Link Exchange Glossary - Terms and Definitions 

For the benefit of our users and the Internet as a whole, we provide this list of commonly used linking terms and their definitions. Check out the 'more information' links for more detailed information on how a terms applies directly to your link management campaign. Please use the navigation bars to jump between different letters in the glossary.

#'s

1 way link - A one way link is where Site A links to Site B without the other site linking back. These links are typically just for the benefit of your visitor.
see also: one way link
2 way link - A two way link is where Site A links to Site B and in return Site B links back to Site A. This is also known as reciprocal linking which is what the internet is built on.
see also: reciprocal link, two way links
3 way link - A three way link is where Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, and Site C links to Site A. 3 way linking can be done successfully; however, it is frequently abused by black hat webmasters.
see also: triangular linking, three way links
A

<a> anchor tag - This is the HTML tag that will "link" to another site. Visitors clicking on the link will be directed to the other site. There are many options and opportunities to optimize this HTML tag.
see also: HTML link, hyperlink

absolute link - An absolute link is an anchor tag where the href= or src= a full url.
I.e. <a href="http://www.linksmanager.com/pagenamehere.html"> This is the opposite of a relative link.

add link form - A page on your site where visitors and potential link partners are able to submit their site to you for a possible link exchange. Using an add link form will help other webmasters in linking to your site.

affiliate link - These links are typically provided to you by the company you are an affiliate of. These links typically have some type of identifier that indicates anyone clicking that link came from you.

anchor text - This is the information between the anchor tags that users click to get to your site. This is commonly referred to as your Link Title or Site Name.
see also: link text

auto-rotation - This is the practice of rotating your links so that all will get an opportunity to be on the front page of their category.
see also: link rotation


B

backlinks - A link from another site that is pointing to your site. Many search engines have options to find how many backlinks you have to your site.
see also: inbound links

bad links - Any link to a site that is irrelevant, not beneficial to your end user and/or only intended to boost search engine rankings. Such links can have negative effects on your search engine rankings.
see also: irrelevant link

black hat - The term that describes companies, individuals or programs that engage linking in unethical ways or using unethical practices.

Blacklist - In your LinksManager account this is the feature that blocks specific webmasters from submitting links to your add link page based on information such as specific keywords, sitename, URL, description and email address.

blacklisted - To be removed from a directory or search engine. Blacklisting will occur for violating a site's terms and conditions.

blog - A website or section of a website where entries are written in chronological order and then displayed with the most recent entries showing first.
see also: LinkBlogs


C

chicanery - Deception of an individual or company by trickery.
see also: gamesmanship

click tracking - A method of tracking how many visitors click on a specific link on your site or tracking how many visitors came to your site from an online advertisement.
see also: Top Links List

cloaking - Cloaking is a black hat technique in which the content presented to search engine spiders or link checkers is different from that presented to the user via their browser.

CMS content management system - A Content Management System (CMS) is a software system used for managing the content of your website. CMS is deployed primarily for interactive use by defined users and/or visitors.

CNAME - A CNAME record or canonical name record is an alias of one domain to another. This is useful when your hosting company doesn't offer FTP. A CNAME record would allow your links pages to be displayed at an address like: http://resources.yourdomain.com.


D

dead link - A dead link or broken link is a link that points to a web page that is permanently unavailable. The most common result of a dead link is a 404 error, which indicates that the web server responded, but the specific page could not be found.
see also: link rot

deep link - Deep linking is making a hyperlink that points to a specific page on another website, instead of that website's home page. This in turn results in multiple hyperlinks pointing to different pages of your site.

directory - An organized set of web pages or links displayed by category and subcategory. This is different from a search engine, as a directory is not displayed as a list of sites by keyword search.
see also: LinkPartners.com

dynamic link - A dynamic link is generated at the time the page is requested. Typically cgi and other scripts generate links from a database dynamically upon request. These types of links are difficult for the search engines and web spiders to find.


E

editor-based - Requiring human interaction in that link requests are approved one at a time by a human in order to facilitate ethical and thoughtful linking

external link - Any link that is pointed outside of your site.


F

FFA free for all - A Web site that consists of pages with long lists of Web sites, and allows anyone to add their own link automatically regardless of relevance.
see also: link farm

FTP file transfer protocol - used to transfer data from one computer to another over the Internet, or through a network.

full duplex linking - A fully automated system where links are exchanged between sites without the editorial discretion and action of a human.
see also: black hat


G

gamesmanship - The use of dubious (although not technically illegal) methods to attempt to inflate search engine rankings.
see also: chicanery

Googlebot - A Googlebot is a search bot used by Google. It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google search engine.

Google SiteMaps - a google webmaster tool to inform Google about URLs on your website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site that you want Google to index.
see also: sitemap


H

HTML link - A link in your website that points to another page of your site or points to another page on a different site.
see also: anchor tag, hyperlink

hyperlink - A reference or navigation element in a document that points to either another section of the same document or on another document that may be on a different website.
see also: anchor tag, HTML link


I

iframe - or inline frame, is an HTML element which makes it possible to embed another web page inside the main web page.
see also: include, SSI server side includes

inbound links - An inbound link would be a link to your site from another site. Inbound links were the primary means of web navigation prior to the emergence of search engines. Inbound links are still one of the factors in search engine rankings.
see also: backlinks

include - An include is used to insert the code from one web page inside the main web page. This is done on the server side before the page is shown to the visitor.
see also: iframe, SSI server side includes

irrelevant link - A link to another site that has nothing to do with your site's theme, focus, genre or visitors. Irrelevant linking is practiced by black hat webmasters and will negatively affect your site's search engine rankings. Even Google states clearly in their guidelines - "have relevant sites link to yours."
see also: bad link


J
K

L

link activation - The process of sending an email to a submitting webmaster to verify that they used a valid email address and that this person requested a link exchange.

link baiting - creating content or features within a website that somehow baits visitors to place links to it from their websites.

LinkBlogs - Combining the power of reciprocal linking and blogging, the LinkBlogs feature supercharges your links pages with dynamic, automatically updated content never before seen on the Internet!
see also: blog

link building - One of many optimization processes in which you build a directory of relevant sites for the benefit of your end user.

link checkers - Spiders and robots that crawl the Internet and store all the links they find per site in order to compile those urls and report back to the user the status of any inbound links on other sites.

link expiration - The practice of expiring a link after a certain period of time. Links will display until that date and then be removed from the links pages.

link farm - any group of web sites that all hyperlink to every other page in the group without regard for relevancy. Although some link farms can be created by hand, most are created through automated programs and services.
see also: FFA free for all

LinkLets - a powerful method for displaying links from your LinksManager account. Linklets allow for alternative publishing methods other than the standard "Yahoo"-style, categorized search engine directory including full customization and exciting new design possibilities.

LMS link management system - A Link Management System (LMS) is a software system used for managing the links to and from your website. LMS is deployed primarily to help manage the time consuming process of linking with other sites.

link partner - A link partner is any webmaster that you have an agreement to exchange reciprocal links.

LinkPartners.com - a categorized directory of websites that are actively engaged in exchanging reciprocal links, link swapping, and link exchange with other relevant sites. LinkPartners provides you with an exclusive, editor-based resource for easily locating like-minded sites.
see also: directory

link popularity - a measure of the quantity and quality of other web sites that link to a specific site. It is an example of the move by search engines towards off-the-page-criteria to determine quality content and is used by most all search engines today.
see also: PageRank, PR

link relevance - A measure of how another site's content compliments your site's content. Sites with similar themes and visitors are encouraged to swap links.

link request - An email from one webmaster asking another webmaster if they are interested in exchanging links.
see also:

link rot - the process by which links on a website gradually become irrelevant or broken as time passes, because websites that they link to disappear, change their content or redirect to new locations.
see also: dead link

link rotation - rotating your links on your links pages so each link has an equal opportunity to be displayed on the first page of it's category.
see also: auto rotation

link strategy - an overall plan or goal for your link exchange campaign. Knowing in advance how you are going to perform and solicit link exchanges is important.

link swapping - a mutual agreement between webmasters for their sites to link with each other.

link text - This is the information between the anchor tags that users click to get to your site. This is commonly referred to as your Link Title or Site Name.
see also: anchor text


M

meta tag - is a meta element used to provide information about a web page. These elements must be placed as tags in the head section of an HTML or XHTML document and are used to further describe the specific page.


N

natural linking - building a link campaign over a period of time where the linking occurs at a natural rate. Search engines look at the rate which you obtain links and unnatural increases in your site linking will be noticed by the search engines.
see also: organic linking

natural search results - these are the results that are produced when searching any search engine that are not "sponsored" or paid for.

nofollow attribute - nofollow is a non-standard HTML attribute value used to instruct search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index. This is used by many blogging programs to avoid spamming the search engines.


O

oblique linking - linking with other sites in your industry's vertical markets. They may not be directly relevant to your business or visitor but would be vertically relevant.

one way links - A 1 way link is where Site A links to Site B without the other site linking back. These links are typically just for the benefit of your visitor.
see also: 1 way links

optimization - improving your site for the benefit of your visitors and the search engines.
see also: SEO search engine optimization

organic linking - building a link campaign over a period of time where the linking occurs at a natural or organic rate. Search engines look at the rate which you obtain links and unnatural increases in your site linking will be noticed by the search engines.
see also: natural linking

outbound links - Any link on your web site that points to a different website.


P

PageRank - A method developed and patented by Stanford University and Larry Page (cofounder of Google) to rank search engine results. PageRank gives a unique ranking to every page on the internet. The ranking number is based on the number and quality of inbound links pointing at a page.
see also: PR, link popularity

paid links - Any link that you pay another webmaster to post on their site. These links are discredited by the search engines and can result in your site being blacklisted.
see also: bad links, black hat

PPC pay per click - search engine marketing where the search engine charges your web site on a per click basis for advertising. Often, an auction is held to see who is willing to pay the most for users and win the advertisement until someone is willing to pay more.

PR - The abbreviation for Google's PageRank. This is typically followed by a number from 0-10. I.e. The official white house web site has a PR10 which is the highest possible.
see also: PageRank, link popularity


Q

R

reciprocal link - a link on another person's site that is pointing back to your site in exchange for you linking to their site.
see also: 2 way link, two way link

reciprocal link ratio - the ratio of reciprocating links to the total number of your active links. This ratio varies greatly based on industry and relevancy of the links. Anywhere from 30%-70% is a good ratio depending on your link strategy.

relative links - A relative link has an anchor tag where the href= or src= a partial url.
I.e. <a href="/pagenamehere.html"> This is the opposite of an absolute link.

relevant links - A link to another site that has compliments your site's theme, focus, genre or visitors. Relevant linking is practiced by white hat webmasters and will positively affect your site's search engine rankings. Even Google states clearly in their guidelines - "have relevant sites link to yours."

ResponseRank - Our system for monitoring the time between when a link exchange request is sent to you, and when you respond either by reciprocating the link, or politely declining the link request. The faster the response the higher the ResponseRank number will be. Only LinksManager users can initiate the requests and have the request tracked with the ResponseRank qualifications. Click here to learn more

robots.txt - A file on a web site in the root directory that is used to control which spiders have access to which pages within a website. When a spider or robot connects to a website, it checks for the presence of a robots.txt file. Only spiders that adhere to the Robots Exclusion Standard will obey a robots.txt command file.


S

SEM search engine marketing - a form of Internet Marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
see also: SEO search engine optimization, SERP search engine results page

SEO search engine optimization - is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" search results.
see also: SEO search engine marketing, SERP search engine results page

SERP search engine results page - pages returned by a search engine in response to a search term. The results normally include a list of web sites with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page.
see also: SEO search engine optimization, SEM search engine marketing

search term - The keyword terms used in a search engine to find sites relevant to that term.

sitemap - a graphical representation of the architecture of a web site. Either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists all the other pages on a web site. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.
see also: Google SiteMaps

spidering - the process in which a program or automated script browses the Internet in a methodical, automated manner.

SSI server side includes - used to insert the code from one web page inside the main web page. This is done on the server side before the page is shown to the visitor.
see also: iframe, include

subdomain - a domain that is part of a larger domain. In the URL http://blog.linksmanager.com the 'blog' part is the subdomain of the domain linksmanager.com. 'www' is the most common subdomain on the Internet.


T

text link - A hyperlink that is comprised of text, in comparison to an image link. Clicking the text will take you to the specified link's target.

three way links - A 3 way link is where Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, and Site C links to Site A. 3 way linking can be done successfully; however, it is frequently abused by black hat webmasters.
see also: 3 way link, triangular linking

three click rule - The principle that it should take no more than 3 clicks to access any feature or page of your web site.

toolbar - Toolbars for browsers are best known for adding functionality and ease-of-use options to the end user. The browser still handles basic navigation, and toolbars often add additional functionality to browsers depending on the toolbar programming.

Top Links List - lists of the most popular links on your links pages. Link popularity is based on how frequently a link is clicked on by users visiting your links pages.
see also: click tracking

triangular linking - A three way link is where Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, and Site C links to Site A. 3 way linking can be done successfully; however, it is frequently abused by black hat webmasters.
see also: 3 way link, three way links

two way links - A two way link is where Site A links to Site B and in return Site B links back to Site A. This is also known as reciprocal linking which is what the internet is built on.
see also: 2 way links, reciprocal links


U

URL uniform resource locator - Your web site's address. URL's not only contain http:// for displaying websites but also include ftp, mailto and other web communication methods.


V

W

W3C World Wide Web Consortium - The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web and develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential.

web 2.0 - refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services to facilitate creativity, collaboration and sharing between users in a more simplified and organized format.

white hat - The term that describes companies, individuals or programs that engage linking in ethical ways or using ethical practices.


X

XML - Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language that allows its users to define their own tags. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured data across different information systems, particularly via the Internet.

Xlinks - The XML Linking Language is an XML markup language used for creating hyperlinks in XML documents. XLink is a W3C specification that outlines methods of describing links between resources in XML documents.


Y
Z