa e-Business cluster (EBC) is Ottawa's primary e-Business and e-Commerce hub. Events and resources are meant for companies engaged in online business as well as for providers, suppliers and support services to the e-Business sector. The primary mission of EBC is 'virtual' economic development and stimulation. All feature speaker and network events are FREE. EBC is an OCRI supported cluster. 

Ottawa Manufacturers' Network 
The Ottawa Manufacturers' Network (OMN) provides a networking environment for area manufacturing companies, large and small, from all sectors of industry, companies supporting manufacturing, and other relevant government and educational entities.

Ottawa Test Engineering Workshop
This organization conducts regular workshops that attract 1000+ people from 150+ different companies.

Zone5ive
A speaker series designed exclusively for Ottawa's rapidly growing technology marketing community.

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ft-1(613) 231-6308

ft-2info@annatulchinsky.com

ft-3548 Aberfoyle Circle,
Ottawa, Ontario, K2K 3R2