Definitions

We've assembled a brief list of words and definitions to help you when evaluating your web site traffic statistics:

• Hits: Hits are the number of file requests made on the server. They mean very little to someone evaluating real traffic. This is a number you most likely want to skip right over.
• Unique Visitor: This is an actual individual spending time in your site. The number of unique visitors provides you some very valuable information regarding site traffic.
• Visitor Session: A visitor session is the actual time a user spends in your site. For instance if you visit google.com and read the news for five minutes, you have just added one "visitor session" to their statistics.
• Returning Visitor: This is a unique visitor that has spent time in your site two or more times. A high number of returning visitors is a good sign that your web site is "sticky."
• Search Engine Referrals: This is the number of times users performed searches in the search engines, found your site in the results and clicked through. Tracking this on a regular basis provides you with some good insight as to whether or not the ranking you have in the search engines is working for you. To take this tracking to the next level, it is also important to track your conversion rate. If your referral rate is high, but your conversion rate is very low, this is a good indicator that while you may have good ranking, you may not have it for the right key words.
• Conversion Rate: The conversion rate is the number of people that come to your site and do more than just take your free information. In other words, they "do" something. Depending on your site and its purpose, that could be filling out a sales lead form, it could be making a purchase or simply sending an e-mail.
• Referring Site: Any site that provides your site with visitors is a "referring site." Many trade associations and organizations provide links to their members. These may be among your top referring sites. Obviously any directory listings or banner advertisements you place would fall into this category as well. In fact it is fairly simple to track each user from a given banner ad to get an exact measurement of your ROI.
• Algorithms: The calculations made by search engine software that determine how a web site is ranked within a search result list. Each search engine will use a different set of algorithms (which are closely guarded secrets) and factors such as a web site's title, body copy, meta-tags and link popularity may be important in achieving a high search engine ranking.
• Crawlers: The term used for the tools that search engines automatically send out to find web sites, record them and index them within their databases. Also known as robots or spiders. Some crawlers (also known as "spiders") will only visit the home page of a web site while others may 'deep crawl' and index many sub-pages, depending on the structure of the site.
• Directories: A web search tool compiled manually by human editors. Once web sites are submitted with information such as a title and description, they are assessed by an editor and, if deemed suitable for addition, will be listed under one or more subject categories. Users can search across a directory using keywords or phrases, or browse through the subject hierarchy. Best examples of a directory are Yahoo and the Open Directory Project.
• FFA sites: Free For All sites are often included within the lists used by some companies or software, offering submission of your web site to 'thousands of sites." However web sites are added to FFA sites on a "most-recent" basis and are used to front a marketing site. As a result, submissions to FFA sites will usually result in your web site only being listed for a short time and in return, your e-mail address will receive hundreds of junk marketing e-mails, many of which will require a manual opt-out.
• HTML: Hyper-Text Mark-up Language is the common coding used to create web sites that can be read by Internet browsers (such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator). Part of the HTML coding for a web site should include the meta-tags required for search engine optimization.
• Keywords: To achieve a high search engine placement for a relevant search, a web site must contain the appropriate positioning and density of keywords or phrases related to the search terms used. This is a critical part of the search engine optimization for any web site.
• Meta tags: An element of HTML coding on a web site that is used by search engines to index a web site. Most meta-tags are included within the "header" code of a web site and the most important tags are the title, description and keyword tags. Rules used by different search engines govern how such tags are used, how many characters they should contain, and how they should be formatted.
• Meta search engines: A type of search tool that will allow a user to conduct a search across two or more search engines and directories at a time. These tools don't hold an index of their own, but are programmed to search across many of the top search tools simultaneously.
• Pay-per-click search tools: These search tools are becoming increasingly widespread as they provide sponsored results to many partner search engines or directories. The concept enables companies to achieve a top placement by bidding an amount of money for a search term. Once a user clicks on the link from the search results, the bid amount is deducted from the web site owner's account. Examples of these tools include Overture and Google Adwords.
• Search engine: A web search tool that automatically visits web sites (using crawlers), records and indexes them within its database, and generates results based on a user's search criteria. Submitting a web site to a search engine usually requires just the page URL (and often an e-mail address) and optimization techniques are essential for a web site to be indexed and ranked appropriately by search engines. Some examples of a search engine are AltaVista, Google and Lycos.
• Search engine marketing: The term used to describe the range of marketing techniques required to make a web site visible on search engines and directories so that it will attract visits from its target audience. This includes the optimization of a site, the submission to directories, the use of "pay-per-click" search tools and keyword related advertising.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): The term used to describe the marketing technique of preparing a web site to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. A number of factors are important when optimizing a web site, including the content and structure of the web site's copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process.
• Search engine placement: The marketing term used to describe the process of ensuring that a web site appears in the top results list of a search engine or directory once a relevant search has been implemented.
• Search results: The ranked listing that appears once a search is submitted on a search engine or directory. Results are often displayed in groups of ten, and research has shown that web sites appearing lower than 20-30 in the search results are less likely to be seen, or visited.
• Spamming: The term used to describe techniques that might be used to "trick" search engines into ranking a web site high up in their search results - such as the repetitive use of keywords, hidden text or keywords unrelated to the site's content. Search engines will penalize web sites that use such methods and will either downgrade them in their rankings, or exclude them completely.
• Submission: The process of notifying search engines or directories about a web site. Every search tool has a form to enable the submission of web sites, varying from a simple URL address (for a search engine), to more detailed information (for a directory).