Glossary of SEO Terms
A
- Algorithm: A set of rules used by search engines to rank web pages.
- Alt Text: Describes images for search engines and improves accessibility.
- Anchor Text: The clickable text in a hyperlink.
- Analytics: Tools used to monitor and analyze website performance.
- Authority: A website’s credibility and trust score in SEO.
B
- Backlink: A link from another website pointing to your page.
- Black Hat SEO: Tactics that violate search engine guidelines.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave after one page view.
- Breadcrumbs: A navigation trail that helps users and search engines understand page hierarchy.
- Broken Link: A hyperlink that leads to a non-existent or removed page.
C
- Canonical Tag: Prevents duplicate content by defining the main page version.
- Cloaking: Showing different content to users and search engines (against guidelines).
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who take a desired action.
- Crawling: How search engines discover new and updated pages.
- CTR: Click-Through Rate, the ratio of clicks to impressions in search results.
D
- Domain Authority (DA): A Moz score predicting a website’s ability to rank.
- De-indexed: A page removed from search engine results.
- Dofollow Link: A link that passes SEO value.
- Duplicate Content: Identical content appearing on multiple URLs.
E
- E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — key ranking signals.
- External Link: A link pointing to a different domain.
F
- Featured Snippet: A direct answer box at the top of Google search results.
- Follow Link: Allows search engines to follow and transfer link equity.
- Freshness: The recency of published or updated content.
G
- Googlebot: Google’s crawler that scans and indexes websites.
- Google Search Console: A free tool to monitor your site’s presence in Google.
- Guest Posting: Writing articles for other sites with backlinks to yours.
H
- Header Tags: HTML tags (H1–H6) used to organize content hierarchically.
- Homepage: The main entry point of a website.
- HTML: The code that structures web content, important for SEO optimization.
I
- Indexing: The process of adding web pages to a search engine’s database.
- Internal Link: A link to another page on the same website.
- Impressions: How often a page or result appears in search results.
J
- JavaScript SEO: Techniques for optimizing content rendered via JavaScript.
K
- Keyword: A search term entered into a search engine.
- Keyword Cannibalization: Multiple pages competing for the same keyword.
- Keyword Density: The ratio of a keyword to the total word count on a page.
- KPI: Key Performance Indicators used to measure SEO success.
L
- Landing Page: A standalone page designed for conversions or targeted traffic.
- Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI): Identifying related terms and synonyms in content.
- Link Building: The process of acquiring backlinks to increase authority.
- Link Juice: SEO value passed from one page to another via links.
- Local SEO: Optimizing for location-specific searches.
M
- Meta Description: A short summary displayed under the title in search results.
- Meta Tags: HTML tags that describe a page’s content to search engines.
- Mobile-First Indexing: Google indexing based on mobile version of the site.
- Moz: A leading SEO software company known for DA and PA metrics.
N
- Noindex Tag: Prevents a page from being indexed by search engines.
- Nofollow Link: A link that doesn’t pass link equity.
- NAP: Name, Address, Phone number — vital for local SEO consistency.
O
- Organic Search: Non-paid search engine traffic.
- Off-Page SEO: SEO actions taken outside your website (e.g., backlinks).
- On-Page SEO: Optimizations made on individual pages (e.g., content, tags).
P
- Page Authority (PA): Predicts the ranking potential of a single page (Moz metric).
- Page Speed: How quickly your website loads for users.
- Penalty: A ranking drop due to violation of search engine guidelines.
- Pogo-Sticking: When users bounce back to search results quickly after visiting a site.
Q
- Query: A search term or phrase entered by a user.
- Quality Score: A metric in Google Ads that affects ad cost and placement.
R
- Ranking: A web page’s position in search engine results.
- Redirect: Forwards users from one URL to another (e.g., 301 redirect).
- Robots.txt: A file that instructs search engine bots which pages to crawl.
- Rich Snippets: Enhanced search results that display extra data (e.g., stars, reviews).
S
- Schema Markup: Code that helps search engines understand page content.
- Search Intent: The purpose behind a search query.
- SERP: Search Engine Results Page — the page displayed after a query.
- Sitemap: A list of a website’s pages to help search engines crawl it.
- Slug: The part of the URL that comes after the domain (e.g., /contact).
- SSL Certificate: Enables HTTPS and adds security, also a ranking factor.
T
- Technical SEO: Backend optimizations like site speed, indexing, and structure.
- Thin Content: Pages with little to no useful information for users.
- Title Tag: The clickable title shown in search results.
- Traffic: The total number of visitors to a website.
U
- URL: The web address of a page.
- User Experience (UX): The overall experience a user has on a website.
- User Intent: The goal behind a user’s search query.
V
- Visibility: How often and prominently a site appears in search results.
- Voice Search Optimization: SEO practices for voice-activated queries.
W
- Web Crawler: A bot that scans websites to gather and index content.
- White Hat SEO: Ethical SEO tactics aligned with search engine guidelines.
- Webmaster Guidelines: Official rules from search engines for ethical optimization.
X
- XML Sitemap: A structured sitemap for search engine bots to crawl efficiently.
Y
- YouTube SEO: Strategies to rank videos higher in YouTube and Google searches.
Z
- Zero-Click Search: A search that ends on the SERP without a website visit (e.g., featured snippets).
