What are backlinks?

Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO). The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (for example, this is used by Google to determine the PageRank of a webpage).

What is anchor text?

The anchor text, link label or link title is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines. Since 1998, some web browsers have added the ability to show a tooltip for a hyperlink before it is selected. Not all links have anchor texts because it may be obvious where the link will lead due to the context in which it is used. Anchor texts normally remain below 60 characters. Different browsers will display anchor texts differently. Usually, Web Search Engines analyze anchor text from hyperlinks on web pages.

What is pagerank (PR)?

PageRank measure’s a web page’s importance. PageRank is one of many factors that determines where your web page appears in search result ranking, but if all other factors are equal, PageRank can have significant impact on your Google rankings.

What is .edu?

The domain name edu is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The “domain is intended for accredited post-secondary educational U.S.institutions.Starting on October 29, 2001, only post-secondary institutions and organizations that are accredited by an agency on the U.S. Department of Education’s list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies are eligible to apply for a edu domain. Most such agencies accredit only US institutions, so very few non-US institutions qualify, and edu remains almost exclusively a top-level domain of the United States.

What is black or white hat?

In recent years, the terms white hat and black hat have been applied to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry. Black hat SEO tactics such as spamdexing, attempt to redirect search results to particular target pages in a fashion that is against the search engines’ terms of service and is often considered unethical SEO. White hat methods are generally approved by search engines and follow their guidelines. They tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.