SEO Glossary

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IBL
Acronym for Inbound Link.

ICANN
Acronym for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is the Internet authority that oversees domain name and top-level domain registrations and special port assignments.

ICRA
Acronym for Internet Content Rating Association. The ICRA reviews online content and assigns ratings according to the type of content.

IIS
Acronym for Internet Information Services, Microsoft's web server. It has a consistent track record of insecurity and vulnerabilities.

IM
Acronym for Instant Messaging or Instant Message. Instant messaging is a very popular form of real-time communication. Modern IM software even integrate real-time video and voice.

Image map
An image which is logically divided into sections, each having a corresponding hyperlink leading to another page or site. An example of an image map is an image of the globe with each continent having a link. If a user clicks on any of the continents on the globe image map, a page related to the corresponding continent may be displayed.

Impression
A web visitor accessing a page or banner ad. Often used interchangeably with the term "page view." 

Inbound link
A link pointing into a website, from that website's point of view.

Index
In the context of search engines, an index is a database of web pages with keywords and the associated ranks.

Indexer
An indexer, in the context of search engines, is the program that textually analyzes webpages. It works by reducing webpages to the bare text content, and then performing operations on the text to determine ranking and relevance. After indexing, the statistical data gathered is stored in a database for use by the search engine.

Infoseek
A older search engines now owned by Disney and part of the GO.com Disney family of websites.

Inktomi
The a search engine database of sites that just services other search engines providing search results. Inktomi provides more searches per search engine than any other site on the internet. Some of its bigger customers in 1999 where HotBot, Search.MSN, Yahoo, and AOL Netfind.

Internet
The global network of networks. It is a packet-switched network built upon the Internet Protocol and related protocols. It is on the Internet that other services run, such as World Wide Web, file transfer, electronic mail, and instant messaging, to name a few. The word Internet is a proper name and should be capitalized.

Interstitial
A type of advertisement that takes more than one or two page views to see. It is downloaded in parts to the user’s computer.

Intranet
An intranet can be thought of as a small Internet, being limited in scope to an organization's local area network. It uses the same technologies as the real Internet, such as the Internet Protocol, and can run essentially the same services found on the Internet. The word intranet should not be capitalized. Corporate networks are examples of intranets.

Invisible web
Refers to the vast number of online content that web search engines do not visit and index.

IP address
An IP address or IP number is used to identify computers and hosts over an IP network, such as an intranet or the Internet itself. IP addresses are numerical in nature and can be represented in dotted-decimal notation, for example, 172.28.59.158. IP addressing uses 4 address classes to delimit scope and availability of IP addresses that can be assigned to computers. Generally speaking, one IP address would refer to one computer on a network, and these addresses are unique.

IP delivery
Refers to the process of delivering customized content based upon the users IP address. This allow web sites to protect their proprietary code designed to rank high on search engines.

IP spoofing
This is the practice of faking a computer's IP address when connecting to servers or sending requests. This is a shady tactic of fooling users and luring them into a different site from what they are shown. It is also an unethical method used to fool search engines into indexing different sites other than what are originally submitted to them.

ISO
Acronym for International Organization for Standardization.

ISP
Acronym for Internet Service Provider.

IYP
Acronym for Internet Yellow Pages.

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