vocabimg

Image borrowed from alistapart.com

Weclome to the vocabulary section. In this section I will make an attempt to clearly define the often confusing language of findability while trying to retain my sanity. Here goes.

  • Findability - Findability is nothing more than all that encompases the art of making web pages more findable. This can include everything from search engine optimization aka SEO (which should be defined a little further down on this very list) to other enhancements/technologies which suprisingly will also be defined below.
  • (SEO)Search Engine Optimization - What a beautiful sequence of words. You could honestly have no idea what they mean, but if said confidently, and paired with the words website or webpage i'd be convinced you could handcode just about anything. As I digress, SEO is simply the art of increasing traffic volume/hits to a particular site. There are many techniques and processes that lie beneath the all encompassing SEO umbrella.
  • (301) Page Redirect - Page redirects often seem useless or unimportant, but can infact be an essential element of the traditional web page. Redirects which are also reffered to as "301 redirects", are the most search engine friendly for page redirection. That is, if they are properly formatted.

  • Anchor Tags - Anchor tags are quite simply what you see when hyperlinking, aka the click on this stuff, you know!? Anchor tag text is important in regards to findability simply because keyword relevant tags increase the amount of times specifics words appear in your site, thus making it more findable. Shall we move on to ALT tags?

  • ALT Tags - Crtl, Alt, Delete. No, not even close. ALT tags specifically refer to the text that is present if an image is not visible to respective visitors for whatever reason(s). ALT tags also serve as a prime opportunity to use various keywords to assist crawlers, bots, and other little bugs. Scary.

  • Black Hat SEO - FYI, Fedoras > Fitted's, but these aren't the type of "hats" i'm reffering to. When it comes to Black Hat SEO, these could in fact be hat tricks (go Chris gooo!). Black Hat SEOing is the use of unethical (that's right, if they are used you go straight to the firepit) tactics to increase search engine ranking position. www.NotCool.com

  • White Hat SEO - Ahhhhhhh, so clean, fresh, and velvety. White Hat SEOing is the use of techniques that are deemed ethical or acceptable in regards to web standards. Speaking of which, I would trade this overly nerdy dual monitor setup in front of me right now for a furry white Kangol hat. In the words of Mr. Merkle, carry on young sir, carry on.

  • Grey Hat SEO -The "Grey" area between the white and the black. Wait, that makes too much sense. Grey Hat SEO is the inexcusable act of commiting questionable SEOing. It could be right, but it might be wrong. When in doubt, press backspace.

  • Crawl - Ummmmmmm, what I do after a rediculously long night of staring at code? Incorrect! Crawl-ing actually has much more to do with the actual process that the bots from various search engines do to gather information from your site. Sneaky little bugs.

  • Search Engine Marketing - Consider this the nephew of Search Engine Optimization. Agencies that offer Search Engine Marketing services are responsible for doing all the fancy SEO stuff while collecting a handsome check. And the award goes to: the agencies.