Search Engine Optimization Glossary: S

Site Popularity (Link Popularity)

Site popularity (also referred to as "link popularity") is also called a site's significance ranking, because it is believed that one measure of a site's "value" is the number and importance of other Web sites who felt your site was significant enough to link to.

If important and authoritative sites in your focus area link to you, chances are your site is relatively important as well. The popularity of the sites that link to you can also play a role.

However, this is only one factor, and you can certainly achieve high rankings without being linked to from thousands of other sites. In fact, it's not the sheer number of links you should focus on, but the number of links from popular and authoritative sites in your topic area. And, focus on the link text that is being used to describe your site from those sites linking to yours. This is called your site's (or page's) link reputation.

Spam

Spam refers to content on your Web page that the search engines consider to be an unacceptable tactic to gain a top ranking. Some search engines will ban Web sites or refuse to index the page if they catch you spamming. Exactly what is considered to be spam can vary for each search engine. Examples of spam for most search engines are using the same color text as the background, excessively repeating a keyword on the page, or optimizing for keywords that do not apply to your Web site. WebPosition's Page Critic provides further details regarding what's considered spam.

Spider

A program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner.

Glossary of SEO Terminology

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