SEO Glossary A

AdSense

AdSense is a marketing and advertising tool from Google. It provides a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money. The AdSense system matches the ads to the content of the site which improves the impact of on-site advertising over other ad placement services.

AdWords

AdWords is the service from Google for advertisers to submit their add to be displayed in relevant places and websites on the Google network. It is a CPC system which can be set to run at any level to suit any budget.

Algorithm

Refers to the complex programming that sets the operational structure of the search engines.

Alt tag

Short for alternative text. Search engine spiders cant process images so the alt tag provides them with a textual understanding. Abuse by many web designers has seen the importance of this tag lessen over time, but as a usability factor it is still important for hover overs etc.

Anchor Text

The actual text that makes the hyperlink. For example in this sentence THIS IS THE ANCHOR TEXT as it is the active bit you click on. A very important factor in the Google algorithm.

ASP

Active Server Pages. Microsoft programming language.

ATW

ATW is short for All The Web. This is a popular search tool owned
by Yahoo and using its database, but presenting results
differently.