SEO Glossary: 250+ Terms Explained
All the SEO jargon, abbreviations, acronyms, definitions (& MORE) explained in a way that makes sense.
WTF do all these SEO terms mean?
If there’s one thing SEO’s love, it’s terminology and acronyms.
But it’s easy to get lost in all the technical jargon. Especially when new terms are added often. For newcomers it can be hard to keep up. Not to mention for business owners who don’t spend all their time keeping up to date with every minor SEO change.
So, Loganix have put together this glossary of SEO terminology for a quick overview of the most common SEO terms.
Subscribe below to get updated when new terms are added:
A
Above the Fold
Above the fold is anything that a person sees when they arrive at a website. These are the texts, images, forms, etc, that their eyes can grasp without having to scroll down.
Read more: Above the Fold
AJAX
AJAX is an acronym that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Developers use it to construct interactive websites by combining XML, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. AJAX enables developers to update content when an event occurs without requiring the user to refresh a website.
Read more: AJAX
Algorithm
A sophisticated computer program used by search engines to retrieve data and return results for a query.
Read more: Algorithm
Alt Attribute
An alt tag, also known as an “alt attribute” or “alt description,” is an HTML element that is added to image tags to give a text alternative for search engines.
Analytics
SEO analytics is the act of gathering, recording, and analyzing marketing data with the primary goal of increasing organic traffic to your website.
Read more: Analytics
Anchor Text
Anchor text is text on a page that contains a clickable hyperlink.
Read more: Anchor Text
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence refers to the imitation of human intellectual processes by computers, particularly computer systems. Expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition, and machine vision are some of the specific uses of AI. Artificial intelligence uses computers and technology to simulate the human mind’s problem-solving and decision-making skills.
Read more: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Authority
Authority is a qualitative metric that improves a website’s overall exposure and ranking.
Read more: Authority
B
B2B
B2B (business-to-business) marketing is any marketing approach or content aimed towards a company or organization. B2B marketing tactics are generally used by any firm that sells products or services to other businesses or organizations (rather than consumers).
Read more: B2B
B2C
The practice of selling items and services directly between a business and customers who are the end-users of its products or services is referred to as business-to-consumer (B2C).
Read more: B2C
Backlink
A backlink is formed when one website links to another. Backlinks can also be referred to as “inbound links” or “incoming links.”
Read more: Backlink
Baidu
Baidu is China’s top internet search engine business. Its features and services are comparable to Google’s, but its primary concentration is on China, where it controls the majority of the search market.
Read more: Baidu
Bing
Bing is a search engine developed and maintained by Microsoft that replaces the company’s previous Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search services.
Read more: Bing
Black Box
This is a phrase used to describe computer software that is complicated and contains procedures that demand more study and comprehension. Some of these applications include classified information, which is guarded by the corporations and organizations that created them.
Read more: Black Box
Black Hat
Black hat refers to a collection of methods used to boost a site’s or page’s ranking in search engines by violating the search engine’s terms of service. Black hat SEO strategies aim to influence search engine algorithms in order to boost a site’s rating on the SERPs.
Read more: Black Hat
Blog
A blog (a shortened variant of “weblog”) is an online diary or instructional website that displays material in reverse chronological order, with the most recent postings at the top. It is a platform where a writer or a group of authors may express their thoughts on a certain topic.
Read more: Blog
Bot
Search engines largely rely on bots, spiders, or web crawlers to determine how high to rank websites in search results.
Read more: Bot
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without acting, such as clicking on a link, filling out a form, or making a purchase, is referred to as the bounce rate.
Read more: Bounce Rate
Branded Keyword
Branded keywords are terms that are directly related to your company, goods, and services. Branded keywords include the name of your firm. To take our agency as an example, every term that includes the word “Loganix” is a branded keyword, independent of the other words around it.
Read more: Branded Keyword
Breadcrumb
A breadcrumb is a tiny written trail found at the top of the page that shows where the user is on the site. A breadcrumb navigation trail is often seen at the top of the page, right below the header menu.
Read more: Breadcrumb
Broken Link
A broken link has no object or leads to nowhere. Programming problems, temporarily inaccessible websites, or a change in the address of the site connected to a link are all causes of broken links.
Read more: Broken Link
Buyer Intent Keywords
Buyer intent keywords are search searches that indicate someone is actively searching to buy something. Commercial intent is another term for buyer intent.
Read more: Buyer Intent Keywords
C
Cache
A cache is a temporary storage space that collects temporary files to help speed the loading of websites, web servers, browsers, and apps. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a PC, a laptop, a phone, a web browser, or an app.
Read more: Cache
Canonical URL
A canonical tag (also known as “rel canonical”) tells search engines that a certain URL is the master copy of a page. In practice, the canonical URL notifies search engines which version of a URL you want to display in search results to avoid issues caused by identical or “duplicate” information appearing on several URLs.
Read more: Canonical URL
ccTLD
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) tells users and search engines which nation, sovereign state, or dependent territory a website is registered in, and therefore where in the globe searchers who will find this site relevant live.
Read more: ccTLD
Citation
Citations are an online reference to a company that includes the company’s name, address, and phone number (NAP).
Read more: Citation
Click Bait
A clickbait title is sensationalized and entices you to click on a link to an article, image, or video.
Read more: Click Bait
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Simply said, the click-through rate is the proportion of impressions that resulted in a click.
Click-Through Rate = (Total Ad Clicks) / (Total Impressions)
For example, if you received 5 clicks and 100 impressions, your CTR would be 5%.
Read more: Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Cloaking
Cloaking is an SEO strategy in which consumers are presented with material or information that varies from what search engine crawlers are presented with. Cloaking is prohibited by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Read more: Cloaking
CMS
A content management system, often known as a CMS, is a software program that allows users to create, manage, change, and publish digital material via an easy-to-use user interface.
Read more: CMS
Comment Spam
Comment spam occurs when a machine or human makes an unrelated comment, sometimes with a link to a spammy website. It has a detrimental influence on both the user experience and your search engine rankings.
Read more: Comment Spam
Competition
SEO Competition, also known as Organic Competition, is a statistic that shows how tough it will be for your website to rank high on search engine result pages (SERP) for that certain term.
Read more: Competition
Content
A strategic marketing approach centered on generating and delivering useful, timely, relevant, and consistent information to attract and keep a clearly defined audience — and, eventually, to generate lucrative consumer action — is referred to as content. Content may take many forms including audio, text, and video.
Read more: Content
Content is King
The phrase “content is king” is frequently used in connection with content marketing and SEO. It suggests that original, high-quality, engaging, and relevant material plays a key role in the success of businesses on the Internet.
Read more: Content is King
Conversion
Every time a visitor completes the desired activity on your website, you have a conversion. If that is your main aim on a particular page, it may be a click-through to the next page. It may be a newsletter subscription. It may also be a visitor purchasing your goods.
Read more: Conversion
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is defined as the ratio of defined activities to actual website visitors multiplied by 100. As a result, conversion rates are usually reported as percentages. If 100 people view your page and 10 of them sign up for your newsletter, your conversion rate is 10%.
Read more: Conversion Rate
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of improving the percentage of website visitors who do the desired action. Desired actions include purchasing a product, clicking “add to basket,” signing up for a service, filling out a form, or clicking on a link.
Read more: Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Crawl Budget
Crawl budget is the number of pages crawled by search engines on a website during a given timeframe.
Read more: Crawl Budget
Crawl Error
Crawl errors occur when a search engine attempts but fails to access a page on your website. These mistakes hinder search engine bots from reading and indexing your content.
Read more: Crawl Error
Crawling
Crawling is the process through which Google or other search engines dispatch a group of robots (known as crawlers or spiders) to seek and index new and updated content.
Read more: Crawling
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a language used to describe the appearance of Web pages, such as colors, layout, fonts, and other visual features of a website. It enables the presentation to be adapted to multiple types of devices, such as huge displays, tiny screens, or printers.
Read more: CSS
Customer Journey
The customer journey encompasses all of the interactions that customers experience with your company and brand. The customer journey captures the whole customer experience rather than concentrating on a particular component of a transaction or event.
Read more: Customer Journey
D
De-index
This is when Google removes a website or webpage from search results, specifically its search index, whether temporarily or permanently. For voluntary situations, Google provides a Remove URLs tool in the Search Console; nevertheless, a website may be de-indexed as punishment for breaching Google’s Webmaster Guidelines in the form of a manual action.
Read more: De-index
Deep Link
Deep linking is an SEO approach in which hyperlinks point to a specific web page with specific content rather than the homepage or about page.
Read more: Deep Link
Directory
A list of websites that is generally divided into relevant categories and is kept up to date by human editors. Inclusion in the directory may be free or paid, depending on the directory.
Read more: Directory
Disavow
In SEO, disavow means removing bad links referring to your website. If you feel your site’s rating is being harmed by low-quality links over which you have no control. You may ask Google not to consider them when evaluating your site by disavowing your backlinks.
Read more: Disavow
DMOZ
DMOZ is an abbreviation for “Directory Mozilla,” and it was formerly one of the largest online directories. It was officially known as the “Open Directory Project,” or ODP. The initiators’ original objective was to map a substantial portion of the internet to a directory of web URLs. The DMOZ project was terminated by its operator, AOL, on March 17, 2017.
Read more: DMOZ
Do-follow
Dofollow links allow Google and other search engines to direct traffic to your website or blog. As a result, every time you place a dofollow link on your site, it may lead back to you, boosting your authority by showing search engines what other sites, blogs, and articles are referring to you.
Read more: Do-follow
Domain
A domain name (or simply ‘domain’) is the name of a website. It is what comes after the letter “@” in an email address or after the letter “www.” in a web address. For example, the domain of this website is www.loganix.com.
Read more: Domain
Domain Authority
Domain authority (also known as site authority and website authority) is a measure used by SEOs to determine how “rankable” a website is overall. Most site authority scales run from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating that the website is more likely to rank for any particular phrase.
Read more: Domain Authority
Domain Rating
Domain Rating is a number based on the amount and quality of backlinks that a domain has obtained. It is a measure used to determine how authoritative a site is viewed by search engines and hence enhance ranking in the SERPs, and the score is on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the best.
Read more: Domain Rating
Doorway Page
Doorway pages (bridge pages, portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, or entry pages) are low-quality pages (or groups of pages, or entire websites) that are optimized to rank well for specific keywords and serve as a portal between users and content but are designed to manipulate search engine indexes.
Read more: Doorway Page
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine that does not monitor you, interact with your social network, retain your information, or target you with advertising based on your search history.
Read more: DuckDuckGo
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is material that exists in more than one location on the Internet. That “one place” is defined as a location having a unique internet address (URL), thus if the same information appears at more than one web address, it is considered duplicate content.
Read more: Duplicate Content
Dwell Time
Dwell Time is the amount of time a Google searcher spends on a page from the search results before returning to the SERPs.
Read more: Dwell Time
E
E-commerce
E-commerce is the purchase and sale of products or services through the internet, as well as the movement of money and data to complete the transaction. It is sometimes referred to as online commerce.
Read more: E-commerce
Editorial Link
This is a link that is created by a site that has great content and marketing techniques. An editorial link, unlike purchased links, is not paid for or expressly sought. Editorial links are included in a good link profile.
Read more: Editorial Link
Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics analyze how your target demographic is responding to your campaign. The primary engagement indicators for an email campaign may be open and click rates.
Read more: Engagement Metrics
Enterprise SEO
Enterprise SEO is a large-scale, long-term strategy to search engine optimization. An enterprise SEO solution connects your company’s business goals to the larger market potential while reinforcing brand reputation to optimize effect throughout your marketing mix.
Read more: Enterprise SEO
Entity
An entity is a solitary, distinct, well-defined, and discernible item or idea. An entity can be a person, a location, an item, an idea, an abstract notion, a tangible element, another appropriate thing, or an idea.
Read more: Entity
Exact Match Keywords
Exact-match keywords in SEO also refer to search results/content that exactly match all of the keywords in the search query. Exact-match keywords are derived from the Google AdWords keyword match type, which allows you to promote on an exact-match search.
External Link
External links are hyperlinks that point to (target) domains other than the one where the link is situated (source). External links have a higher influence on search engine results than internal links since search engines consider them to be external votes of confidence/popularity on a web page.
Read more: External Link
F
Favicon
Favicons are little graphics that appear on browser tabs, bookmark lists, search history, search advertising, and even search results to represent your business. As a result, people will associate your brand with the favicon you choose.
Read more: Favicon
Featured Snippet
Featured snippets are brief excerpts from a website that appear in Google search results to quickly respond to a user’s query. Google automatically pulls featured snippet material from pages that have been indexed. Definitions, lists, steps, and tables are the most typical types of highlighted snippets.
Read more: Featured Snippet
Findability
Findability is, at its heart, a person’s ability to obtain the products, services, and information they require. It is also the simplicity with which content provided on a website can be discovered outside (by search engines).
Focus Keyword
The focus keyword is a field into which you may type a term or phrase. It is the search phrase for which you want your article or page to get ranked in search engines.
Read more: Focus Keyword
Footer Link
Footer links are hyperlinks that may be found on almost every page of a website. These are frequently header links, footer links, or links on the sides of a webpage (floating widgets, and so forth). They are also referred to as site-wide links or boilerplate links.
G
Google is a search engine on the internet. It employs a unique algorithm to extract and organize search results to give the most relevant and trustworthy data sources available.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics enhances your understanding of your customers. In one place, Google Analytics offers you all of the free tools you need to analyze data for your business.
Google Bomb
Google bombing refers to black-hat SEO methods that use Google’s algorithm to boost a webpage’s ranking for a specific Google search. In general, Google bombing entails intentionally increasing the number of pages that link to a website as well as the terms utilized in the link’s anchor text.
Google Dance
The Google Dance is the phenomenon of internet pages jumping ranks when Google changes and re-evaluates its rankings. The Google Dance is sometimes referred to as the “random ranking factor.”
Google Hummingbird
Google Hummingbird is a new search platform that was released in September 2013. This upgrade transformed Google search since it helped to provide meaning to the words users typed in their inquiries. Instead of just matching words in the query to words in the search results, the new algorithm attempts to grasp the meaning of the question and match it with appropriate results.
Google Keyword Planner
The Keyword Planner tool is intended to assist marketers in discovering relevant keywords as well as locating data about specific keywords such as search volumes, competition, and ad price.
Google Panda Algorithm
The Google Panda algorithm update’s stated objective was to reward high-quality websites while reducing the visibility of low-quality websites in Google’s organic search engine results. Initially, it was also known as “Farmer.” On February 23, 2011, it was released.
Google Penguin Algorithm
Following Panda, Google released the Penguin update on April 24, 2012, as a fresh effort to reward high-quality websites while reducing the visibility of websites that participated in manipulative link schemes and keyword stuffing in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Google Pigeon Update
The Google Pigeon Update, one of the most significant local search algorithm modifications in history, altered how local companies ranked in organic search. This Google search algorithm update believed to have launched on or around July 24, 2014 — and quickly dubbed the “Pigeon” update by Search Engine Land — intended to improve local search results by rewarding local companies with a strong organic presence with increased exposure in traditional search
Google RankBrain
RankBrain is a Google core algorithm component that uses machine learning (machines’ ability to learn from data inputs) to discover the most relevant answers to search engine queries.
Google Sandbox
The Google Sandbox is a metaphor for why most new websites appear at the bottom of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). Few are convinced whether the ‘sandbox’ exists, but it looks to be a filter introduced to Google algorithms around March 2004.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free Google tool that allows you to maintain, monitor, and troubleshoot your website’s visibility in Google Search results.
Google Trends
Google Trends is a search trends tool that displays the frequency with which a particular search phrase is entered into Google’s search engine in comparison to the site’s overall search volume over a certain period. Google Trends may be used for keyword research comparison as well as identifying event-triggered surges in keyword search activity.
Google Webmaster Guidelines
The Webmaster rules include basic recommended practices to help your site appear in Google Search, as well as quality criteria that, if not followed, may result in your page or site being removed from Search. Recommended reading: Google Webmaster Guidelines
Googlebot
Googlebot is a piece of software, sometimes known as a spider or crawler, that is meant to crawl through the pages of public websites. It navigates through a sequence of links from one website to the next, then analyzes the material it discovers into a collective index.
Gray Hat
Gray Hat SEO methods, in general, do not fit in either the Black Hat or White Hat categories since the terms of service surrounding the problem are ambiguous. Using these methods may result in a Google penalty.
Guest Blogging
The process of contributing a post to another person’s blog to acquire attention, authority, and links.
Read more: Guest Blogging
H
Head Term
A head term, also known as a head keyword, is a popular keyword that generates a high search volume. When it comes to ranking, head terms are extremely competitive, and they are the exact opposite of long-tail keywords.
Read more: Head Term
Heading
Headings are phrases that appear at the beginning of a section and explain what it is about. They help visitors scan a page, and they help search engines quickly understand the structure and content of a page. Headings are classified into six levels: H1 through H6.
Read more: Heading
Headline
The headline is the main title you offer for your written material. This might be the title of a website, an article, or any other kind of copywriting. Not only is your headline the first thing a reader sees because it is the first line at the top of the page, but it is also usually in a larger, bold type. The H1 tag is another name for it.
Read more: Headline
Hidden Text
Hidden text on a web page is information that is invisible to people but visible to Google crawlers who index and rank the page.
Read more: Hidden Text
Homepage
A homepage can be used for a variety of reasons. It serves as your website’s welcome page and primary user guide.
Read more: Homepage
htaccess File
The .htaccess (acronym for ‘hypertext access’) file is a powerful website hidden file used to configure extra functionality for Apache Web Server-hosted websites. It has authority over the directory in which it “resides,” as well as all subdirectories beneath that directory.
Read more: htaccess File
HTML
The standard markup language that you may use to tell search engines exactly what your website is about and how they should rank you is HyperText Markup Language (HTML). It is the foundation of the great majority of web pages and is one of the most important aspects of technical SEO (HTML tags).
Read more: HTML
HTTP
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is a framework for transmitting and receiving information on the internet that is most commonly used to obtain HTML web pages. HTTP is classified as an application layer protocol since it exists to provide information to web users regardless of the channel used to do so.
Read more: HTTP
HTTPS
HTTPS, or Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol, was developed to provide for secure web transactions and authorization. Exchange of information, such as credit card numbers or access, needs security to prevent unwanted entrance through HTTPS.
Read more: HTTPS
Hub Page
They are a core page for certain themes that has a collection of interconnected, relevant material that links back to that page. These might be themes that you cover regularly on your website.
Read more: Hub Page
Hypertext
Hypertext is the text that has hyperlinks to other pieces of information. A user can rapidly go to other information by clicking on a link in a hypertext document.
Read more: Hypertext
I
Inbound Link
An inbound link is created when another website links back to yours. Google considers inbound links to be a sign of high-quality content on your site, making them one of the most essential components in search engine optimization (SEO).
Read more: Inbound Link
Index
A search engine’s database is referred to as an index. Indexes include information from all of the websites found by Google (or any other search engine). Users will be unable to locate a website if it is not included in a search engine’s index.
Indexability
Refers to a search engine’s capacity to study and index a page. Even if Google can crawl a site, it may not be able to index all of its pages, usually owing to indexability difficulties.
Indexed Page
Indexed pages are online pages that have been visited, evaluated, and added to a search engine’s collection of web pages. Pages are indexed either because the website owner asked that the search engine index web pages or because the search engine bot (“Googlebot”) discovers websites through connections to those pages.
Information Architecture
The art and science of arranging and categorizing material on websites to promote usability and findability is known as information architecture.
Information Retrieval
When a search engine gets a query, it checks its index database and returns any results that are related to the search terms (or keywords).
Internal Link
An internal link connects two pages on the same website. Through anchor text and surrounding material, they convey PageRank (or SEO value) as well as context.
Read more: Internal Link
IP Address
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a series of integers (between 1 and 3 digits separated by dots) that identifies a computer network or device connected to the Internet. IP addresses are essentially the code that allows all devices (computers, phones, servers, and so on) to “speak” to each other via the internet regardless of their location.
Read more: IP Address
J
JavaScript (JS)
JavaScript is a scripting or programming language that allows you to implement complicated features on websites by dynamically creating and updating information, controlling multimedia, animating pictures, creating interactive maps, and so on.
Read more: JavaScript (JS)
JavaScript SEO
JavaScript SEO is a subset of technical SEO that focuses on optimizing JavaScript-based websites for search engine exposure. Its primary goal is optimizing JavaScript-injected material for crawling, rendering, and indexing by search engines.
K
Keyword
Keywords are concepts and themes that define the subject matter of your work. They are the words and phrases that searchers type into search engines, often known as “search queries” in SEO.
Read more: Keyword
Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization happens when there are too many same or similar keywords scattered across your website’s content.
Read more: Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword Density
Keyword density is a component of keyword optimization that relates to the frequency with which a target keyword appears on a webpage. It is a percentage that indicates how frequently the target term occurs to the total number of words on the page.
Read more: Keyword Density
Keyword Difficulty
Keyword Difficulty (also known as “SEO difficulty” or “keyword competitiveness”) is the method of determining how tough it is to rank for a given phrase in Google’s organic search results. A keyword’s difficulty is determined by various factors, including content quality, page authority, and domain authority.
Keyword Lists
It defines the keyword-targeted content that will appear on your site, as well as the URL structure, and it is also employed during link building. A keyword list, like a sitemap, serves as the blueprint for SEO.
Read more: Keyword Lists
Keyword Metrics
Keyword metrics enable you to assess the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and make adjustments based on the data. Keyword metrics provide critical information about how your organic search strategy is functioning.
Read more: Keyword Metrics
Keyword Modifiers
Adjectives, adverbs, shopping phrases, and any other type of word that can offer the searcher more precise results are examples of keyword modifiers. The modifiers alter one element of the keyword but do not change its meaning.
Read more: Keyword Modifiers
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the act of locating and evaluating search words that people type into search engines intending to utilize that information for a specific purpose, most frequently search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing. Keyword research can reveal queries to target, the popularity of these searches, the difficulty of ranking these queries, and more.
Keyword Stuffing
The technique of filling a webpage with keywords or numbers to influence a site’s ranking in Google search results is known as “keyword stuffing.” These terms are frequently seen in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose).
Keyword Value
This is the average cost per click that an advertiser would spend to advertise on Google. This is a useful measure for assessing if ranking for a specific key phrase is worthwhile.
Knowledge Graph
The Google Knowledge Graph is a massive knowledge library that allows Google to deliver quick, factual responses to your inquiries.
Knowledge Panel
Knowledge panels are information boxes that show on Google when you search for Knowledge Graph entities (people, places, organizations, and objects). They are meant to give you a quick overview of a topic based on Google’s knowledge of publicly available internet content.
Read more: Knowledge Panel
KPI
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurable statistic that shows how successfully a firm fulfills critical business objectives. KPIs are used by organizations at different levels to assess their effectiveness in meeting objectives.
Read more: KPI
L
Landing Page
A landing page is a separate web page developed particularly for a marketing or advertising campaign in digital marketing. Landing pages are created with a particular emphasis or objective in mind, which is known as a call to action (or CTA, for short).
Read more: Landing Page
Lead
In layman’s terms, a lead is a person or organization who is interested in what you’re selling. The interest is conveyed by the exchange of contact information, such as an email address, a phone number, or even a social network account.
Read more: Lead
Link
A link (sometimes known as a hyperlink) is a method for users to browse between sites on the Internet. Links are used by search engines to crawl the web.
Read more: Link
Link Bait
Link Bait (sometimes known as “linkbait”) is the practice of generating material to attract backlinks. Controversial material, facts, guidelines, and noteworthy pieces are all examples of Link Bait content.
Read more: Link Bait
Link Building
Simply defined, link building is the process of obtaining other websites to link back to yours.
Read more: Link Building
Link Equity
Link equity, sometimes known as “link juice,” is a search engine ranking element that is based on the concept that specific links transmit value and authority from one website to another.
Read more: Link Equity
Link Farm
A link farm is a website or group of websites created with the sole purpose of boosting the PageRank of another website by linking to it from various pages within the link farm. The use of link farms is prohibited by Google and other search engines’ webmaster guidelines.
Link Juice
In the SEO industry, link juice refers to the value or equity transmitted from one page or site to another. This value is communicated using hyperlinks.
Link Profile
When we talk about a site’s link profile in the SEO community, we are typically referring to the inbound links going to your site, as well as the qualities of those connections. According to Mark Jackson, your site’s link profile includes, in addition to the overall number of inbound links, the types of links going back to your site, the anchor text of those links, and how those links were gained.
Link Velocity
The concept of link velocity holds that a fast pace of link growth is a bad thing. The patent explains how a fresh site with a high rate of link growth might be considered more relevant than an older site.
Read more: Link Velocity
Log File
A log file is a file generated by a web server that contains “hits,” or a record of all requests received by the server. Data is saved and provides information such as the time and date of the request, the URL requested, the user agent, the request ID address, and others.
Log File Analysis
Log file analysis is a technical SEO activity that allows you to observe how Googlebot (as well as other web crawlers and people) interacts with your website. A log file provides important data that may be used to influence your SEO strategy or to solve difficulties with the crawling and indexing of your web pages.
Long-Tail Keyword
Long-tail keywords are less common and more specialized than other keywords. They concentrate on a certain market. Visitors are more likely to utilize them when they are at a point of sale or when they use voice search.
Read more: Long-Tail Keyword
LSI Keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing)
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are conceptually similar phrases that search engines employ to deeply analyze material on a webpage even if the keywords or synonyms are not shared.
Read more: LSI Keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing)
M
Machine Learning
Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) and computer science that utilizes data and algorithms to simulate how humans learn, gradually improving its accuracy.
Manual Action
Manual actions are Google’s method of demoting or deleting web pages or whole websites. They have nothing to do with Google algorithm updates such as Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird, or others. They are essentially manual penalties imposed by Google for spamming conduct on websites.
Read more: Manual Action
Meta Description
A meta description is a tiny paragraph that displays beneath your website on the SERPs and contains information about your page. It is intended to give readers a quick overview of the information on your page so that they can choose whether or not the page will answer their query.
Read more: Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Meta Keywords are a sort of meta tag that appears in the HTML code of a Web page and helps search engines determine the page’s topic. Meta keywords differ from normal keywords in that they exist “behind the scenes,” in your website’s source code, rather than on the live, viewable page itself.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are text snippets that describe the content of a page; meta tags exist only in the page’s source code, not on the page itself. Meta tags are short summaries of content that help search engines understand what a web page is about.
Metric
Metrics are data points or indications that you should track and monitor to assess performance and maintain your website healthy and optimized. Monitoring your SEO analytics, whether to gauge engagement or to reflect on SERP authority, may help you plan future initiatives.
N
Natural Link
Natural links occur when other webmasters, bloggers, or website owners link to your material (blogs, photos, goods, videos, etc.) because they believe it will be beneficial to their readers and provide value to their websites or pages.
Read more: Natural Link
Negative Keyword
A keyword that stops your ad from being activated by a certain word or phrase. Your advertisements are not displayed to anybody who searches for that phrase. This is often referred to as a negative match.
Read more: Negative Keyword
Negative SEO
Negative SEO is the process of sabotaging a competitor’s search engine rankings by employing black hat and unethical tactics. Negative SEO attacks can take a variety of forms, such as hacking your website or establishing hundreds or thousands of false links to it.
Niche
A niche is a highly focused segment of a market or target audience. A website that caters to a certain niche is not interested in attracting a large number of visitors to its homepage. Instead, they want only visitors who are enthusiastic about or have a strong desire for what they have to offer.
Noarchive Tag
The noarchive tag instructs Google not to save a cached copy of your page.
Nofollow Attribute
Nofollow links are links with the HTML element rel=”nofollow” attached to them. The nofollow tag instructs search engines to disregard that link. Nofollow links do not influence search engine results since they do not transfer PageRank.
Noindex Tag
Noindex indicates that a web page should not be indexed by search engines and, as a result, should not appear on the search engine’s result pages. The term “nofollow” indicates that search engine spiders should not follow the links on that page. These settings can be added to your robot’s meta tag.
Nosnippet Tag
The nosnippet element instructs Google not to display a snippet (description) alongside your Google listing, as well as a cached link in the search results.
not provided
Simply put, it implies that Google has decided not to share the keyword data with you. The searcher used a key term, but Google is not giving you the results. Everything is being done to safeguard the searcher’s privacy.
O
Off-Page SEO
The term “off-page SEO” (sometimes known as “off-site SEO”) refers to measures performed outside of your website to influence your ranks in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Read more: Off-Page SEO
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO (also known as on-site SEO) refers to the technique of optimizing web pages for specific keywords toto increase search visibility and traffic. It entails keyword-aligning page-specific components like content, title tags, headers, and internal links.
Organic Search
Organic search refers to search engine results that are not affected by sponsored advertising. The relevancy of organic search results to the search phrase is determined.
Organic SEO Services
Organic SEO refers to achieving natural placement and results using a variety of tried-and-true techniques such as optimizing the web page by creating high-quality and highly relevant content, boosting keywords, including meta tags, and backlinking.
Read more: Organic SEO Services
Orphan Page
Orphan Pages are pages that exist on a website but are not linked to by any other page. Users cannot locate them on their website trip since there is not a single link referring to that page on the entire website.
Read more: Orphan Page
Outbound Link
Outbound links, also known as external links, are the inverse of backlinks. Outbound links are when you provide a link to an external site on your blog page or website, as opposed to another site linking to your website (a backlink).
P
Page Authority
Page Authority (PA) is a score invented and maintained by marketing analytics business Moz to predict where a given page will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). Page Authority scores range from 1 to 100, with higher scores suggesting a greater ability to rank.
Page Speed
The time it takes for content on a certain webpage to load is referred to as page speed. This word is frequently confused with other site optimization phrases like “site speed,” which refers to the average loading time of several sample pages for a given site.
PageRank
PageRank is a web page ranking method. The greater a link’s PageRank, the more authoritative it is. We may simplify the PageRank algorithm by describing it as a method for determining the relevance of a webpage by evaluating the quality and quantity of links pointing to it.
Read more: PageRank
Pageview
Pageviews are one of the metrics used to determine how much traffic a website receives. The total number of pageviews reflects the total number of times web pages were seen by visitors to the site over time.
Paid Search
Paid search is a marketing strategy in which marketers pay search engines for ad placement on search engine results pages (SERPs). These advertisements operate on a pay-per-click (PPC) model, which means that firms only pay when their ads are clicked.
PBN
A private blog network (PBN) is a collection of websites that have a large number of links pointing to another website. These link networks are made up of low-quality connections that are used to manipulate search engine results.
Read more: PBN
PDF is an abbreviation for “portable document format.” In essence, the format is used when you need to store files that cannot be edited but must still be readily shared and printed.
Penalty
A Google Penalty is a drop in a website’s ranking caused by changes in Google’s search algorithms. Penalties may be applied in response to an algorithm upgrade or suspicion of black-hat SEO tactics such as questionable links or keyword stuffing.
Persona
Essentially, it is about describing a fake character that represents a typical prospect or client, as well as the connection he or she may have with your products or services. The objective of SEO personas is to go one step further and identify the keyword themes that your persona is likely to submit to search engines.
Personalization
Personalization is the act of tailoring an experience or message to a person based on information gathered about them by a company.
PHP
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a scripting language that may be used to create dynamic and interactive websites. It was one of the first server-side languages that could be embedded in HTML, making it easy to add functionality to websites without requiring data from other files.
Piracy
Piracy is known by many different names — internet piracy, online piracy, and digital piracy, to name a few — but piracy is the act of unlawfully reproducing protected information that infringes on the owner’s rights.
Pogo-sticking
When a search engine user views numerous distinct search results to get a result that satisfies their search query, this is known as pogo-sticking. It happens when a searcher clicks on a link on a SERP, discovers it isn’t what they are looking for, and immediately hits the back button.
Position
Search engine positioning is a subcategory of search engine optimization that focuses on improving page ranks (as opposed to working on sitewide technical SEO improvements or choosing keywords to optimize for).
PPC (Pay Per Click)
PPC stands for pay-per-click, an online marketing approach in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their advertisements is clicked. It is simply a way of paying for visits to your website rather than trying to “earn” those views organically.
Q
Quality Deserves Freshness (QDF)
The Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) function is a Google re-ranking feature. It simply means: Search queries that need current search results. It can significantly alter the look of a search result and can occur for search words whose meaning changes over time.
Quality Content
Quality content engages, informs, supports, and delights your viewers. Creating genuine, quality content is also essential for search engine exposure.
Quality Link
A high-quality link is organic, trustworthy, and relevant. While high-quality backlinks are the most valuable, medium-quality links can still help you gain traction, and you should avoid low-quality/spammy backlinks at all costs.
Query
Search queries are the words and phrases that users enter into a search box to get a list of results.
Question Keywords
When a person writes a comprehensive and detailed inquiry into Google, question keywords are employed. Instead of using a broad keyword like “Diabetes,” a question keyword may be “how do I know if I have diabetes?”
Read more: Question Keywords
R
Rank
The position of a website on the search engine results page is referred to as its ranking in SEO.
Other ranking variables impact whether a website shows higher on the SERP, such as the relevancy of the content to the search query or the quality of backlinks going to the page.
Ranking Factor
The phrase “Ranking Factors” refers to the criteria that search engines use to evaluate web pages toto create the ranks of their search results. Ranking criteria might be related to a website’s content, technological implementation, user signals, backlink profile, or any other qualities deemed important by the search engine.
Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links are established links between two sites that relate to each other because they cover similar topics or provide complementary goods or services. The site owners may find it beneficial to link to each other for the benefit of their visitors.
Read more: Reciprocal Links
Redirect
A redirect is a method of sending both visitors and search engines to a different URL than the one they requested. 301, 302, and Meta Refresh are the three most often used redirects.
Read more: Redirect
Referral Traffic
Referral traffic is defined as visitors to your site through links on another site. If an internet visitor from another site clicks on a link that takes them to your site, that visitor is recorded as referral traffic.
Read more: Referral Traffic
Referrer
The referrer is the website from which visitors are sent to your site via a link. In other words, it’s the webpage that a person was on before landing on yours. Many online analytics tools, including Google Analytics, track referrer URLs.
Reinclusion
Reinclusion (also known as reconsideration) is the process of requesting that a search engine re-index a website that was removed from the index as a result of a penalty.
Relevance
Relevance is defined as the most specific response to a user’s inquiry utilizing website material. Search engines correctly assess whether the material on the sites corresponds to key keywords.
Reputation Management
The process of monitoring and influencing what information about your brand is publicly available to internet users is known as reputation management. It is a preventative action to safeguard the brand. It is accomplished by monitoring online mentions and keeping a favorable presence in web searches.
Responsive Website
Responsive web design implies that your site does not have distinct mobile, tablet, and PC versions: the site adapts to whatever size screen it is presented on.
Return on Investment (ROI)
SEO ROI computes the return on investment from your SEO activities. If the organic income generated by your SEO operations exceeds the cost, your site will have a good return on investment.
Rich Snippet
Rich snippets are a sort of structured data markup that helps search engines interpret the content on each web page.
Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a text file that webmasters use to instruct web robots (often search engine robots) on how to crawl sites on their domain. The robots.txt file is a component of the robots exclusion protocol (REP), which is a collection of online rules that regulate how robots search the web, access and index content, and offer it to people.
Read more: Robots.txt
S
Schema
Schema.org (simply called schema) is a semantic language of tags (or microdata) that you may add to your HTML to improve how search engines interpret and display your website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Read more: Schema
Scrape
Web scraping is the technique of obtaining information from a website. The method entails gathering and exporting data in a manner that is more helpful to the user. CSV files, Excel, and Google Sheets are the most common formats in which the data appears.
Search Engine
A search engine is a web-based application that allows people to find information on the Internet. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and MSN Search are examples of popular search engines.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
The process of marketing a business through paid advertising that shows on search engine results pages is known as search engine marketing (or SEM).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of optimizing your website so that it appears higher in search results when people search for items or services connected to your company on Bing, Google, and other search engines.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
SERP stands for search engine results page, and it is the type of page that displays results when you enter a query into Google or another search engine’s search box. Search engines return a ranked list of URLs related to the specific terms supplied.
Read more: Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
Search History
The list of websites viewed by a person, as well as related data such as page title and time of visit, is referred to as their web search history. Web browsers often save information locally in order to offer the user a history list that allows them to return to previously viewed pages.
Search Intent
The primary objective of a user when putting a query into a search engine is known as Search Intent (also known as “User Intent”).
Search Volume
Search volume is a statistic that indicates how many people are looking for a specific query.
SEED Keywords
A seed keyword is a short-tail term that often contains one or two words.
Read more: SEED Keywords
SEO Business
An SEO business provides search engine optimization services to organizations in order to assist them to enhance their online presence.
Read more: SEO Business
SEO Campaign
An SEO campaign is a well-planned attempt to increase a page’s or website’s Google SEO rankings. It is frequently a long-term project with several components such as keyword research, site audit, SEO analysis, on-page optimization, link building, and many more.
Read more: SEO Campaign
SEO Company
In a nutshell, an SEO company works with businesses like yours to increase your exposure in search engines. Increased search engine exposure equals more visitors to your website and, eventually, more leads, phone calls, and sales.
SEO Consulting
SEO consulting involves search engine optimization experts who are paid by businesses and website owners to advise them on how to obtain higher ranks, more focused traffic, and, eventually, more revenues for their websites.
Read more: SEO Consulting
SEO Cost
SEO services are priced differently depending on what is included. The bulk of SEO campaigns in 2022 will cost between $700 and $2,000 per month, depending on the project’s complexity. A one-time job will cost $5,000 to $30,000, with experts charging $80-$200 per hour.
Read more: SEO Cost
SEO Hosting
SEO Hosting is a form of web hosting that enhances a website’s SEO with the goal of boosting the site’s searchability and thereby generating more revenue.
Read more: SEO Hosting
SEO Keywords
SEO keywords are the words and phrases in your website’s content that help users to find your site via search engines. A search-engine-optimized website “speaks the same language” as its target audience, including SEO keywords that help connect searchers to your site.
Read more: SEO Keywords
SEO Manager
An SEO manager is a search marketing expert that is in charge of developing and implementing an SEO strategy inside a company. An SEO manager may work for a marketing firm or as part of an in-house marketing team.
Read more: SEO Manager
SEO Report
SEO reporting tracks your website’s SEO performance. It identifies which SEO marketing operations are effective (for example, selecting specific keywords for organic search) and recommends areas for growth.
Read more: SEO Report
SEO Services
SEO services are search engine optimization services aimed at increasing website exposure and, ultimately, organic search traffic. These are usually provided by SEO businesses or freelancers that are experts in all elements of SEO.
Read more: SEO Services
SEO Specialist
A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist evaluates, analyzes, and edits a website to make it more search engine friendly, and the website then ranks higher in search results on major search engines like Google and Bing.
Read more: SEO Specialist
SEO Web Design
SEO web design entails creating your website so that search engines may simply crawl it. Website SEO incorporates everything to increase your exposure not only in search engines but also everywhere else online.
Read more: SEO Web Design
SEO Writing
SEO writing (sometimes referred to as “writing for SEO”) is the process of planning, producing, and optimizing material with the primary objective of ranking in search engines.
Read more: SEO Writing
Share of Voice
Share of voice is a measure of how much of a market share your brand has in comparison to other brands in the same sector. It assesses brand recognition and consumer engagement to see how you compare to the competition.
Read more: Share of Voice
Short-Tail Keyword
Short tail keywords are search phrases that are no longer than three words long.
Read more: Short-Tail Keyword
Sitelinks
Sitelinks are links to other pages (or portions of a page) that appear in the search results of some Google searches. They assist visitors in swiftly navigating important information on a website. Sitelinks initially emerged in 2005 and were made public in 2006.
Read more: Sitelinks
Sitemap
A sitemap is a roadmap for your website that helps search engines discover, crawl, and index all of its content. Sitemaps also alert search engines to the most important pages on your website.
Read more: Sitemap
Sitewide Links
Sitewide links are outbound links that occur many times across an entire page or portion of a website. These are often links in the footer, sidebar, or navigation menu.
Social Media
Social media are interactive technologies that enable the production or sharing/exchange of information, ideas, professional interests, and other kinds of expression through virtual communities and networks.
Social Signal
The aggregate shares, likes, and general social media exposure of a webpage as interpreted by search engines are referred to as social signals. These actions, like backlinks, add to a page’s organic search ranking and are regarded as another type of citation.
Source Code
The source code is a computer program that is translated into a machine language and compiled in image and function. The HTML code of a website is sometimes referred to as source code.
Read more: Source Code
Spam
Spam is any type of undesired, uninvited digital communication that is transmitted in large quantities.
Spider
A web crawler, often known as a search engine spider, is an Internet bot that crawls websites and provides data for search engines to index.
Split Testing
Split testing (also known as A/B testing or multidimensional testing) is a technique for conducting controlled, randomized tests to improve a website stat such as form completions, transactions, or clicks.
SSL Certificate
SSL is an abbreviation for Secure Sockets Layer, a security technique that establishes an encrypted link between a web browser and a web server. An SSL certificate, a (digital certificate), validates a website’s identity and allows for an encrypted connection.
Read more: SSL Certificate
Status Codes
A server issues status codes in response to a client’s request to the server. It contains codes from IETF Request for Comments (RFCs), other standards, and some extra codes used in some typical HTTP applications.
Stop Word
Prepositions, articles, pronouns, and conjunctions, are examples of stop words that search engines may ignore. Words like in, a, and the.
Read more: Stop Word
Subdomain
A subdomain is an extension to your primary domain name. Subdomains are used to organize and browse your website’s many parts.
Read more: Subdomain
Syndication
The practice of republishing existing material on different websites in order to attract a larger audience is known as content syndication.
Read more: Syndication
T
Taxonomy
In SEO jargon, a taxonomy is a collection of URLs that have a common attribute and so have relevance with one another. A URL taxonomy does not have to adhere to a certain URL structure, nor does it have to be located inside the same architectural depth as the homepage.
Thumbnail
A thumbnail image serves as a preview. It’s a small-scale version of a photo from the site.
Read more: Thumbnail
Time on Page
the length of time a visitor spent on your website before leaving. This may be back to the SERPs, another page on your website, a saved page, or anyplace else.
Read more: Time on Page
Title Tag
The title tag is an HTML code tag that allows you to specify the title of a web page. This title appears in the browser title bar as well as the search engine results pages (SERP).
Top-Level Domain (TLD)
The final portion of a root domain is known as a top-level domain (or TLD). Loganix is represented by the dot com following our name.
Traffic
SEO traffic is organic traffic from search engines, or users who put a term or query into Google, scrolled through the results, and then clicked on to your website.
Trust
Google’s trust factor is a composite of several variables that they utilize to assign a value to how trustworthy a site is. The more trustworthy a site is seen to be, the more probable it is that its content will be listed higher on certain Google queries. Some of the characteristics that make a site less trustworthy are that it is perceived to be dangerous and/or contains low-quality material.
TrustRank
TrustRank is an algorithm that assesses the quality of web content. In addition to PageRank, which stands for useful, informational websites, this algorithm was introduced. TrustRank examines the backlinks, site content, and external links, as well as if the information is relevant to certain user searches.
U
Universal Search
Universal search is a type of search in which Google displays images, rich snippets, local businesses, and other material directly on the search engine results page (SERP). This refers to Google’s ability to aggregate results from many verticals into a single SERP.
Unnatural Link
Unnatural links, in general, are fake connections that are primarily meant to influence a page’s rating. These can include paid links or links produced by scrapers and spammers that attach themselves to your site without your knowledge and perhaps link your site to another in a poor internet neighborhood.
URL
The web address that we type into a browser to view a web page is referred to as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Web URLs are also known as links.
URL Parameter
The parts of a URL that come after a question mark are known as parameters. They are also referred to as query strings or URL variables. They are made up of a key and a value pair that are separated by an equal sign.
URL Slug
A slug is the portion of a URL that is unique to each page of a website.
Usability
A website’s usability is indicated by the simplicity with which a user can learn how to utilize the website and the amount of pleasure received throughout this process.
User Agent
User agents are declared in the HTTP Header by user-agent strings, which frequently include the exact browser, along with its version, as well as the device and/or host operating system on which the browser will function. Bots and other software that impersonate individual users can also be used as user agents.
User Experience (UX)
The process through which design teams develop products that deliver meaningful and relevant experiences to consumers is known as user experience (UX) design. This covers the overall design of the acquisition and integration process, such as design, branding, function, and usability.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) refers to any material—text, videos, photos, reviews, and so on—created by individuals rather than brands.
V
Vanity URL
A vanity URL is a memorable, descriptive, and easy-to-pronounce URL that is often used to redirect URLs from one site to another.
Read more: Vanity URL
Vertical Search
A vertical search engine differs from a generic web search engine in that it concentrates on a specific category of online information.
Virtual Assistant (VA)
A virtual assistant works from a remote place to provide various services to entrepreneurs or enterprises. From digital marketing chores to appointment scheduling and event management to personal errands.
Visibility
SEO Visibility measures how visible a website is in organic search results when queries are typed into desktop search engines. It is an index that may also be used to assess problems and discover opportunities for optimization.
Voice Search
Voice search, also known as voice-enabled, allows users to search the Internet, a website, or an app using a voice command.
W
Webpage
A web page is a basic document that can be viewed by a browser.
Website
A website is a collection of online pages and associated material that share a similar domain name and are hosted on at least one web server.
Website Navigation
Web navigation is the process of exploring a network of information resources structured as hypertext or hypermedia on the World Wide Web.
Webspam
Web spamming is the practice of deceiving search engines into rating some pages higher than they deserve.
White Hat
The white hat SEO refers to SEO methods that work within the norms and expectations of search engines and searchers.
Read more: White Hat
Word Count
The amount of words in a document or passage of text is referred to as the word count. A larger word count aids Google in understanding what your material is about.
WordPress
WordPress is a software tool that makes it simple to create websites and publish content online.
X
XML
XML is an abbreviation for eXtensible Markup Language. XML was created to store and transfer information. XML was created to be both human-readable and machine-readable.
Read more: XML
XML Sitemap
In layman’s terms, an XML sitemap is a list of the URLs on your website. It serves as a road map for search engines, letting them know what material is accessible and how to find it.
Read more: XML Sitemap
Y
Yahoo
Yahoo! is an Internet gateway that includes a search engine and a directory of World Wide Web sites organized in a topical hierarchy.
Read more: Yahoo
Yandex
Yandex N.V. is a worldwide internet corporation based in Russia. It is Russia’s largest technological firm, offering a wide range of goods and services.
Read more: Yandex
Z
#
404 error
A 404 error, often known as a Page Not Found error, is an HTTP standard response code that indicates that the webpage being attempted to be accessed has been relocated or removed and that no redirect to the new URL has been applied.
Read more: 404 error
Summary
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed our MASSIVE SEO glossary (it’s even bigger than our footer).
We are going to keep it up to date for terminology-hungry SEOs and business owners by regularly add new terms, definitions and acronyms.
Looking for an SEO definition hat is not included?
Send us a quick message and we’ll add it!
