seo

Search engine optimization (Ŏp'tě-mĭ-zā'shěn) n.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making your website easy to find on the internet. This is done by optimizing your site for the search engines that people use to surf the internet. A well optimized site can draw thousands of (free) referrals per day from major search engines. Properly optimizing your site will mean a gradual shift away from Pay-Per-Click campaigns to cost-free referrals.

Google is your friend

At the moment, Google is by far the most popular internet search engine in the world. At the time of writing, Yahoo is the second largest, having taken over a majority of remaining smaller engines (Inktomi.com, Altavista.com, fastsearch.com, alltheweb.com, etc.) through its acquisition of Overture. Bing is the 3rd player, and reported to be developing their own search engine that will produce independent results.

The Google engine and indexes are used by numerous big players like Yahoo, Hotbot, AOL, and Netscape.

Search term keywords e.g. www.google.com/help.html

Search terms, also referred to as keywords, are the words, terms, and phrases that visitors use to find your site.