SEO Glossary

10x Content 

Content that is 10 times better than the current top-ranking content.

200 (OK) Response Code

The 200 (OK) response code is a HTTP response code that indicates your request was successful.

301 Redirect

The HTTP 301 Moved Permanently status code indicates that the requested resource has been permanently moved to a new location.

302 Redirect

The HTTP 302 redirect status code indicates the requested resource has been temporarily moved to a new URL.

304 Not Modified

The HTTP 304 Not Modified status code indicates the resource you are trying to access has not been modified since your last request.

307 Temporary Redirect

The 307 temporary redirect is an HTTP status code indicating a resource has been temporarily moved from its previous location. The browser is expected to make a request to the new location using the same request method it used when it requested to access the resource at the previous location.

403 Forbidden

The HTTP 403 Forbidden status code indicates the server understood the client's request but will not fulfill it as the user lacks the required permissions or authorization to access the requested resource.

404 Not Found

The HTTP 404 Not Found status code indicates that the server cannot find the requested resource or webpage.

410 Gone

The HTTP 410 Gone status code indicates the requested resource or webpage has been permanently deleted from the internet.

500 Internal Server Error

The HTTP 500 Internal Server Error status code indicates the server encountered an unexpected issue preventing it from fulfilling your request.

502 Bad Gateway

The 502 Bad Gateway status code indicates the gateway or proxy server received an invalid or faulty response from another server while trying to fulfill the client's request.

Above the Fold

Above the Fold refers to the content located at the top of a webpage that a visitor landing on the webpage can view without scrolling.

Affiliate

An affiliate is a person, business, or organization that advertises an external product or service in exchange for a commission when a sale is made. 

AI Content

AI content refers to text, audio, video, and images created using artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Alt Text

Also called alternative text, an alt text is a short description of the image on a webpage.

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source HTML framework that allows site owners to create mobile-friendly versions of their sites.

Anchor Text

An anchor text is the clickable text on a webpage. It is often blue and may be underlined.

Article Spinning

Article spinning, or content spinning, refers to the practice of rewriting someone else's content and then passing it off as new.

Article Syndication

Article syndication is the practice of publishing the same article, either in part or in full, across multiple sites.

Backlink Profile

A backlink profile refers to the collection of backlinks pointing to your site.

Backlinks

A backlink is a hyperlink that points from one site to another.

Below the Fold

Below the fold refers to the area of a webpage that becomes visible only when the visitor scrolls down the page.

BERT

BERT, or Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is the AI language model that Google uses to understand the intent of a search query.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service that provides website owners and SEO professionals with tools to monitor and optimize their sites for Bing.

Bingbot

Bingbot is a web crawler used by Microsoft to gather information and build a searchable index of the web. Bingbot powers the Bing search engine.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO refers to unethical and manipulative practices used to improve a website's search engine rankings.

Blog Commenting

Blog commenting refers to the practice of leaving valuable comments on a blog to receive backlinks and build a relationship with the site owner and their audience. 

Bottom of the Funnel Content (BOFU)

Bottom of the funnel content (BOFU) refers to content targeted toward prospects in the final stage of the buying process.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that arrive and leave a site without interacting or visiting another webpage on the site.

Brand Mentions

Brand mentions refer to any online content mentioning the name of your business, product, or brand.

Branded Keywords

Branded keywords are keywords that contain the name of a brand, product, or business.

Breadcrumb

A breadcrumb is a navigational aid that shows visitors their current location on a website.

Bridge Page

A bridge page is a landing page created to send the visitor to another webpage.

Broad Match

Broad match is a keyword match type in online advertising that serves your ads when the search query contains one or more words from your preferred keyword(s).

Broken Link

A broken link or a dead link leads to a non-existent page or resource.

Business Listing

A business listing is an online directory entry that contains the details of your business.

Call to Action (CTA)

A call to action (CTA) is a text, image, or button that encourages a website or app user to perform an action.

Canonical Tag

The HTML tag for informing search engines about the original page among a group of duplicate pages

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a generative AI chatbot developed by OpenAI.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

Click through rate (CTR) is a metric for measuring the number of clicks an ad or webpage receives.

Cloaking

Cloaking is the practice of showing visitors and search engines different versions of the same webpage, URL, or content. 

Co-citation

Co-citation is the frequency at which two documents are jointly mentioned or quoted by other sites or sources.

Competitor Research

Competitor research, or competitor analysis, is the practice of analyzing your competitor's business to identify their strengths, strategies, and weaknesses.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network is a group of servers that help visitors access web content quickly.

Content Hub

A content hub is an online resource containing multiple content on a specific topic.

Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system (CMS) is a software or platform for creating, managing, and publishing content on the web.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on creating valuable and high-quality content to help audience solve their problem or reach a decision. 

Content Strategy

Content strategy is the practice of planning, creating, and managing content published online.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics Google uses to determine a webpage's user-friendliness, responsiveness, stability, and load performance.

Cornerstone Content

Cornerstone content refers to the most important content on your site that you want to rank in search engines.

Crawl Budget

A crawl budget refers to the maximum number of pages a search engine will crawl on your site within a period.

Crawl Delay

Crawl delay directive specifies how quickly a crawler bot can request pages on your website.

Crawl Errors

Crawl errors are issues that prevent search engine crawler bots from crawling your entire site or specific pages on your site.

Crawlability

Crawlability is the ability of a search engine to access and crawl your website.

Crawler 

Crawlers are bots that search engines use to gather information about a webpage.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is the Core Web Vitals metric Google uses to measure the visual stability of a webpage.

Deindexing

Deindexing is the practice of removing a webpage or some other web content from search engine result pages.

Direct Traffic

Direct traffic refers to visitors who arrive at your site by typing your URL into their browser.

Directory Submission

Directory submission refers to the practice of submitting your website URL to a web directory. 

Disavow Tool

The disavow tool is a web tool for telling Google to ignore links you paid for or gained using techniques considered unnatural.

DNS (Domain Name System)

The DNS (Domain Name System) converts the human readable domain names into machine readable IP addresses.

Dofollow Link

A dofollow link is a link that passes link equity and authority to the webpage it points to.

Domain Age

Domain age refers to how long a domain has been registered and active on the internet.

Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) is a metric that predicts the likelihood of a site to rank in search engine result pages.

Domain Name

A domain name is an easy-to-recognize string of characters associated with the IP address of the website.

Doorway Page

A doorway page is a webpage that appears in search results for a search query but redirects the visitor to another webpage when clicked.

Downtime 

Downtime refers to the period during which a website is totally or partially inaccessible.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content refers to multiple URLs having the same or similar content.

Dwell Time

Dwell time refers to the total time a visitor spends on a webpage before returning to the search engine results page. 

Dynamic Sitemap

A dynamic sitemap is an XML sitemap that is automatically generated whenever a person or bot visits the sitemap’s URL.

Dynamic URL

The URL which is generated the moment a user adds filters or enters a search term into a search engine or site.

E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T or Double-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is a set of signals Google Search Quality Raters use to assess the quality of a webpage.

Editorial Link

A link that is naturally inserted into a piece of content without any payment or request by the site receiving the link.

Email Outreach

Email outreach is the practice of reaching out to individuals or businesses through email for obtaining backlinks or promoting products and services.

Entry Page

An entry page is the first page a visitor views on your website. 

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content are the ones that remains relevant all year round.

Exact Match Domain (EMD)

Refers to domain names that include the keywords a site wants to rank for.

External Link

An external or outbound link is a link that points from one site to another.

Faceted Navigation

Faceted navigation is a feature that allows visitors to filter through the content of a site's search results.

Featured Snippet

Featured snippets are the brief results that appear at the top of Google results.

First Contentful Paint (FCP)

First Contentful Paint (FCP) is the time it takes for the browser to display the first visible element of a webpage after a user requests it. 

First Input Delay (FID)

First Input Delay (FID) was a Core Web Vitals metric that Google used to measure the responsiveness of a webpage. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced FID as a core web vital metric in March 2024.

Focus Keyword

Focus keyword is a word or group of words you want your content to rank for.

Gated Content

Gated content refers to web content that visitors can access only after sharing their contact details usually through a form.

Gateway Page

A gateway page is a webpage that appears in search results for specific keywords but then redirects the visitor to a different content when clicked. 

Gemini (formerly Google Bard)

Gemini, formerly Google Bard, is Google’s generative AI chatbot.

Generative AI

Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence technology that can generate text, audio, images, and videos from scratch.

Google Adwords

Google Adwords is a platform for creating advertisements to display on Google-owned services and third-party partner sites.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free notification service that allows users to monitor the web for articles, videos, books, and online forum posts containing specific keywords.

Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is an analytics service that helps website and app owners track and analyze user traffic and behavior.

Google Autocomplete 

Google Autocomplete is a feature that predicts the search query you’re typing into Google.

Google Bombing 

Google bombing refers to the practice of manipulating search engines so that a website ranks for an unrelated search term.

Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)

Google Business Profile, formerly called Google My Business, is a free service that allows businesses to control how their information appears on Google Shopping, Search, and Maps.

Google Caffeine 

Google Caffeine was a major algorithm update that increased the fresh results included in Google search result pages by 50%.

Google Dance 

Google Dance refers to the massive changes that occur in search rankings when Google updates its algorithm.

Google Discover

Google Discover is a Google Search feature that presents mobile users with content they may be interested in.

Google Hummingbird 

Google Hummingbird was a significant algorithm update that improved Google's ability to understand search queries and deliver more relevant search results.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool for SEOs and bloggers looking to run ads on Google or discover new keywords to include in their content. 

Google Knowledge Graph

Google Knowledge Graph is a database that contains factual information about existent and nonexistent people, places, organizations, events, landmarks, animals, plants, foods, books, and ideas.

Google Knowledge Panel 

Google Knowledge Panel is a SERP feature that displays factual information about a person, place, or thing.

Google Medic Update

Google Medic Update was a major algorithm update that reduced the rankings of sites that ranked for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) keywords but had low E-E-A-T signals.

Google Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center is a tool that allows online retailers to display their products to potential customers searching for similar products on Google.

Google Panda 

Google Panda was a major algorithm update that demoted the rankings of sites with plagiarized, low-quality, or thin content and boosted the rankings of sites with high-quality content.

Google Penalty 

Google penalty is the loss in search rankings experienced by sites that engage in SEO practices that go against Google's guidelines.

Google Penguin 

Google Penguin was an algorithm update that demoted the rankings of sites engaged in keyword stuffing and other manipulative link-building schemes.

Google Pigeon

Google Pigeon was a major algorithm update aimed at improving the relevance and accuracy of results displayed in response to local search queries.

Google Sandbox

Google Sandbox is the term SEOs use to describe an unconfirmed filter that supposedly prevents new sites from appearing in Google search results.

Google Search Algorithm 

Google algorithm is the set of instructions that Google uses to determine the rankings of the content to display on its search results page.

Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools)

Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) is a free service that allows bloggers and SEOs to manage and monitor their site's performance in Google Search.

Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines)

Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) are guidelines that Google recommends site owners follow to ensure that their content appears on Google search results pages.

Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines

Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines is a set of instructions that Google's human evaluators use to assess the quality of Google results pages.

Google Stacking

Google stacking, Google Drive stacking, or Google entity stacking, is a link-building technique that is executed by linking to a site from Google’s services, such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Photos.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a service that allows you to install marketing and measurement tags in your website head tag without modifying your website code. 

Google Top Heavy Update

The Google Top Heavy Update is a major algorithm update intended to reduce the rankings of sites that show too many ads above the fold.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a free Google tool that allows you to explore and analyze the popularity of search terms over a period.

Googlebot

Googlebot is the name of the web crawler Google uses to crawl and collect the content of webpages.

Grey Hat SEO

Grey hat SEO is a search engine optimization technique that combines white and black hat SEO techniques.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is the practice of publishing content on a website belonging to another person or business.

Guestographic

A guestographic, from “guest” and “infographic”, is an infographic you create and offer to other sites to include in their content.

H1 Tag

It is an HTML tag to indicate a webpage's main heading to search engines.

Header Tags

Header tags are the HTML tags used to represent the hierarchy of the headings on a webpage.

Holistic SEO

Holistic SEO refers to the practice of meeting and exceeding the SEO requirements in order to raise its ranking on search engine results pages.

Hreflang

Hreflang is an HTML attribute that specifies the language and location of the audience that a webpage is targeted at.

HTTP

HTTP is the set of rules that browsers, web apps, and servers follow to exchange files over the internet.

HTTPS

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is the set of rules browsers and servers use to securely exchange data over the internet.

Image Sitemap

An image sitemap is a file containing links to the images on your site

Inbound Links

Inbound links are hyperlinks that point to your site from another site. 

Index

An index is a database containing the webpages and other content a search engine wants to display in search results.

Index Bloat

Index bloat refers to the situation wherein a search engine indexes many low-quality or irrelevant pages on a site. 

Indexability

Indexability is the ability of a webpage to be indexed by search engines.

Informational Query

An informational query is a term to describe the search queries used by visitors looking to gather facts, uncover explanations, or seek details about a topic.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

The Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a Core Web Vitals metric to measure how quickly a website responds when you interact with it.

Internal Links

Internal links are links that point to another page, resource, or section within the same site.

Interstitial Ad

Interstitial ads are advertisements that cover the screen of a mobile app, making it inaccessible until the user closes the ad or clicks on its call to action. 

Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization occurs when a site has multiple pages ranking for the same or similar keywords.

Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering is the practice of grouping related keywords so that a single content can be created to target these keywords.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is the number of times a keyword appears in a piece of content compared to the other words in the content. 

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword difficulty is a metric for estimating the amount of competition to expect when trying to rank for a keyword.

Keyword Mapping

Keyword mapping is the practice of identifying which keywords to include in a piece of content.

Keyword Ranking 

Keyword ranking refers to the position of a webpage in the search results for a specific keyword or search query.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of analyzing keywords to identify the most suitable and relevant ones to include in a piece of content.

Keyword Stemming

Keyword stemming is Google’s ability to understand different variations of the base keyword in a search query.

Keyword Stuffing 

Keyword stuffing is the act of repeating the same keyword in a piece of content with the intent of manipulating search engines.

Keywords

A keyword is a word or phrase that represents the main topic of a webpage or piece of content.

Landing Page

A landing page is a webpage visitors are directed to after clicking on a link from an ad, email, or webpage. 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is a Core Web Vitals metric that measures how fast the main part of the webpage shows up on the screen.

Link Building 

Link building refers to the process of acquiring links from other sites to point to your site.

Link Equity

Link equity, or link juice, is the value and authority a webpage passes to any webpage it links to.

Link Exchange

A link exchange is a practice wherein two websites agree to link to one another to increase their backlink count and improve their search engine rankings.

Link Farm

A link farm is a group of sites that link to one another with the intent of increasing their rankings on search results pages. 

Link Popularity

Link popularity is a method for measuring the quality and quantity of the backlinks pointing to a webpage.

Link Profile

A link profile refers to the composition and attributes of the links pointing to a site.

Link Reclamation

Link reclamation is the practice of fixing the broken internal and inbound links pointing to your webpages.

Link Rot

Link rot refers to the phenomenon whereby a link on the internet becomes broken or non-functional over time.

Link Scheme

A link scheme is any black hat link-building tactic intended to manipulate search results and increase the number of backlinks pointing to a webpage.

Link Spam

Link spam is any link building technique done to manipulate search results.

Link Title

The link title is an attribute that provides more information about a link and where it leads.

Link Velocity

Link velocity is an SEO metric that measures the rate at which a site acquires new backlinks.

Local Citations

Local citations refer to online references to a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP).

Local Pack

Local Pack is a prominent feature in Google search results that displays a map and business listings related to a specific location or search query.

Local Search Marketing

Local search marketing, or local SEO, refers to the online and offline search engine optimization (SEO) techniques businesses use to improve their rankings on local search results pages.

Local SEO

Local SEO is the practice of optimizing a business to appear for relevant local search queries.

Log File Analysis

Log file analysis is the process of using your site's log file to identify issues with your server and opportunities to improve your technical SEO.

Long-Tail Keyword

These are focus keywords with three or more words.

Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio)

Looker Studio, formerly Google Data Studio, is a data visualization software for converting data into easy-to-read reports, graphs, and dashboards.

LSI Keywords

LSI keywords, short for Latent Semantic Indexing keywords, are words and phrases related to the focus keywords on a webpage.

Manual Action

Manual action, or Google penalty, is the punishment that Google imposes on sites that engage in activities that go against its guidelines.

Meta Description

A meta description is an HTML tag used to provide a brief summary of the webpage and displayed under title in SERP.

Meta Keywords

Meta keywords are HTML meta tags used to provide more information about the topic of the webpage. They usually include the focus keywords you intend to target with the page.

Meta Redirect

A meta redirect is an HTML attribute instructing the browser to refresh and redirect the user to another URL after a specified period.

Meta Refresh

Meta refresh is an HTML attribute that instructs a browser to refresh the page and, possibly, redirect the visitor to another webpage or site after a set duration. 

Meta Tags

Meta tags are HTML tags used to specify additional details about a webpage.

Meta Title

A meta title or SEO title is the headline of any content displayed on search engine result pages.

Microdata

Microdata is a structured data format for adding metadata to a webpage.

Middle of the Funnel Content (MOFU)

Middle of the funnel content (MOFU) refers to content created for visitors who are in the middle of their buyer’s journey.

Minification

Minification is the process of reducing the size of a site's code. 

Mirror Site

A mirror site is a duplicate site that replicates the content and design of another website.

Mobile-First Indexing

Mobile-first indexing refers to Google’s initiative of prioritizing the mobile version of a site over its desktop version.

Name Address Phone Number (NAP)

NAP refers to the name, address, and phone number of businesses looking to rank in local search results.

Natural Link

Natural links are backlinks acquired without solicitation or payment by the site receiving the link.

Navigational Query

A navigational query is a search query used by visitors heading to a particular webpage or site.

No Image Index

No image index is a meta tag instructing search engines not to index or display the images of a webpage in search results.

No Snippet

The No Snippet meta tag instructs Google not to display text snippets or video previews for the webpage.

Nofollow

Nofollow is a meta tag or attribute instructing search engines not to follow a link or pass link equity.

Noindex Tag

The noindex tag is a meta tag that instructs search engines not to index a site or webpage.

Noopener 

Noopener rel="noopener" is the HTML attribute that prevents third-party sites from controlling the browser tab using the window.opener property.

Noreferrer

Noreferrer is an HTML attribute for removing all referral information passing through a link click.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to the SEO activities on websites other than yours to improve you search rankings.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to the search engine optimizations performed on your website.

Open Graph Meta Tags

Open Graph meta tags are code snippets that determine how your site is displayed when shared on social media and instant messaging apps like Facebook, X, WhatsApp, Slack and others. 

Organic Search Results

Organic search results are the unpaid results that appear on search engine result pages. 

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic refers to visitors that arrive at your site from the unpaid results on search engine results pages.

Orphan Page

An orphan page is a webpage that is not linked to from any other page on the same site. 

Page Speed

Page speed is the time taken by a webpage to load.

Page Views

Page views refer to the number of views a webpage receives over a period of time.

PageRank

PageRank is an algorithm that Google uses to analyze the quality and quantity of the backlinks pointing to a webpage and determine the level of authority to assign to it.

Pages Per Session

Pages per session is a metric for measuring the average number of pages a visitor views during a single session on a site.

PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights is a free tool that reports on various metrics for analyzing the user experience and page speed of a webpage.

Paid Link

A paid link is a backlink you receive in exchange for payment in the form of money or other expensive gift/item of equivalent value.

Parasite SEO

Parasite SEO is an SEO tactic whereby a third party publishes content on a highly authoritative site to leverage the site’s authority to quickly generate traffic to the content. 

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an online advertising model where advertisers pay only when visitors click on their ads.

People Also Ask

People Also Ask is a Google search result feature that displays a series of questions related to your search query.

Pillar Page

A pillar page is a webpage that covers the major aspects of a topic and contains links to other pages that offer more insights into specific parts of the topic.

Pogo-Sticking

Pogo-sticking is when someone searches for something, clicks on a result, goes to the webpage, and then goes back to the search results to click on another result.

Primary Keyword

A primary or focus keyword is the main keyword an SEO or blogger wants a piece of content to rank for.

Private Blog Network (PBN)

A private blog network (PBN) is a black hat SEO tactic wherein a group of websites link to one another.

Pruning

Pruning, or content pruning, is the practice of removing irrelevant, low-quality, or low-traffic content from a website.

Pure Spam

Pure spam is a manual action penalty Google issues against sites engaged in aggressive black hat SEO techniques that go against its spam policies.

RankBrain

RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm that Google uses to understand the relationship between a word and the context in which it is used.

Ranking Factor

Ranking factors refer to the metrics and criteria a search engine uses to determine the position of your webpage in search results.

Reciprocal Link

A reciprocal link is a link given to an external site in exchange for a backlink.

Reconsideration Request

A reconsideration request is an appeal you send to Google to review your site after fixing the issues that caused Google to penalize you with a manual action or security issue notification.

Redirect

A redirect is a technique for automatically sending visitors from one URL to another.

Redirect Chain

A redirect chain occurs when there are several redirections between the URL you're visiting and the final URL you're being redirected to.

Redirect Loop

A redirect loop occurs when a URL redirects to another URL, which then redirects to the original URL.

Referral Traffic

Referral traffic refers to visitors landing on your site after clicking on your link at an external site.

Related Searches

Related searches are search queries that are similar or closely related to the search query entered into a search engine.

Rendering

Rendering is the process of converting initial HTML to rendered HTML, or simply put; it is the process of converting website code into the visible content we see.

Resource Pages

Resource pages contain links to other content, tools, and services that a creator thinks his audience will find helpful.

Responsive Design

Responsive design, or responsive web design, is an approach to web design in which a webpage adjusts to fit the screen size, orientation, and platform of the viewing device.

Rich Results (Rich Snippet)

Rich results, or rich snippets, are search results that contain visual or interactive elements that provide additional information about the result to searchers.

Robots Meta Tag

The robots meta tag is an HTML meta tag for instructing search engine crawlers on how to crawl, index and display a webpage in search results

Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a file that tells search engine crawler bots and other bots about the pages they are not allowed to crawl on the website.

RSS Feed

An RSS feed is a service for notifying subscribers when their favorite site publishes a new post.

Schema Markup

Schema markup is a format for presenting search engines with the key details of your content.

Scraped Content

Scraped content refers to content taken from one site and republished on another site without the author or publisher's permission. 

Search Engine Poisoning

Search engine poisoning is a technique used by spammers and hackers to manipulate search engine results and steal the sensitive information of their visitors. 

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

Search engine results pages (SERPs), search results, or search result pages are the webpages a search engine displays in response to a search query.

Search Intent

Search intent refers to the end goal of a user who enters a search query into a search engine.

Search Term

Search term is a word or phrase that a user enters into a search engine.

Search Visibility

Search Visibility is a metric for estimating the percentage of clicks a site receives from organic search results, based on all the keywords it ranks for.

Search Volume

Search volume tells how many times per month a certain keyword is searched for.

Secondary Keywords

Secondary keywords are the keywords that are closely related to the primary keyword.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is an internet security protocol for establishing an encrypted connection between a web server and a browser. 

Seed Keyword

A seed keyword is a one or two-word-long keyword used as the starting point of keyword research.

SEO

SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving your website's visibility in search results to drive more organic visitors.

SEO Audit

An SEO audit is the process of analyzing how effectively your site is optimized for search engines.

SERP Features

SERP features refer to all results on a search engine results page (SERP) besides the traditional organic results.

SERP Volatility

SERP volatility refers to the fluctuation or changes in the search results page rankings of a keyword or search query. 

Short-Tail Keywords

Short-tail keywords are highly-searched and super-competitive keywords that consist 1-3 words.

Silo Structure

Silo structure is a way of organizing a website by grouping related content together and linking only the content within the group.

Site Architecture

Site architecture refers to how the webpages on a site are organized and linked to one another.

Site Migration

Site migration refers to any substantial change that could affect the search engine visibility of your site.

Sitelinks

Sitelinks refer to the links that Google includes under the text results on search engine result pages.

Sitemap 

A sitemap is a file that provides humans and search engines with a list of web pages, images, videos, PDFs, and any other files present on your site. 

Sitewide Link

A sitewide link is a link that appears on every page of a website except in instances where the site owner or theme developer removes them.

Skyscraper Technique

The Skyscraper technique is a link building technique wherein you identify content that has received many backlinks, create a better version, and then ask the sites linking to the previous content to link to yours instead.

Spam Score

Spam score is a metric for measuring the spam-likeliness of a webpage, website, or group of websites.

Spamdexing

Spamdexing is the practice of using deceptive and unethical SEO techniques to manipulate search engine indexes and improve your rankings in search results.

Sponsored Link Attribute

The sponsored link attribute is an HTML attribute for indicating that a link is sponsored.

Srcset

Srcset is an HTML image attribute that specifies different images for different screen sizes in order to display responsive, mobile-friendly images irrespective of the screen size of the viewing device.

Structured Data

Structured data refers to any data created and stored in a standardized format so that both humans and machines like search engines can easily understand what it means.

Subdomain

A subdomain is a prefix that appears before the main domain in a URL.

Subfolder

A subfolder, or a subdirectory, is a folder located within a website's main domain to organize and categorize content.

Taxonomy SEO

Taxonomy SEO is the practice of classifying, arranging, and organizing a site's content in a hierarchical manner.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the practice of improving the technical aspects of a website to increase its rankings and performance on search engine results pages.

TF-IDF

TF–IDF, or Term Frequency – Inverse Document Frequency, is a statistical method for detecting the most important words in a document. 

Thin Content

Thin content refers to poorly written articles that contain little to no helpful content.

Time to First Byte (TTFB)

Time to first byte (TTFB) measures the time between a browser requesting a webpage and the server sending the first byte of information of the requested webpage.

Top of the Funnel Content (TOFU)

Top of the funnel content (TOFU) refers to content targeted at potential customers at the beginning of their buyer’s journey.

Top-Level Domain

A top-level domain (TLD) is the last set of text in a domain name, such as .com, .net, .org, or .uk.

Topic Research

Topic research, or content research, is the process of gathering information and data on what topic to create content around.

Trailing Slash

A trailing slash refers to the forward slash symbol "/" placed at the end of a URL. For instance, the URLs, example.com/ and example.com/yoga-for-beginners/ both end with a trailing slash.

Transactional Query

A transactional query is a search query used by searchers looking to complete a transaction or purchase an item but yet to decide where to get the item from.

Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is an internet security protocol for encrypting data sent over the internet.

TrustRank

TrustRank is an algorithm that Yahoo and Google use to differentiate good and bad (spam) websites.

UGC Link Attribute

The UGC link attribute rel= "ugc" is used to indicate that a link was uploaded to a site by a user or visitor.

Universal Search

Universal Search is the ability of a search engine to include images, videos, news, maps, books, rich snippets, knowledge panels, and other content types in the search results apart from the regular text-based 10 blue links.

Unnatural Links

Links created to manipulate search engines and increase a site’s rankings in search results.

URL Inspection Tool

The URL Inspection tool is a Google Search Console feature for checking the index status and other information about your webpage.

URL Parameters

URL parameters, or query strings, are the letters, numbers, and symbols used for passing additional information about a URL.

URL Rating (UR)

URL Rating is an SEO metric developed by Ahrefs that measures the strength of a page's backlink profile. 

URL Slug

A URL slug is a string of text, numbers, and symbols that come after the slash following a domain name and subdirectory.

URL Structure

URL structure refers to how your URL appears to human users and search engines.

User Experience

User experience is the term for describing how a person feels while using a product, service, website, web app, or software. 

User Interface

A user interface, or UI, is the point of interaction between a user and a software or digital device.

User-Agent

A user-agent is a string of text, numbers, and symbols that contains the details of the browser accessing a website.

Vertical Search

Vertical search is the term for describing specialized search engines that focus on a specific industry or a specific type of search result.

Viewport

The viewport is the visible area of a webpage.

Voice Search

Voice search is a technology that enables users to search for information by speaking their queries instead of typing them.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of the internet, which allows visitors to create, collaborate, and contribute to content.

Web 3.0

Web 3.0, or Web3, is a vision for the next iteration of the internet that focuses on decentralizing data storage, better privacy controls, and ownership of the data.

Web Stories

Web Stories is a format for displaying visually rich and interactive content in Google Search and Discover. 

Website Authority

Website authority is an estimate of how reputable and influential a website is. The higher a site’s website authority, the higher its likelihood of appearing in search results, as they have more trust and visibility. 

Webspam

Webspam, also called spamdexing or black hat SEO, refers to spamming and manipulating search engines to improve your rankings in search results.

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO refers to search engine optimization (SEO) tactics that follow the guidelines specified by search engines.

X-Robots-Tag

The X-Robots-Tag is a part of the HTTP response header that tells search engines how to crawl and index a webpage.

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file that contains the links to the content, attachments, taxonomies, and other files on a site. 

Zero-Click Searches

Zero-click Searches are web searches that end with visitors not clicking on any webpages because the search engine displayed the answer in a knowledge panel or rich snippet at the top of the search results.

Zombie Pages

Zombie pages are webpages that generate little to no human traffic from search engines.