S

Search engine

Software that searches an index or database and returns relevant matches based on the information typed into a query.

SERP

Abbreviation for search engine results page.

Server

In search engine marketing, a computer that delivers web pages to browsers and search engine spiders.

Spam

The act of taking extreme or excessive measures to achieve top search engine positions . Spam also can be the act of using any words, HTML code, scripting, or programming on a web page that is not meant to benefit the end user experience.

Spider

Software used by a search engine to find and retrieve web pages to include in its index.

Splash page

A web page, commonly the home page, that consists either of (a) a large graphic image and a link instructing visitors to "Enter" a web site, or (b) a Flash animation, a link to skip the Flash animation (Skip Intro), and a redirect to a new page after the animation is completed.

Static IP address

An IP address that remains constant, or the same, every time a person logs on to the Internet.

Stemming

Stemming is the ability for a search engine to search for variations of a word based on its root. For example, if the word "running" is typed into a search query, search engines that utilize stemming might also display documents that contain the word "run."

Stop words

Extremely common words that the search engines will not record. This is done to save space on their servers and to speed up searches. Examples of common stop words include the, a, an, for, and, but, to, and so forth. Also known as filter words .