Forum-speak and Abbreviations

[mcanerin]

Nick just reminded me that it's common for experienced forum members to develop "shorthand" while posting, and that while some shorthand is well known and common (like smilies) there are others that are specific to certain forums or are known only to SEO's, which makes it hard to understand posts if you are new here or are used to different forum-speak.

I've therefore included a list of Forum speak for SEW members - feel free to add to it.

I'll start (next Post)

Ian

[mcanerin]

General Forum Speak

AFAIK - As Far As I Know
AFK - Away from keyboard
AKA - Also Known As
BRB - be right back
BTW - By The Way
DIY - Do It Yourself
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
FWIW - For what's it worth
FYA - For Your Amusement
FYI - For Your Information
HTH - Hope This Helps
IANAL - I am not a lawyer
IC - I See
IIRC - If I Recall Correctly
IMHO - In My Humble (or Honest) Opinion
IMO - In My Opinion
ISP - Internet service provider
IYP - Internet yellow pages
J/K - just kidding
K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid!
LMAO - Laughing My Ass Off
LOL - Laugh Out Loud
O M G - Oh, My Gosh
OTOH - On The Other Hand
PDR - Paid inclusion directory
PFI- Pay for Inclusion
PITA - pain in the ass
ROFL - Rolling On Floor Laughing
ROFLMAO - Roll On Floor Laughing My Ass Off
RTFM - Read The F**king Manual
TA - Thanks Again
TIA - Thanks In Advance
TTYL - talk to you later
UTF - Use the phone (Get off the IM/boards and give me a call)
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary


Internet (aka Geekspeak)

SSI = Server Side Includes
API = Application Program (or Programming) Interface
ISP = Internet service provider
CSS = Cascading Style Sheets
DW = Dreamweaver
FP = Front Page
FTP = file transfer protocol
BBS - Bulletin board system
HTML = Coding used in web pages – also XHTML
XML = eXtensible Markup Language
PDF = Adobe Portable Document Format
VPN = Virtual Private Network

SEO /SEM Speak

ACPC = Average cost per click
ATW = All the web
B2B = Business to Business
B2C = Business to Consumer
BOGOF - Buy One Get One Free
CPA = Cost Per Acquisition
CPC = Cost Per Click (used as a substitute for PPC, or as an aggregate of multiple PPCs)
CPL = Cost Per Lead
CPM = Cost per 1000 impressions
CTR = ClickThrough Rate
DIR - directory
DMOZ = ODP = short for Directory Mozilla.
DTC - Direct to consumer
FFA Links = Free For All Links (aka Link Farms)
FW = Findwhat
G – Google
Greybarred - Banned from Google
IYP = Internet yellow pages
IBL - InBound Links or Incoming Back Links
KEI = Keyword Effectiveness Indicator (Wordtracker metric)
KW = Keyword
-KW = Negative Keyword
LS = Looksmart
LY = Lycos
MCPC = Max cost per click
MNCPC = Minimum cost per click
Organic Results – results on a SERP that are due to the algorithm and not paid placement
ODP = Open Directory Product (DMOZ)
OV = Overture
PDR = Paid inclusion directory
PFI = Pay for Inclusion
PL = Paid for links
PPC = Pay Per Click
PPL = Pay per lead
PR - Page Rank (Google)
RSS = RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary, an XML format for syndicating Web content.
ROAS = Return On Advertiser Spending
ROI = Return On Investment (What you make {R} / what you spend {I})
SBD = Microsoft’s Small Business Directory
SE = Search Engine
SEM- Search Engine Marketing (or marketor)
SEO- Search Engine Optimization (or optimizer)
SERP- Search Engine Results Page (usually organic listings)
SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (normally a report)
Y or Y! = Yahoo

[dannysullivan]

Excellent list! Top of my head, I'll add:

SEW Forums Speak

PM: Private Message (sending a message to someone using the forum's built-in messaging system)

SEWF: Shorthand for SEW Forums that I've seen used.

SEW: Search Engine Watch

[I, Brian]

For forums abbreviations, see also -

WMW = WebMasterWorld forums
IHY = IHelpYou forums
HR = HighRankings forums

[Nick W]

General:

STFU

I've no idea what that means but people seem to say it to me a lot.....

Nick

[Marcia]

BBIAB = be back in a bit
IME = in my estimation
ROFLMAOPMP - Roll On Floor Laughing My Ass Off Peeing my Pants

Chat talk:
DD = dear daughter
DH = dear husband
DS = dear son
DW = dear wife

A/S/L = age, sex, location?
Members attacking: "Hey you lost? This ain't Yahoo chat!"

Chatroom bouncer action commands:
/move = time to go have a little heart to heart together
/mute = STFU (they're typing, no one can see, they wonder why no replies)
/kill = they're outta there

Finally,

muah = kisses
<hugz> = what every one needs :)

[sugarrae]

IME - in my experience
n/m (or nm) - nevermind
MB - message board
AV - Alta Vista
EPC - earnings per click

[DaveN]

GB - guestbooks
BS - blog Spam

TBPR - toolbar pagerank ( it's differs to Pagerank )

spam - Some Person Above Me


DaveN

[DeadIntuit]

I see 'wiki' all over the place in these SEO forums and it seems people use that (Acronym/Term?) instead of the word forum. Other times it seems they are using it when referring to a BLOG.

Which is it. Or, does it refer to both? Is it some kind of a catch all for things like forum's, BLOG's, Chat Site's, List Servers etc etc???

I've also seen it used with an uppercase "W" (Wiki) and lowercase "w". Is there a significant difference between the 2?

Just curious and confused.

Mike :confused:

[mcanerin]

Good point!

wiki = wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. A good example: http://en.wikipedia.org/ which is what many people are referring to when they use the capital "W".

blog = short for weB LOG - A blog is a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Kind of an online diary.

forum = an organized place for people to post messages to each other publicly, like the SEW forum.

[Nacho]

SES = Search Engine Strategies
GG = GoogleGuy

[Nick W]

DS - dannysullivan

Nick