SEO Glossary

301 Redirect or Redirection: occurs when a page has been deleted but the user is redirected to the new page.

404 Not Found: an error that occurs when the page the user is trying to view cannot be found.

A

Above the Fold: the top part of the website that can be seen before the viewer scrolls down.

Absolute link: a hyperlink that contains the entire URL including the protocol and domain name.

Accelerated Mobile Pages: an HTML framework that aims to load the sites quickly for mobile devices.

Algorithm: refers to the process used to rank the most relevant pages for a query.

Algorithm Update: any change made to improve an existing algorithm.

Alt Attribute/Alt Text: a text that describes an image on a website.

Analytics: a system of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data or statistics.

Anchor Text: a clickable word or text of a hyperlink.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): an intelligence that allows the computer or system to develop human intelligence and perform human-like tasks.

Authority Site: a trusted and credible site.

B

Backlinks: a hyperlink that redirects to another page.

Bad Neighborhood: a collection of websites that are ranked down on search rankings.

Baidu: most popular search engine in China (similar to Google)

Bait and Switch: a technique (sometimes considered immoral) where content is placed on a website to increase traffic. Once indexed, it will be replaced by a regular page.

Banner Blindness: the tendency of a viewer to ignore the ads on a website.

Bing: a search engine launched by Microsoft.

Black Hat: techniques used to increase the page ranking that goes against search engine guidelines.

Blockers: a software that prevents search engines from viewing the website.

Blog Commenting: a strategy used for link building wherein you leave a comment with a link that redirects to your website.

Bounce Rate: the percentage of users that visited your website then, left immediately without viewing the other pages.

Brand Mention Link Building: a strategy where you search for your brand online and then reach out to the web pages that mention your brand for them to add a backlink.

Branded Keyword: term or phrase that includes the name of your brand, its product and services.

Breadcrumb: a text located usually at the top of the page that shows where they are on a website.

Broken Link: a hyperlink on a web page that does not work.

Business directory: online listing of businesses and their web pages.

C

Cache: a storage location that includes websites, data, browsers, so it can be accessed quickly.

Call To Action: messages that appear on a website that encourages the user to do something. For example, “register now”, “call us”, “buy now.”

Cascading Style Sheets/CSS: defines how the HTML looks on web documents.

ccTLD: also known as ​​Country code top-level domain. This is a domain extension that shows in which country the page is for.

Churn and Burn SEO: a black hat strategy where you mass spam links on a website to gain higher rankings.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): the number of people that clicked on your ad or website after seeing it.

Click Bait: a headline or a text that is used to encourage the readers to click the hyperlink. Sometimes, these headlines are considered misleading.

Cloaking: a technique wherein the content displayed on the search engine is actually different from the content on the web page.

CMS: CMS also known as Content Management System is an application that allows different users to edit and create content.

Co-Citation: occurs when a website is mentioned by two different sources which are not necessarily linked to each other.

Comment Spam: a method used for link building wherein links are spam posted on different comment sections.

Competition: in SEO, competition refers to your competitors that have the same keywords or search terms as you.

Competitor Analysis: this involves researching and evaluating the links, keywords, and contents of your competitors.

Content: this includes all information displayed on your website.

Content Gap Analysis: strategic method performed in order to improve the gap contents on a website.

Content is King: this is one of the most used quotes by Bill Gates when it comes to SEO and marketing. This simply means that quality content is vital in a business.

Content Marketing: a marketing strategy that focuses on creating relevant and high-quality information to gain more visitors.

Content Score: a grade that refers to the relevance of your website’s keywords on search engines.

Content Spinning: also known as Article Spinning. This refers to the technique wherein the same article is rewritten using different synonyms or changing the words for it to appear as a “new article.”

Content Syndication: a strategy where the article is re-published on another website to gain more readers.

Conversion: occurs every time a visitor completes an action on your website. This includes buying a product, signing up, following a link, etc.

Conversion Rate: the number or percentage of viewers that completed an action on your website.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): includes different techniques used in order to increase the conversion rate.

Cookies: pieces of information that are stored on the computer of the user.

Copied Content: duplicate content that has been copy-pasted.

Cornerstone Content: this simply means the core of your website. This includes the most important articles that make and define your brand.

Cost Per Acquisition: the metric that measures the cost of a user completing the action.

Cost Per Click: refers to the amount you pay every time a user clicks on your ads.

Cost Per Thousand Impressions: the amount you have to pay per one thousand impressions of your ad.

Crawl/Crawling: the process wherein search engine crawlers visit a website to collect data and its content.

Crawl Budget: refers to the number of pages Google will crawl on your website.

Crawl Demand: refers to the demand for Google to crawl your pages.

Crawl Depth: refers to the number of pages the crawler will index on your website.

Crawl Error: occurs when the search engine fails to access or go through your website.

Crawlability: the ability of the search engine to navigate through your website.

Crawler: a bot or a program that is used by search engines to collect data from websites.

Cross-Linking: refers to the process when you link one website to another.

Curated Content: content made by others that you collect and present to your viewers as they are relevant to your niche.

D

Data: in SEO, this information includes the traffic, impressions, visitors of your website.

De-index/Delisting: refers to the process of removing a web page from the search engine’s index.

Dead-End Page: a page that does not contain any outgoing links.

Deep Link: a hyperlink that links directly to the specific content of a website.

Direct Traffic: the number of visits directly on your website without clicking on any ads. This means any traffic that includes typing your URL on their web browser.

Disavow: the process that helps you remove backlinks that are harmful to your website. This helps you avoid being penalized.

Do-follow: these are default links that allow search engines to redirect back to your website.

Domain: refers to the location of your website.

Domain Authority: a metric developed by Moz that shows the ranking score of a website on search engine results.

Domain Name: this refers to the name of your website. This is the address the viewers type to access your page.

Domain Popularity: the number of links that redirect to your website.

Doorway Page: a page specifically made to rank high on search engines. This falls under the cloaking technique.

DuckDuckGo: a secure search engine that aims to protect the user’s privacy. This means that this does not use a personalized search result.

Dwell Time: refers to the time spent on your page after clicking on the search engine page.

Dynamic Tags:

E

E-commerce SEO: the tactic used by online businesses to rank high on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)

Ego-Bait: a strategy used wherein you mention a brand/person on your content for them to promote your website.

Email Outreach: a link-building strategy that involves reaching out to different people via email to persuade them to link your website.

Engagement Metrics: this measures how much time a user interacts with your content/website.

Exact Match Anchor Text: refers to the anchor text that exactly describes the page it’s linking to.

Exact Match Keyword: this means that your ads will only appear once a user searches for the exact keyword of your website.

Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness: Google’s indicator in evaluating a website.

F

Favicon: a small icon that represents your website when displayed on web pages.

Featured Snippet: a summarized answer that is displayed on a box and appears on the top result. Also known as Page Zero.

Footer Link: links that are displayed on almost every page of a website. These links usually include the privacy policy, location, social media accounts, etc.

Fresh Content: refers to websites or content that are updated regularly.

G

Geotargeting: the practice of targeting your audience based on their location.

Google: the most popular search engine.

Google Ads (AdWords): an advertising service by Google that is used to promote your brand, website, or your content.

Google Analytics: software that provides the statistics and data of user interaction on your website

Google Autocomplete: refers to the feature wherein suggestions appear while you are typing your search query.

Google Bowling: a form of black hat SEO where you spam your competitor’s website with irrelevant links.

Google Fred: an algorithmic update released in 2017 to remove low-quality search results.

Google Keyword Planner: a tool that is designed to help advertisers research the keywords for their campaign.

Google My Business: a tool for businesses that allows customers to find you on Google Search and Google Maps.

Google PageSpeed Insights: a free tool that helps you analyze your website’s page speed.

Google Panda Update: a huge update from Google in 2011 that aims to get rid of low-quality contents and promote high-quality ones.

Google Penguin Update: an algorithmic update in 2012 that focuses on targeting and removing spammy links.

Google Pigeon Update: a major update in 2014 that aims to increase the rankings of local business on search results.

Google Pirate: an update release in 2014 that focuses on demoting sites that contain copyrighted content.

Google Sandbox: a filter that is believed to prevent new websites from ranking high on search results.

Google Search Console: a free tool offered by Google that allows users to analyze their sites.

Google Trends: a tool used by most marketers that allows them to see the most common search queries.

Google Webmaster Guidelines: guidelines or practices on how Google can optimize and rank your website better.

Google’s Related Searches: the eight related suggested searches which can be found below the search results page.

Gray Hat: the combination of white hat and black hat SEO. These tactics aren’t really illegal but are considered unethical.

Guest Blogging: also called Guest Posting. Refers to the act of writing content for another website which includes a link that redirects to your page.

H

Heading: also called h1, is usually the largest text on the page. This is considered the main topic of your content.

Hidden Text: a black hat method wherein there are hidden contents in the article that are invisible to the readers but are made to rank high on search rankings.

Homepage: the main or the welcoming page of your website.

Hreflang Attribute: an attribute used by Google to specify what language should be used on a specific page. This is mainly used on a multilingual site.

HTML/Hypertext Markup Language: a system used to organize and display the materials on a website.

HTML Sitemap: a file that displays all the links to the pages of the website.

Hyperlink: a clickable link that redirects to another page.

I

Image Filename: the file name used to identify the image in a system.

Image SEO: the process of improving and optimizing and the images on your website to increase search engine visibility.

Impression: a term used when a viewer has seen your ad or the link to your website.

Indexed Page: websites that have been viewed and analyzed by search engines.

Infographic: a technique used where the information is presented in a visually pleasing manner to engage the readers.

Internal Link: a link that redirects to a page within your website.

Interstitials: a pop-up ad that covers the entire page which needs to be manually closed.

IP Address: a uniques address given to each device that helps identify internet activity.

J

JavaScript SEO: a technical SEO that makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index Javascript.

K

Key Performance Indicator: the metric you set to measure the performance of the website.

Keyword: words or phrases inserted into the content to increase search rankings.

Keyword Analysis: the process of evaluating the keywords you use and the keywords mostly searched by people.

Keyword Cannibalization: occurs when the same keyword is being used throughout your website.

Keyword Competition: the metric that shows how difficult it is to rank on a keyword on the SERPs.

Keyword Frequency: the number of times the keyword was mentioned throughout the web page.

Keyword Prominence: refers to how prominent the keyword is within the web page.

Keyword Stuffing: a black hat tactic wherein a keyword is mentioned repeatedly to the content to manipulate search rankings.

L

Landing Page: the page that appears once you click a link.

Lead Magnet: the technique used to encourage the visitor to provide you their information in exchange for access.

Link Building: refers to the process of increasing the backlinks to your website.

Link Burst: the process of collecting a huge number of backlinks in a limited time.

Link Diversity: a strategy of collecting links from different kinds of websites.

Link Equity: also called Link Juice. An idea that the value of a link can be passed down to another.

Link Popularity: the number of backlinks a website has.

Link Profile: the term for the overall links that point to your website.

Link Reclamation: the process of retrieving back broken links and updating the URLs.

Link Relevancy: describes the connection of the two websites involved in link building.

Link Rot: the process wherein previously working links become outdated and unavailable.

Local Citation: occurs when a company name, address, or phone number of a business is mentioned.

Log File: a file that includes all the activities performed in and out of the server.

Long-Tail Keyword: keywords that are longer and more specific usually searched by visitors that are close to making a purchase.

LSI Keyword/Latent Semantic Indexing: keywords or phrases that are related to the main keyword.

M

Manual Action: refers to the penalty that occurs when you don’t follow the webmaster guidelines.

Meta Description: an HTML tag that provides the users a small description of the web page.

Meta Refresh: a tag that instructs the web page to refresh after the given time interval.

Metric: indicators of tracking the performance of a website.

Mirror Site: a replica of an existing site that is used if the original site is generating too much traffic.

Mobile Optimization: the process of improving and optimizing the website for mobile users.

N

Natural Link: unpaid links that are placed on the content because the author finds your website to be valuable.

Niche: refers to the specific portion of a target audience.

Noarchive Tag: a tag that does not store cache copy of your page.

Nofollow Attribute: an attribute that informs the search engines to not pass link equity to the website.

O

Off-Page SEO: activities that were done outside of your webpage to improve its ranking.

On-Page SEO: the process of optimizing the web pages on your website.

Opt-In: a consent given by the user for the marketer to send direct messages.

Opt-Out: a user wanting to unsubscribe or to be removed from a mailing list.

Orphan Page: pages on a website that aren’t linked to other pages and can only be accessed by knowing the URL.

Over-Optimization: occurs when too much SEO has been performed on your web page sacrificing the content.

P

Page Authority: a score that shows the performance of the page in SERPs compared to other sites.

Paid Links: a process wherein a website purchases backlinks to increase traffic.

Paid Search: paying a search engine in order to have a position on the top of the SERPs.

PBN/Private Blog Networks: a network of websites that are only used to build backlinks.

Poison Words: words that negatively affect the ranking of your website.

Primary Keyword: refers to the most used keyword that can be used on your page title, headline, and first paragraph.

Q

Quality Content: refers to content that is not only valuable for SEO but also provides quality information to the readers.

Quality Link: links that are from reputable and trusted websites.

R

Ranking: refers to the spot of your page when displayed on the search engine results page.

Ranking Factor: the criteria used by search engines when evaluating a web page.

Reciprocal Links: an agreement made by two websites to exchange backlinks with each other.

Referral Traffic: visits that come from clicking your domain from other sites and not on search engines.

Reputation Management: the practice of managing and monitoring how the others see your website.

Responsive Website: a website that is mobile friendly and adjusts to how your screen looks.

S

Screaming Frog: an advanced SEO tool from the UK that offers in-depth audits.

Search Engine: a software program that searches through different contents on the internet. The biggest search engine is Google.

Search Engine Guidelines: practices that you need to follow in order to rank high on SERPs.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the process of improving your site to increase visibilty and traffic.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP): the pages that the search engine displays after you enter your search query.

Search History: the list of web pages the user has visited.

Search Query: the term or phrase a user enters in search engines.

Secondary Keywords: these are supporting keywords that add additional information to your primary keyword

SEO Service: a paid service that assists in optimizing the website.

SEO Site Audit: the complete process of analyzing the website’s performance on search engines.

Sitelinks: additional links that appear under the main URL.

Skyscraping: a technique used wherein you look for popular web pages, improve their content and copy the backlinks.

Social Signal: metrics that describe the engagements on social media posts such as likes, comments, shares, views, etc.

Splash Page: the page that the user sees before they enter your website. It contains words such as “enter site,” “skip intro”

Static URL: a web page that has an unchanged URL.

Status Codes: a response code to a browser’s request.

Submission: the process of submitting your website to the search engines for it to be indexed.

T

Technical SEO: refers to the process of optimizing your website to make it easier for the search engine bot to crawl and index your site.

Thin Content: refers to the content that does not provide any value to its reader.

Title Tag: an HTML code that defines the title of the page. This is the headline that appears in the SERPs.

Top Heavy: a Google update that prevents websites that have too many ads above the fold from ranking high in the SERPs.

Top-Level Domain (TLD): the last words after the dot of the website address. For example, .com, .org, .net

Topical Relevance: the measure of how relevant the backlinks are to your website.

Traffic: refers to the users that visit your website.

U

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): an address that points to a specific page of a website. This is also known as “web address.”

Unique Visit: refers to the number of first visits on your website during a specific period of time.

Unnatural Link: refers to links that are artificial and aim to manipulate the search rankings.

URL Parameter: the query string that follows after the question mark on a URL.

User Agent: refers to any software that provides content or information to the users.

User Engagement: refers to the interaction of your visitors to your website.

User Experience (UX): the factor that describes how the visitors assess the quality of your website.

User-Generated Content (UGC): refers to any content made by the visitors of a platform or website.

User/Search Intent: the reason or purpose behind a search query.

V

Vertical Search Engine: a search engine that focuses on a specific topic. For example, Youtube, Google Maps, etc.

Video Optimization: refers to the optimization of your video to increase its search visibility.

Viral Content: any type of content that becomes popular and is shared across by different users.

Visibility: the metric that shows how visible your website is on search engines.

W

Webpage: refers to a document that is available and can be read by a browser.

Website: a group of web pages that share the same domain.

Website Structure: refers to how the web pages are linked to each other and their hierarchy.

White Hat: refers to any ethical strategies implemented that aims to increase search rankings of the website.

WooRank: a tool that reviews and assess the website including its on-page and off-page SEO

WordPress: one of the most popular software that is used to build a website.

X

XML Sitemap: XML or Extensive Markup Language refers to the list of all pages on a website.

Y

Yahoo: a popular search engine that also provides e-mail service, directory, and news.

Yandex: the most popular search engine in Russia.

YMYL Pages: stands for “Your Money Your Life.” This refers to any content that affects people’s lives/finances/health.

Z

Zero Click Searches: occurs when a user does not click on any of the results.