A

Accelerated Mobile Pages

Also known as AMP, it’s an Open Source framework created with the sole purpose of making mobile web pages load incredibly fast, due to the increasing number of search queries performed by mobile users.

adCenter

The previous name of Microsoft’s CPC (cost per click) ad network, which has been renamed as Bing Ads and is a direct rival of Google Adwords.

AdSense

An advertising system that belongs to Google and is focused on offering businesses of all sizes the chance to promote their products and services on third on websites owned by publishers. By inserting a specific code into their web pages, website owners allow Google to display relevant ads to visitors of your website.

AdWords

Google’s advertising platform, where users bid for relevant keywords related to their business, so that their ads could be displayed at the top of search results pages, right above organic results.

Affiliate Marketing

A program that offers merchants the option to increase their sales numbers by relying on independent advertisers to promote their products and services; the payment approach for these advertising services is known as CPA or cost per action, which means that affiliates are paid only when a visitor completes an action (usually, a purchase).

Affiliate Website

The owner of the website does not promote their own products and services, but the ones of a business that pays them for this advertising service; the content on this website is designed specifically to convince visitors to click on an affiliate link, displayed on the web page, that redirects them to the business’s site.

Alexa Rank

A traffic ranking platform which ranks websites from all over the world based on factors like page views and the number of unique visitors. The activity of these websites is analyzed over a period of 3 months, but rankings are updated on a daily basis.

Algorithm Change

An action performed by search engines, that affects (more or less) the rankings of websites on search results pages, based on the form it comes in. Also see: Algorithm Refresh, Algorithm update, New algorithm.

Algorithm Refresh

The search engine runs an existing algorithm again without changing it in any way, with the main purpose of improving search results and by extension – a better user experience.

Algorithm Update

Also known as Google algorithm update – Google adds or changes signals associated with an existing algorithm to improve search results. The outcome of such an update changes the ranking of websites. If the update is major, it affects a large number of sites. If it is minor, it may go unnoticed.

Algorithmic Penalty

A penalty that takes place automatically and that, in most cases, does not come with any message that can help a webmaster discover the reason behind it. This leads to a more challenging ranking recovery process.

Anchor Text

A URL that is associated with a word, phrase or even an entire paragraph, without being displayed in the actual text. When a user clicks on said word, they are redirected to another web page or website.

Authority Site

A popular, credible website that provides and links to quality content. It is a website trusted by users and rewarded by search engines through higher rankings on search results pages.

B

Black Hat

A set of practices that are not in agreement with or violate the quality guidelines required by search engines.

Backlink

Also known as inbound links, are links published on other websites or web pages, that redirect users to your website.

Black Hat SEO

A set of SEO practices that are also known as spam and that violate Google’s guidelines for webmasters.

Blog Commenting

A link building technique used by SEO experts in the past to increase a website’s traffic. It involves posting a comment on a blog post and including an URL that leads to your website. It has since been discouraged as an SEO tactic by Google because of the many spammy comments published, that were of low quality and irrelevant.

Blogroll

A list of recommended blogs published by the owner of the blog that has posted these suggestions. It is usually located on the sidebar of the blog.

Bookmarks

A list of website addresses that you might want to use in the future. Most browsers come with their own bookmark settings.

Bot

Also referred to as a crawler or robot that works on its own. If mentioned in reference to SEO, a bot is a crawler that searches the internet and indexes web pages. When used for black hat SEO, a bot will post spammy links on various websites.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors that leave your website after only seeing one page in relation to the total number of website visits. In Google’s terms, it is referred to as a single-page session.

Brand Mention Link Building

A tactic that involves searching for and contacting the people that have mentioned your brand without adding a link to your website in their content. There is a pretty good possibility that they will agree to backlink to your website, if you ask them. Google Alerts allows you to keep track of any brand mentions on the web.

Branded Keywords

Word or phrases that have the name of your business or brand included and that may be used for SEO purposes, although SEO experts believe that focusing on these keywords is a waste of resources that could be better spent on a different kind of campaigns.

Breadcrumb Navigation

Also known as Breadcrumb trail – a second navigation option that provides the user with more information regarding their location on your website. More specifically, they can use the horizontal links displayed on the page to navigate to previous pages. Example: Home -> Services -> Content.

Broad Match Keyword

A matching option for keywords that can be used in Google Ads. It allows your ads to be displayed on search engine results pages even when the search queries do not use your specific keywords, but variations, such as singular or plural forms, misspelled keywords, synonyms and even related searches.

Broken Link

Also known as Dead link – a link that no longer works, which can be caused, most commonly, by a page that has been moved or renamed. It can have a negative impact on your website’s ranking because it stops crawlers from doing their job – index your web pages.

C

Canonical URL

Also known as Canonical tag – a canonical tag is used with a piece of code that helps Google determine which of your pages that have duplicate content is the original one. This will be the page displayed in search results. By relying on this tag, you merge all of these web pages into just one.

Citation

Also referred to as a business listing, it involves publishing a business’s details (name, address, phone number) on a website.

Citation Flow

A score that is based on the number of links that point to a specific URL. The score given is between 1 and 100, 1 being the lowest and 100 the highest.

Click Bait

A title or link that, due to the way it is created, it convinces the web user to click on it and visit a specific web page. Usually, the titles are enticing, but the content does not match the “wow” factor.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

A rate presented thorough a percentage that shows how web users click on organic search results. The percentage is calculated with the help of a simple formula: divide the number of organic clicks to the number of impressions and then multiply the result by 100.

Co-Citation

The frequency with which two websites are mentioned on the same page by a third party. This is how search engines help establish which websites are similar.

Comments

A way to leave feedback on blog posts or other web pages that allow a web user to voice their opinion regarding the existing content.

Comments Tag

A way in which web developers provide additional information about their code. In the past, SEO professionals used to rely on the comment tag for keyword stuffing purposes. This approach is no longer recommended because it can affect your website’s ranking.

Competition

Online, there are two types of competition: direct competitors that sell similar products and services to yours; SEO competitors that use that try to rank higher relying on the same keywords as you do, even if they don’t have a similar business to yours.

Competitor Analysis

A strategy meant to help you understand what works for the websites that rank for the same keywords as your site does. It’s specifically useful for learning what other backlink opportunities, new keywords or content ideas you could rely on for SEO purposes.

Competitor Research

The process of learning and documenting all of the SEO activities of your competitors. By having a comprehensive approach to what is currently done on the market from an SEO perspective, you can build a better strategy.

Conceptual Links

Links that search engines try to have a deeper understanding of, by going further than just matching the words in the link to a word set.

Content

Any type of text, videos or even images that are published on a web page.

Content Management System (CMS)

Systems that allow users without any coding knowledge or skills to modify the content, metadata, tags and other details of a website. An example of a CMS is WordPress, which is an opensource platform.

Content Marketing

A marketing approach focused on building quality content that is shared online with the purpose of increasing credibility, brand awareness and visibility of a business. It relies on text, images and/or videos to achieve these goals.

Content Relevance

An indicator of how well a piece of content matches user intent. A higher level of content relevance will improve search engine results rankings of a website.

Content Score

A way to determine the competitiveness of a piece of content in the online environment based on factors like word count, sentence structure, repetitions, and keywords coverage. A higher score indicates a better quality of content.

Content Syndication

Also known as Article syndication, Syndicated content – a different approach towards reaching a new audience and increasing traffic, by republishing the same content on another website. This results in content duplication, but a final decision must be made after considering both advantages and disadvantages.

Contextual Advertising

Advertising systems that take into account a web page’s content before generating relevant ads.

Conversion

A process directly related to reaching certain goals online, which is done by tracking various online advertising strategies. Example of conversion goals: capturing email addresses from leads.

Conversion Rate

Usually expressed as a percentage, it is specific for each website and its goals. It is calculated by dividing the number of conversions to the total number of visitors.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The process of analyzing the current conversion rate of a website and implementing various strategies meant to optimize it by improving the number of conversions or the quality of their quality. Example of strategy: changing the design of the website.

Copyright

Having the legal rights required to not only publish but also reproduce a specific piece of work.

Cost Per Acquisition

Also known as Cost per action, Pay per acquisition, Pay per action – an indicator that shows the effectiveness of various advertising strategies; it’s mostly used in relation to marketing affiliates as well as contextual advertising. The action can be defined as anything between clicking on an ad to making a purchase.

Cost Per Click

Also known as CPC, Pay Per Click, PPC – the ads displayed on search results pages are usually sold in auctions that are organized by advertising platforms such as Google Adwords or Microsoft AdCenter. The advertiser has to pay for these ads per click.

Cost per Thousand Impressions

Also known as CPM, Cost per mille – it’s an efficient indicator of a website’s profitability or future potential, from a financial point of view. Also, it’s a payment option offered by Google that allows you to pay for your ad after it has been seen a thousand times.

Crawl Demand

An indicator of just how important a specific URL is for search engines. The further away it is from the home page, the less important it is.

Crawl Depth

An indicator of just how deep a search engine will go in indexing a website. The higher the number of clicks needed to get from the home page to a specific page shows that it will be harder for you to rank it high on SERPs. Internal linking or breadcrumb navigation are two solutions that can help you solve this issue.

Crawl Error

This is what happens when a crawling bot can’t crawl an URL or when the URL has a status code error.

Crawl Frequency

Expresses just how often a website is crawled. This depends highly on how often a site is updated as well as its trust score. If a website has too many artificial links and duplicate, it will be crawled less often than a website with unique content.

Crawl Rate

Also known as Crawl rate limit – defined as a technical limitation in regards to the algorithm, it is explained as a specific number of pages that a bot will crawl that day. If your website is not considered relevant, the search engine will index fewer of its web pages.

Crawl (Crawling)

A process in which a search engine crawler will analyze all of the content and code of a specific website with the help of external and internal links.

Crawlability

The ability of a search engine crawler to navigate, find content and index web pages. It is determined by the current condition of your website: whether you have a sitemap, if you have eliminated orphan pages and so on.

Crawler Directives

A set of instructions given to the crawler about what a webmaster would prefer it to crawl as well as index on their website.

Crawler

Also known as Bot, Spider, Web crawler, Googlebot – an automated program search engine relies on to analyze and index web pages. A bot navigates a website through links.

Cross-linking

The action of linking a number of domains that are owned by the same business or individual. It does not affect a website’s ranking if the websites are related in matters of the content or the chosen topic found on the pages of each site and if there aren’t too many links published.

Curated Content

Content that was not created by you, but that you find valuable and relevant for your audience. For this reason, you organize and offer it to your visitors. This leads to your visitors coming to your website to find the information regarding their niche that they require.

D

Deep Link

A link that points to a webpage associated with a website, other than the homepage. When used for link building purposes, it is best to have a link to your most relevant page posted on another website’s most relevant page.

Deep Link Ratio

A comparison between the total number of links that take you to internal pages to the total number of links to your website. A higher ratio is better for your ranking because it demonstrates a genuine natural link profile.

Deep Linking

An SEO tactic meant to make the visitor spend more time on your website, by redirecting them from one web page to another, which offers them even more information on a specific topic. It is usually associated with call to action buttons or articles (a link is posted within the text).

Deeplink Ratio

The percentage of links that point to web pages from your website, other than your homepage.

De-Indexing

The action of removing a website from a search engine’s database, which usually happens when the site violates the search engine’s guidelines. This is a result of relying on black hat SEO techniques.

De-Listing

The action of permanently or temporarily removing a website from a search engine’s database due to a number of reasons: black hat SEO strategies, webpages added to your new website have to benefit from a deep crawl, information quality issues such as duplicate content, triggering a spam filter.

Direct Competitors

Companies similar to yours that do not only offer the same or similar products and services but also target the same audience online as well as offline.

Direct Traffic

Visitors that go to a website by typing the URL in their browser and not through other channels such as search results provided by a search engine or links found on other websites.

Directory Links

If mentioned in connection to local SEO, a directory of links is a list of local businesses, their name, address and phone number as well as a link to their website, if there is one. There are also websites that only post links to other websites in a way that violates Google’s guidelines.

Disavow Links

A tool offered by Google to help you mention which of the current backlinks to your website should not be considered when your website is ranked. It is useful when you find backlinks that

Dofollow Link

All links are by default considered this way, which means that they offer something referred to as “link juice”, which allows crawlers to see, crawl and index them.

Domain Authority (DA)

An indicator developed by Moz.com, which shows the ability of a particular website to rank on search engines. It works based on a score between 1-100, 100 being the highest.

Domain Popularity

Is associated with the number of backlinks that come from other domains. But, only one backlink is counted per domain, even if there are multiple ones that redirect the visitor to the same website. On a blog about SEO, there might be 5 links that redirect the visitor to the website of an agency. Only one backlink from this SEO blog counts for domain popularity.

Doorway Page

Also known as Gateway page, Entry page, Jump page, Bridge page, Portal page – a page that was created with the sole purpose of attracting traffic from a search engine, that they later redirect to another web page. This type of page violates Google’s guidelines due to a number of reasons, such as offering little to no content or no value to visitors.

Duplicate Content

A web page or website where you have published identical or similar content from another web page or website.

Duplicate URL

A type of duplicate content, that involves having the same content posted on different webpages. This situation can be encountered due to various reasons, one of them being that a webmaster has not chosen a canonical URL, for different variations of the homepage.

Dynamic Content

Content that does not remain the same/changes over time or uses a language like PHP. For SEO purposes, it might be a good strategy to rewrite URLs that will make this type of content look like static content instead of dynamic.

Dynamic Languages

A programming language such as PHP that was designed for higher programming efficiency, by allowing to implement more functionality while using less code in the process.

Dynamic URL (Dynamic link)

The web address of a web page that is being stored in a database. The URL changes for each user query regarding the database. At the same time, the content displayed on the web page will be unique each time a user queries the database.

E

Editorial Link

Also know as Natural links, Organic links – the desired type of backlink a webmaster could wish for. The link to your website will be integrated into the content posted on another website. Your website is cited here because the published believes it to be a reliable source of information that provides quality content.

Email Outreach

Also know as Link outreach, Blogger outreach – a critical technique for link building purposes that involves looking for link building opportunities and asking other website publishers to link to one of your web pages. Among these opportunities, you could take advantage of broken links, where you can insert your own content and link, a guest post you could write for another website and so on.

Engagement Metrics

The measurement of just how engaging a specific piece of content or a website is to end users. These metrics help search engines improve search results.

Ethical SEO

Search engines consider and present SEO strategies that manipulate their search results algorithms as unethical. The only unethical aspect associated with SEO may be from a business point of view, where SEO experts are not indeed experts or where they don’t present all details concerning clients regarding their strategies (for example: risks of certain SEO tactics).

Exact Match Anchor Text

If the anchor text includes a keyword that describes the content on the page it is linked to. Example: SEO services as an anchor text is linked to a page about SEO services.

Exact Match Keyword

A keyword matching option you can opt for when using Google Ads. Your ad will only be displayed on SERPs if a web user types the exact word or phrase you have integrated into the content.

External Anchor Text

A text you can click on and that is linked to one of your pages, but that is published on another website. Example: clickable text associated with an URL you can find in an article published on an SEO strategies blog, that redirects the user to your website.

External Link

A link that redirects the web user to a web page which is not part of the website where it is published. More specifically, it is an URL to one of your pages, published on another website.

F

Featured Snippet

Also know as Rich answer, Direct answer – organic, specific answer displayed at the top of SERPs as an exact match to a web user’s query. Example: you type a keyword phrase and at the top of the search engine results page, you see the definition for that phrase.

Findability

Just how easy it is to find a specific piece of content from an internal point of view – by users or externally – by search engines.

Follow

The default state of all links. On the opposite side, there are “no-follow” links that are usually associated with user-generated content.

Followed Links

Also see “Follow”. All links have a “follow” attribute that characterizes them.

Footer Link

A link that can be found at the bottom of a web page. For example, many websites display a link to their Privacy Policy in the footer of their web pages.

Fresh Content

Content that has been published not too long ago or that gives visitors reasons to keep on visiting your website because of its dynamic condition.

G

Geotargeting

A strategy designed to target users that can be found in a specific place. The process involves showing them specific ads or content based on their location.

Google

Also know as Google Search, Google Web search – the most popular search engine used by web users to find whatever information, products, services etc., they require. The results provided to users are continuously refined to match their intent when performing the search query.

Google Ads

An advertising service offered by the search engine that allows you to bid on keywords in order for your ads to be displayed at the top of search engine results pages.

Google Alerts

A service provided by Google that allows you to get notified via email when certain keywords are included in content that has been indexed in the search engine’s database. For example, you can receive alerts when the name of your brand is mentioned, if you have set it up as one of your options.

Google Analytics

A service that will offer you a complete perspective on how your website is being used. For example, you can learn how many visitors have been to your website on a specific date or over a specific period of time. You can even find out where visitors come from.

Google Analytics Goals

The goals you can set up regarding what you would like people to do on your website. The rate at which these goals are accomplished will be tracked via conversion rate.

Google Authorship

A service that offers content creators to link it to their Google + account. It was available for 3 years, until 2014, when Google decided to discontinue it.

Google Dance

A past way that happened a specific time each month, when the search engine used to add new pages it crawled. This no longer happens because Google now crawls the Internet 24/7 and updates results in real time.

Google Direct Answers

A box displayed at the top of search engine results pages that Google believes that be the best match for a user’s search query. The user can benefit from this information without needing to click on a link. This approach follows the Hummingbird Update.

Google Disavow Tool

A platform offered by the search engine that provides webmasters the option to mention the links they do not want to be associated with their website. This is a useful option when you don’t want backlinks from low quality websites.

Google Fred

Also know as Google’s Fred update – a major update to Google’s algorithm that took place in March 2017 with the purpose of de-ranking websites that have web pages designed solely for affiliate links as well as ads.

Google Hummingbird

Also know as Google’s Hummingbird update – a major Google update released in 2013 that refines search results to match user intent instead of the exact keywords used.

Google Index

The search engine’s database of websites that have been indexed by its bots with the purpose of showing relevant search results for user queries.

Google Keyword Planner

A tool offered by the search engine that is part of Google AdWords and is used to begin keyword research for a business/website. Among the information offered by the planner tool, you will find monthly volume searches for keywords, level of competition (high, medium, low) as well as the average CPP (cost per click).

Google Keyword Tool

A tool provided by Google which makes estimates regarding the competition of a keyword, makes suggestions for new related keywords and will make recommendations regarding the keywords that are suitable for your web pages.

Google Local Listing

It can be done through a Google+ profile, it is a great way to show up in local searches as the most important information about your business – name, address and so on, are displayed at the top of search result pages, alongside the option to see its location on Google Maps.

Google Maps

A service offered by Google that offers access to road maps, a route planning option, the chance to experience everything in street view and get your business listed for SEO purposes.

Google Mobile Updates

Algorithmic updates released for the mobile versions of websites and the way in which they are ranked in search results.

Google Mobile-Friendly Test

An option provided by Google for webmasters to check the mobile-friendliness level of their website. After the analysis is done, you receive not only a score but also a list of issues that can be improved.

Google My Business

An option provided by Google that allows you to create and modify your business listing as you find fit. All the important details associated with your business will be shown in a side panel: name, address, business hours, reviews and so on.

Google My Business Listing

A listing that is available to all businesses, free of charge.

Google News

A vertical search engine that displays mostly news and articles from magazines as well as publishers. For a website to be included, it has to match certain requirements, but once it does, it will benefit from more traffic than regular indexed sites.

Google PageSpeed Insights

A tool offered by Google that allows you to test the speed of your website and learn what can be done to improve it.

Google Panda

Also know as Google’s Panda update – a major update that was released in 2011 and changes the way websites are ranked. It focuses on de-ranking the sites with duplicate, plagiarized and low quality content.

Google Penguin

Also know as Google’s Penguin update – a major Google update that was released in 2012 and focuses on de-ranking the websites that rely on spammy links as well as over optimized anchor texts.

Google Phantom Update

An unconfirmed Google update that supposedly started making changes to how certain websites rank in May 2015. The websites that saw a negative impact on their ranking were advisor, news and ecommerce ones.

Google Pigeon

Also know as Google’s Pigeon update – an update that was named by SEO experts and not the search engine, which focused on improving local search results by focusing on traditional Google ranking signals.

Google Pirate

Also know as Google’s Pirate update – a major Google update that was released in October 2014 and focused on de-ranking websites which had pirated content that web users could access.

Google Places

The search engine’s business listings for local search results, which are displayed at the top of SERPs whenever web users look for information locally.

Google Possum

Also know as Google’s Possum update – a major algorithmic update that was rolled out in September 2016 and focused on improving the relevance associated with a searcher’s location.

Google Quality Guidelines

A detailed list of guidelines published by the search engine of all the tactics that are associated with manipulating search results. The use of said tactics will get a website penalized.

Google RankBrain

Also know as Google’s RankBrain update – a major update that was rolled out in October 2015 and it meant adding machine learning to the search engine’s algorithm. RankBrain is thought out to be the third most important ranking signal.

Google Sandbox

A waiting period that has never been confirmed by the search engine, but that targets new websites, which are unable to see the complete results of all their optimization work. It is usually associated with sites that target highly competitive keywords. The results of their SEO efforts are available only after the websites have gained authority.

Google Search Console

Also know as previously Google Webmaster Tools – a web service that offers webmasters the option to monitor their websites for indexing errors as well as site speed. Notifications are available for manual actions that can be taken for improving these pages.

Google Sitemaps

A way in which you can help the search engine index your website faster and more efficiently by offering crawlers details regarding the content posted on your web pages and how these are connected.

Google Supplemental Index

A place where the search engine stores websites that have a low trust score. Among the reasons behind placing these websites here, you’ll find the ones that have a large amount of duplicate content on their web pages, that have URLs that are too complicated etc.

Google Tag Manager

A hub that is created with the purpose of managing the tracking codes of more than one website.

Google Traffic Estimator

A tool offered by the search engine that provides estimates for bid prices as well as the number of searching individuals that will click on your ad.

Google Trends

A tool provided by Google designed to offer you more insight regarding the way search volumes for certain keywords change in time.

Google Update

Changes made to the search engine’s algorithm.

Google Webmaster Guidelines

A set of guidelines published by the search engine that help webmasters increase their site’s visibility as well as achieve a better ranking on search results pages.

Google Website Optimizer

A free platform offered by the search engine for individuals that advertise on Google AdWords and that was created with the purpose of testing multiple variables.

Google’s Mobile Friendly Update

Also know as Google’s Mobile update, Mobilegeddon – a major update rolled out in April 2015 by the search engine that affects the ranking of websites which are not optimized for mobile devices.

Google’s Related Searches

A number of eight suggestions located at the bottom of the search engine results page, which are related to the term used for a search. These suggestions help you learn more about user interests or find new long tail keywords.

Googlebot / Bingbot

An algorithm that is designed to analyze, scan and later rank as well as index web pages.

Grey Hat SEO

SEO tactics that do not violate the search engine’s guidelines, but are considered unethical. An example would be the practice of link building or buying likes and shares for social media pages.

Guest Post

A piece of content published on another website than your own, that helps with link building. It is critical to ensure that the website where your content is published is relevant to your own site’s topic, because if it doesn’t, it will be challenging for crawlers to determine the relevance of your website.

Guest Posting

Also know as Guest blogging – the practice of publishing content on another website that will link to your own site. It is a link building practice used by the SEO community.

Guestbook Spam

An automated unethical advertising approach that relies on low quality links that do not have anything to do with the website where they are submitted.

H

Header Tags

HTML elements that webmasters rely on to designate the headings of a web page. Also see Heading tags.

Heading Tags

Elements that make the text on web pages larger or bolder; more specifically, these tags are associated with the titles as well as subtitles published of a page.

Headline

The title of a story or article published on a blog or website.

HTML Heading

Also know as Heading element, H1-H6 tag – elements that are associated with titles and subtitles of a page. The lower numbered headings are the most important ones. It is recommended to use just one H1 tag on every web page and a combination of the other tags to properly structure the content.

HTML Sitemap

A bulleted, organized list with links to web pages that makes it easier for web users to navigate a website. There is also the option of building the sitemap in an XML format, which makes it easier for bots to crawl and index the website.

HTML Source code

Is the only readable version of the code used to create applications as well as web pages, that allows modifications before a compiler turns it into what can be seen in your browser.

Hyperlink (Link)

Text or image that you can click or tap on and that will redirect you to another web page or another section of the page, which makes it easier for web users to browse online.

I

Image Compression

A tactic that improves the speed of web pages by changing the image files published on a website to a smaller size, without affecting their quality.

Image Filename

A unique name you can assign to an image that makes it easy to identify in the system. It is recommended that you make the name readable to humans; be descriptive, but short; include keywords and use hyphens.

Image SEO

The process of optimizing the images on a website with the purpose of improving the relevance of content, its visibility for search engines and the level of accessibility it offers to visitors. This can be done with the help of image sitemaps, by checking that an image has the right size, by adding alt tags and using file names that are descriptive.

Image Sitemap

A file in the XML format with the purpose of making the images easy to crawl and index by search engine bots. It can be added to the website sitemap or it can be a separate file.

Image Title

It can be added to the image tag in HTML and it is a replacement for when an image cannot be displayed. It does not have any effect on the website’s ranking, but it’s great for improving its accessibility.

Inbound Link

Also seen as a “vote of confidence”, it is a link to your website posted on another website. The number of backlinks associated with your website will have a huge impact on its ranking.

Incoming Link

Also see Inbound link or Backlink. It is a link that redirects the web user to your website, but that is posted on another site.

Indexability

The state in which a website can have its web pages crawled and indexed by search engine bots.

Indexed Page

A web page that has been crawled, analyzed and added to the search engine’s database.

Indexing

The process of having your website crawled by bots and added to a search engine’s database. The process can be sped up by having other websites with authority, that are relevant to the topic of your site, link to yours.

Inner Page

Any page on a website that is not the homepage. It is usually separated from the homepage with the help of the “/” symbol. An example would be www.shop.com/products.

Internal Anchor Text

Connected to Internal link and Anchor text, it is a text that you can click on and that will redirect you to a web page of the same website.

Internal Link

A link published on a web page that redirects the user to another web page of the same website.

International SEO

A set of tactics used with the purpose of increasing your website’s visibility in other countries and expand your business globally. It is useful to display appropriate content to the users of each specific country by setting up automatic detection of language and country.

K

Keyword

A word or a phrase that web users type into the search bar when they want to find a specific type of information. By including the keyword into your content, you allow spiders to understand its relevance and index your web pages accordingly.

Keyword Analysis

A process that involves analyzing all of the keywords you are using, that you have discovered and you want to include in your SEO strategy. Pay attention to metrics like search volume, cost per click, the level of competition as well as their position on SERP.

Keyword Cannibalization

Using the same specific keyword on more than one web page, which will lead to you competing with yourself and to affecting your SEO efforts as well as ranking.

Keyword Categorization

The process of categorizing keywords based on factors like user intent as well as context. It can help you identify the type of keywords used for search queries by web users at different stages of the buying process and improve your conversion rate.

Keyword Competition

Also known as Keyword difficulty, Keyword SEO difficulty – it determines the popularity of a keyword on SERP, while associated with your niche and it shows you just how challenging it would be for you to compete for a better ranking while using a specific keyword.

Keyword Density

A percentage that indicates the number of times a keyword or more have been used in a piece of content, while comparing it to the total number of words. There is no specific percentage, but finding an optimal keyword density can be harder than overdoing it.

Keyword Difficulty

An estimate made by Moz.com in the form of a number/score that indicates just how difficult it can be for your website to outrank competitors.

Keyword Domain

The name of the website that includes a keyword for which it is optimized.

Keyword Explorer

A tool offered by Moz.com that allows webmasters to explore and discover new keyword opportunities.

Keyword Frequency (Term frequency)

Although similar to Keyword density, this indicates the total number of times the keyword has been used on a specific web page, with no connection to how much content is published there.

Keyword Funnel

Due to the fact that the user intent changes while going through the different stages of the buying process, the keywords used for search queries changes as well. These keywords can be identified for improving conversion rates.

Keyword Prominence

It is related to the importance of a keyword, which is established by placing the most important ones near the title, in the header, in the meta description and even in the first paragraph published on a web page.

Keyword Proximity

Focuses on just how close different keywords are located on a web page. If there is a keyword made out of a few different words, the closer these words are to each other, the more relevant the web page becomes.

Keyword Rank

The position of a website on the search engine results page listings for a particular keyword.

Keyword Research Tools

The tools that can be used in the process of discovering new keywords based on a few different factors such as search trends, search volumes, bid prices and even the content published on other websites.

Keyword Research (Keyword optimization)

The process of finding new keywords for your SEO marketing campaigns, while using keyword research tools, analyzing the content published by your competitors and finding out how your clients have stumbled upon your website.

Keyword Stemming

Refers to the process of adding prefixes or suffixes to the root of a keyword to come up with different variations. For example: consult, consultative, consulting, etc.

Keyword Stuffing

Also known as Keyword spam – using important keywords and variations too many times in your content as well as links. This is deemed as a spammy tactic that affects your website’s ranking.

L

Landing Page

The first page that a web user visits after clicking on and ad banner or on a search result. It is essential for your website because it can either leave a good or a bad impression on the visitor.

Landing Page Quality Scores

A way in which Google keeps ads relevant, as the score focuses on your ad, landing page and keywords when deciding on a final number. The higher the score, the lower will your bid prices be, while your ad will benefit from a better position.

Lead

An individual that might be interested in what you have to sell and that is willing to provide their email address as well as other important contact details in exchange for something they deem as valuable from your site.

Lead Magnet

Also known as Gated content – content that is utilized to convince web users to leave their contact details such as name and email address. An example would be the promise of a free online book. This is a great strategy that depends on SEO efforts and that will help you improve conversion rates.

Link

It is a HTML element that allows you to navigate from one page to another across the internet. Links are present all over websites and are attached to elements like images or text.

Link Accessibility

How easy it is for humans or search engine bots to find a specific link.

Link Bait

A controversial practice that is used to create content meant to bring over as many visits as possible from other websites. It is seen this way because it entices people to share it with others.

Link Building

Also known as Link acquisition, Linkbuilding – the practice used by SEO experts to gain as many links as possible for a website. A natural approach is the best for search engine rankings. However, SEO agencies opt for various strategies to provide natural links, which is a paradox because this is done unnaturally.

Link Burst

A sudden increase of links that lead to a website. Although this usually happens in time, there are situations that can lead to such an increase. For example, when an article goes viral, which means that it gets shared multiple times.

Link Diversity

The practice of getting links from a variety of sources such as websites, directories, blogs, news links and so on. It is also associated with obtaining links from various domains (.edu, .eu, etc.)

Link Dropping

A black hat SEO tactic that involves the use of an automated system or not, to find opportunities where links can be introduced in the content or dropped – blog comments, forums, etc.

Link Equity

Also known as Link authority, Backlink authority, Link juice, Link value – an indicator of just how strong a website is when analyzing the authority of the websites providing backlinks and the popularity of these links.

Link Exchange

The practice of reciprocal linking that happens between two websites. Depending on how natural everything is, it may or may be not seen as ranking manipulation. This may happen if there are too many low quality links to and from your website.

Link Juice

The SEO power of a website. The higher the authority of a website, the more SEO power it has, the more link juice it passes over to a website that it links to. This shows that a link can influence the rank of a website.

Link Metrics

A set of factors that indicate the value that a specific link has for a website.

Link Popularity

The total number of backlinks to a website. These are counted separately. However, when it comes to competitive search, the quality of the links is worth much more than quantity, which is why it would be recommended that you focus on getting quality backlinks to your website.

Link Profile

Also known as Backlink profile – the term used to describe every backlink to a website. For example, among the terms used, the most relevant ones are “spammy” or “strong”.

Link Relevancy

Also known as Relevant link – it shows whether the two sites that are connected through a link also have a connection based on the content they display; at the same time, this term indicates just how relevant the site giving the backlink is in its niche.

Link Reputation

A combination between link authority and anchor text.

Link Text

See also Anchor text. It is a text associated with an URL. It can be a word, a phrase or even a few different sentences. When the text is associated with the URL, it becomes a hyperlink.

Local Business Schema

A code that can be used by businesses to improve their local SEO; this code markups certain elements on a web page about the business: name, address and so on, making it easier for crawlers to understand what the company is all about.

Local Citation

The mention of any piece of information related to a local business: name, address, phone number and so on, with the purpose of making it easier for web users to find it online.

Local Queries

Search queries that target a specific area. For example, finding a local vegan restaurant involves using a set of keywords alongside the name of the town or neighborhood.

Local Search

Also known as local pack, it is a set of 3 search results shown at the top of SERP, that are linked to Google Maps and depend on your current geolocation.

Local SEO

SEO tactics used with the purpose of improving the ranking of a website, locally by optimizing the customer traffic associated with a specific location.

Long Tail Keyword

Longer phrases that are used by web users in their search queries. These keywords are more targeted than standard ones and can be used for improving your ranking by publishing complex pieces of content built around them.

Lost Link

A backlink that no longer offers your website equity due to the fact that it has either been removed by the person that published it or the page where it was posted was moved.

M

Maccabees Update

An update that was rolled out in December 2017, while being unofficially named Maccabees, it’s a change to Google’s algorithms that de-ranks websites that rely too much on landing pages for targeting more keyword permutations.

Majestic SEO

A data analytics and insights company that have launched SEO tools like Trust Flow and Citation Flow, designed to help SEO experts manage the best SEO campaigns.

Manual Action

Also known as Google manual action penalty – action taken by a person and not a search engine algorithm, that has looked at your website and has found that it violates Google’s Webmaster guidelines.

Manual Penalty

The type of penalty that is applied to a website after an individual has taken a look at your website and has decided that it violates Google’s guidelines. If something like this happens, you as a webmaster are notified via Google’s webmaster tools.

Manual Review

To catch any websites that violate guidelines, search engines opt for a combination of both manual and algorithmic reviews. Triggering a manual review may happen due to factors like usage data or link growth patterns that are considered to be abnormal.

Medic Update

An update that was rolled out in August 2018, focuses on the websites regarding Your Money or Your Life, specifically targeting the ones from the healthcare and medical field.

Meta Description tag

A description of a web page that is made out of a few sentences and that usually appears in search results under the page title. A preferred meta description tag will add context to the page by including secondary keywords as well as phrases, by reinforcing the page title and being relevant.

Meta Descriptions

A more detailed, but short description of a web page, it contributes to indicating click through rates, which are important for your website’s traffic metrics.

Meta Keywords

An area that can be found in a page’s code, where keywords can be added. Nevertheless, search engines no longer consider these meta keywords when ranking a website, which means that using them does not help with your SEO.

Meta Refresh

Also known as Meta refresh tag, Meta redirect– a meta tag that is used to instruct the browser to refresh a web page after a specific amount of time has passed. It is a great option for pages with dynamic content. For redirecting purposes, 301 redirects are recommended instead of such a tag because it can harm your SEO.

Meta Robots Tag

Pieces of code that gives specific instructions to bots regarding how they should crawl and index online content.

Meta Search Term

These search terms can be included in a page’s HTML code to inform search engine crawlers regarding the keywords used to optimize a website. The meta search terms are not considered when websites are evaluated, but they do help with finding your site easier.

Meta Tags

The information that can be seen in the HTML code of a web page and that describes the content published on it. Search engines use these tags to describe the page’s content in search results.

Meta Title

It is a headline that a web user can click on and it is displayed on search engine results pages. It describes the content of a web page as concise as possible, while its importance is related to SEO as well as social sharing.

Metadata

It provides descriptive information on a site, while being set up with the help of meta tags such as meta description, title and so on. These meta tags are introduced in the website’s code and used by both the browser and crawlers.

Mirror Site

Also known as a replica for a website, that is placed on another URL, usually because of the fact that the server cannot welcome the level of traffic generated by the website. Its purpose is to offer a great user experience and fast loading pages.

Mobile First Indexing

A different approach to indexing websites, which involves indexing the mobile version of it before the desktop one. The desktop version of the site will be indexed, but not before the mobile version. However, if there is no mobile version or if the mobile site is not optimized, it will negatively affect a website’s ranking.

Mobile Optimization

The process of improving a website so that it offers a great user experience on mobile. It involves making adjustments to the text, images, navigation options and even to the buttons available on the website.

Mobile Speed Update

A recent update rolled out by the search engine that involves improving the rankings of websites that have mobile websites which load fast on mobile devices.

Mobile-First Indexing

Also see Mobile first indexing, which involves indexing a mobile version of a website before the desktop one.

Mobile-Friendly Website

A website that is optimized for use on mobile devices, which means that it offers a great user experience to its visitors due to the adjustments made for this exact purpose.

Moz

An online based marketing platform that provides a variety of tools for SEO, inbound marketing as well as content marketing.

MozBar

A plugin that can be used within the Chrome browser for the purpose of seeing page metrics such as domain authority, title tag and so on.

N

Noarchive Tag

A meta tag that helps you tell search engines not to save a cached copy for one of your web pages or more.

NoFollow

A meta tag that instructs search engines not to pay attention to an outbound link either because the webmaster does not want to pass on authority or because said link is paid.

Nofollow Attribute

Also see NoFollow; this is a meta tag that tells search engines not to follow a specific outbound link.

Nofollow Link

Considered an attribute value of a link that can be used to tell search engines you do not want your website to pass any equity to the site that it points to.

NoIndex Tag

A tag that instructs the crawl bot not to index a web page.

Noopener and Noreferrer

Known as values which are set for the rel attribute of a link and that offer information about the relationship between the website it is published on and the one it points to. Although it does not affect SEO, it is still useful for performance and security.

Nosnippet Tag

For Google, this is a tag that prompts the search engine not to display a snippet of a web page at the top of the search engine results page.

O

Offpage Optimization

All of the practices that can be implemented outside of the actual site for the purpose of improving its search engine ranking. This type of optimization usually involves building high quality backlinks to a website.

Off-page SEO

Also see Offpage Optimization; it’s a set of tactics meant to help improve the ranking of a website by taking action outside of its web pages.

Offsite SEO

See Off-Page SEO and Offpage optimization.

Onpage Optimization

Practices that can be done within a website to ensure that its search results ranking is improved. It involves optimizing the content that is published on its web pages as well as the meta description and its title tags.

On-page SEO (Onsite SEO)

Also see Onpage Optimization; it’s a set of measures that can be taken on a website to improve its ranking.

Onsite Optimisation

See Onpage Optimization and On-page SEO (Onsite SEO).

Organic Ranking

The ranking of web pages in search results based on their performance from an SEO perspective. The position on SERP is one that comes naturally and it is not paid.

Organic Search Results

Also known as Natural search results – search results displayed on search engine results pages that have not been paid. These results are brought forward by the search engine based on user intent, user search queries, and other factors.

Organic Traffic

Visitors that are brought to your website through organic search results and not paid ads.

Outbound Link

Also known as Outgoing link, External link – a link that redirects users to another website. It is a useful tool in offering search engine crawlers a better understanding of your specific niche and for improving the content you publish on your web pages.

Outreach Marketing

A kind of marketing that involves looking for businesses or individuals that might find what we have to offer to be valuable for them. It is used for establishing human to human contact and eliminating the risk of our website being connected to or classified as spam. For SEO purposes, this type o marketing focuses on blogger or email outreach with the purpose of building links.

Over Optimised

Usually refers to content that has been created in a way which will trick the search engine to consider it user friendly, instead of actually making it this way. An example would be writing content based on keywords where these are repeated too many times.

P

Page Authority (PA)

While domain authority measures the potential performance of a website on search engine results pages, page authority does it for an individual page of a website. For SEO purposes, it is recommended to opt for an efficient link building strategy as a page closer to the top that has other pages linked to it will have a higher level of importance.

Page Cloaking

Also known as Website cloaking, IP cloaking – a black hat SEO tactic that shows the search engine a type of content and the user something else. This can be done if delivering the content is based on the user’s IP address.

Page Content

All of the information that can be found within a website, such as text, links, videos, images and so on. Due to the fact that search engines do well with text, it is recommended that where possible, in relation to images or videos, you rely on alt attributes to describe the element.

Page Layout Update

Also known as the Top Heavy Update, it de-ranked websites that published too many ads above the fold.

Page Speed

Also known as Page load speed, Page load time, Page response time – an important ranking factor that indicates the amount of time necessary for a web page to load completely with text, images and other elements.

Page Title

Also known as Title tag – a headline that is displayed in search results that describes the content of the web page and can be clicked by users – it redirects them to your website, to a specific web page.

PageRank (PR)

A link analysis program that is part of the core search algorithm. It makes an estimate regarding the importance of a web page based on the quality and quantity of links that point at it.

Pages per Session

Also known as page depth, it is used to describe the average number of pages that visitors check out on your website in one session.

Pageview

Also known as Page impression – known as the request to load a page of a particular website. This action is tracked by Google Analytics, which means that each time a user asks the browser to reload a specific page, the search engine will count it as an additional view of said page.

Paid Inclusion

An option for websites that pass certain quality guidelines to buy the exposure they desire. Programs that allow this are Yahoo! Directory or Business.com.

Paid Links

Also known as Link buying – it involves buying backlinks by providing a service or a free product with the purpose of earning link equity. It is a risky technique that may get a website penalized if certain search guidelines are violated.

Paid Listing

Also known as paid ads, which involves benefiting from an option provided by Google to place your advertisement at the top of search results pages, separated from organic search results. This practice offers your website additional visibility.

Paid Search Engine Result

The result that is displayed at the top of search results pages, that is not connected to organic search results.

Paid Traffic

Visitors that come to your website through the use of paid ads offered by Google. These are the visitors that are redirected to your site after they have clicked on an ad you paid for and that was displayed at the top of SERPs.

Penalty

The action that prevents websites from ranking high in search results if the search engine algorithm or an individual that reviews the website considers there is a good reason for it. If it is an automated penalty, the website will begin ranking higher after the issue is fixed. However, if it is a manual one, webmasters might need to contact the search engine for re-including the site.

Plagiarism Finder

A tool that analyzes content and determines just how unique it is, by taking a closer look at other websites found in the same niche, that publish the same type of content. It also shows the percentage of the content included in the one you submitted that can be found on other websites as well.

Primary Keyword

Also known as Main keyword, Head keyword – the keyword that you use most often on your web page and that has the highest potential of driving traffic to your website. It should be posted in the page title, content headline and first paragraph to properly optimize your content.

Q

Qualified Lead

While leads are the visitors of your website interested in what you have to sell, a prospective client that has the highest potential of becoming a paying customer. It can be identified based on finding the exact stage they are at in relation to the buying process.

Qualified Traffic

Visitors that have landed on just the page that they were looking for or that is of interest to them. This means that they are more likely to find the content on a web page relevant to their needs.

Quality Content

Content that is not only worth to be linked by other websites, but that also helps webmasters to accomplish their marketing goals such as benefiting from organic traffic, earning a top ranking in search results and so on.

Quality Link

A link that comes from a website that has authority, is considered to be relevant as well as trustworthy.

Quality Score

An indicator which can have an impact on the ads that you run through Google AdWords, by influencing their price and rank. The score given is between 1-10 and depends on how relevant and useful the website is for web visitors.

R

Rank

The position of a web page on search results pages, based on how relevant it is for the search query of a web user.

RankBrain

The machine learning component that is part of Google’s algorithm, which changes the way in which search results are displayed based on how helpful or relevant they are to the web user.

Ranking

The action that involves ordering search results on SERPs based on how relevant they are to search query.

Ranking Factor

A component that is analyzed by search engine algorithms to determine the position of a web page in organic search results associated with a particular search query.

Ranking Opportunities

The potential of a website in relation to SEO of ranking high for specific keywords; this type of potential depends on all sorts of factors such the quality and relevance of the content published on a website, the website’s indexability as well as the recommendations made by visitors that point to the site.

Reciprocal Linking

The action of having two websites post backlinks to each other. Also known as link exchange, it is a reciprocal tactic that benefits two websites. Nevertheless, if it is used excessively, it can lead to search engine penalties.

Redirection

The action of moving an URL to another location. In most cases, the process has a permanent outcome, which is known as a 301 redirect.

Referral Traffic

The traffic that is redirected from one website to another. More specifically, if people visit your website by clicking on a link that is posted on another website, they are deemed are referral traffic. Example: individuals visit your site by clicking on a link that was posted on Facebook.

Referrer

The source from which a specific visitor was directed to your own website.

Regional Keywords

Keywords that are used more in a specific area. An example would be the use of the word “pop” which is associated with “Coke”, is more specific to areas like Kansas.

Reinclusion

Also known as Reconsideration request, Google re-inclusion – the process of asking the search engine to add a website to their search index after having been penalized for violating its guidelines. The answer depends on just how severe the infraction was.

Rel Attribute

It defines the relationship between two documents or more specifically between a linked resource and the exact document from which it is referenced.

Rel=Canonical Tag

A tag that offers webmasters the option to indicate to Google which of their web pages is the original one and which should be considered duplicates.

Relative URL

Also known as Relative link, Relative path – a link that can be used for link building purposes, which does not contain a domain name or a protocol and is part of the anchor tag. It’s a short path to anything you want to link to, including an image, HTML page or file.

Remarketing

The practice of showing specific advertisements to visitors of your website, after learning which pages they have visited, on a third party site, with the help of platforms that run on a CPP basis such as Google’s Display Network.

Repeat Visits

Web users that have visited your website in the past multiple times. This is a signal considered by Google when determining the ranking of a site. When a website has many repeat visits as well as a high number of brand-related searches, it will benefit from an increase in ranking.

Reputation Management

Also known as Rep management, Online reputation management, ORM – the practice of making sure that any search queries involving keywords related to your brand show results that help your brand by reinforcing it. Hate sites usually rank high for brand related keyword queries as well.

Resource Pages

Usually utilized for the purpose of link building. Certain websites offer web users access to lists of useful links pointing at websites with relevant content. You can identify these sites by performing a specific search query – for marketing services, you can look up marketing intitle:“resources”.

Responsive Design

A design that allows the content of a page to adapt to the screen on which it is viewed, regardless if you are visiting the website from your laptop, tablet or mobile phone. It is the type of designed preferred by Google.

Responsive Website

Also see Responsive design. The website adjusts to the screen that the visitor chooses to ensure a great user experience.

Resubmission

A useless service that promises to resubmit a website to a search engine. A submission is not needed, which renders a resubmission a scam, because it does not exist as an option. Search engines find websites on their own, index them and only ban them if the webmasters resort to actions that violate certain guidelines.

Rich Snippet

A snippet is defined as a preview of an URL, which shows the title and description of the web page, whereas the rich snippet is a more enhanced preview which involves displaying additional content such as rating stars.

Robots Meta Tag

A piece of code that offers you control over how a search engine bot will crawl and index your website. While the default values instruct the crawlers to follow links from your page and index it, you can opt for other value options as well such as “noindex” (the bot will not index your web page), “nofollow” (the crawler will not follow the links that point to other websites) and so on.

Robots.txt

Also known as Robots exclusion standard – a text file you can use to instruct bots how to process each of your web pages. You can choose what is off-limits for the bots and make them focus on the most relevant content.

S

Schema Mark Up

A labeling system that offers search engines more information they can use to display on search results pages. See Rich snippets for more details.

Scraping

Also known as Web scraping, Content scraping, Scraped content – the action of taking content from one site and displaying it on another, which is usually completed by automated bots. It is not in violation with any search engine guidelines, as long as you don’t take the content, rewrite it to look as if you have created it – this is deemed as spam.

Scroll Depth

A way of tracking exactly how far down your website visitors scroll on your web pages.

Search Engine (SE)

A program that retrieves information from its database to match the search queries of web users. Examples: Google, Bing, etc.

Search Engine Algorithm

Also known as Google algorithm – a specific set of rules that a search engine relies on to find out the value of a particular website and rank it. There are more algorithms utilized for this purpose and each has its own role. That is why algorithm updates are so important for webmasters from an SEO point of view.

Search Engine Guidelines

Search engines have certain guidelines webmasters can go to when they want to learn useful information regarding how they can help the search engine find and index their website or rank it high on SERPs. The same guidelines offer detailed information about prohibited actions that can lead to getting a website penalized. The worst penalty is removing a website from the search engine’s index.

Search Engine Marketing

Also known as SEM, Search marketing, Search engine advertising – a combination of search engine optimization and search engine advertising, this is a set of practices used to make a website rank higher on SERPs and benefit from more traffic.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A set of measures that are used to improve a website’s ranking on search results pages. More specifically, SEO aims to get a website to the top of organic search results. Once you get your website there, monitoring its position is necessary because any improvement in ranking for your competitor might affect yours.

Search Engine Rank

The position of your website on search results pages, when displaying search results that match a specific search query.

Search Engine Registration

The option of registering a website with a search engine. After this action is completed, it will take a few days before crawlers will analyze it and decide whether they will index it or not. Nevertheless, if the website has backlinks, crawlers might have already indexed it, which renders registration as unnecessary.

Search Engine Result Page (SERP)

The page a searcher sees after performing a search with the help of a search engine.

Search Engine Spam

Also known as Search engine poisoning, Spamdexing, Search spam, Web spam)) – it refers to different practices that are meant to manipulate search results so that a website would have a higher ranking on SERPs. If search engine spam is discovered on a website, it can get penalized. The penalty chosen by the search engine may de-rank the website or remove it from its index.

Search Quality Rater Guidelines

Guidelines that human raters who work for Google use to find out whether the web pages of a website are of high or low quality.

Search Query

Also known as Query, Search term – a keyword, phrase or even question that is typed in the search bar of a search engine by a web user.

Search Result

The results that are displayed on the search engine results pages, following a search conducted by a web user. The search result depends on the keywords or phrases used by the searcher.

Search Result Snippet

The part of a web page you see on search results pages, when performing a search. You have access to information associated with your meta description tag. An organic search engine result would show a title as well as a snippet.

Search Traffic

Visitors that are redirected to your website from search engines like Google. When people search for something online, they gain access to pages of search results, which include links to websites. If they click on one of them, they are redirected to said website.

Search Visibility

An estimated percentage of clicks that your website receives that depends on the organic ranking of the keywords you have chosen for your web pages.

Search Volume

The total number of times web users have searched for a word or phrase.

Secondary Keywords

Keywords that can help you optimize your content when you opt for a primary keyword and need the secondary ones to play a supporting role. Over-using the primary keyword in your content can lead to keyword stuffing and website penalties. The secondary keywords are usually long tail ones that have a low search volume.

Seed Keywords

A list of the most relevant keywords for your specific business. These keywords are used to create long tail ones and help you set the foundation for any keyword research you may perform for the purpose of optimizing your content.

SEO Competitors

Businesses that optimize their content and try to rank high in organic search results while using the same keyword that you do, but that do not sell similar products or services to the ones you do. They speak to a different target audience.

SEO Copywriting

The process of creating and formatting copy to make it appear relevant for a wide range of search queries. When writing SEO friendly titles, you can choose titles that match user intent or titles that compel web users to link to them.

SEO Service

Also known as SEO service provider, SEO agency – a paid service that webmasters can rely on to have their website optimized for search engines and benefit from increased online visibility. By opting for the help of an SEO agency, you can rely on their expertise regarding all SEO aspects associated with your website.

SEO Site Audit

Also known as Site audit, SEO audit – an analysis of a website that focuses on all aspects related to its search engine visibility. There are two types of audits that can be done – a technical one and a content audit. This process is meant to help you identify any problems or errors that can be used to improve your SEO strategy.

SEO URL

An URL that is user-friendly and that has been optimized to make the most out of the existing SEO advantages a web page can benefit from. This means including the keyword you optimize the content for in the actual URL of the web page.

SEO Visibility FAQ

A set of SEO visibility related questions and answers designed to offer webmasters in-depth insight on how they can make their websites more visible to search engines, from an organic point of view. SEO Visibility is a metric determined by a combination of factors that calculate just how visible a website is in organic search results.

SERP

Also known as search engine results page, it is the first page that a web user sees after having conducted a search. This is the page where websites want to be found, because it is usually the only one that searchers check when looking for products, services or specific information.

SERP Feature

Due to the fact that Google is trying to offer web users access to search results that come with easy to skim content, it relies on SERP features that include: paid search engine results as well as rich snippets, universal search and knowledge graphs.

SERP Shaker

A black hat tactic that creates content as well as websites with the help of a specific kind of software. These sites are built the purpose of ranking for low competition keywords and filling their web pages with ads, backlinks. The same websites are used to collect emails and gather revenue from various sources.

Sitelinks

Also known as Google sitelinks – links that are displayed under a search engine results, to offer web users the option to visit one of the website’s subpages. It can be personalized when using Google Ads, but no changes can be made when it comes to organic search results.

Sitemap

A list of all your website’s subpages that offers search engine crawlers all the information they need to be able to crawl and index your website. The existence of a sitemap will speed up the crawling process, while ensuring that no web pages are missed by bots.

Snippet

A preview showed by Google on search engine results pages that includes the title and description of an URL. See also Rich snippet, which is an enhanced version of a snippet and includes additional features and information.

Social Bookmark

A simple, convenient manner in which a web user can bookmark a website online. Instead of relying on a Book or an offline bookmarking system on your personal computer, you can save these links online and access them regardless of your location.

Social Media

Platforms where web users can interact with each other, while having the option of creating, sharing and reacting to content.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

A set of practices used to increase the visibility of a person, company or even a website through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on. There are various content strategies that can be implemented on these platforms.

Social Syndication

A method that allows web users that have created content on social media to share it with the purpose of increasing audience reach and making an impact on these platforms.

Spam Score

A metric used by Moz.com that determines how likely a website is to get penalties for using various tactics which are associated with websites that have already been penalized. The score shows how many flags have been discovered on a specific site.

Spider

Also see Bot or Crawler. It is an automated program that search engines use to scour the online world to scour the online world, find and index content.

Static URL

Also known as Static link – the web address associated with a web page that has the same content all the time. This means that the content does not change, so the URL stays the same. This type of URL is easy to memorize, can include keywords and leads to a higher click through rate.

Structured Data

Also known as Schema – structured data markup that can be added to your website to instruct the search engine bot which elements should be crawled for valuable information with the purpose of discovering content.

T

Tagging

(1) the ability to bookmark pages, resources, content; (2) the option to add keyword descriptions to images and text published on blogs; (3) the use of meta tags for describing the content on a web page.

Tags

See Tagging;

Technical SEO

The foundation of your SEO strategy, it deals with all elements that can make it easier for the search engine bot to crawl and index your website. It works on site performance and structure, image optimization and responsiveness.

Text Link

Also known as Anchor text, it is the text associated with an URL, that can be clicked and that will redirect the web user to a different page, website or even to a different section of the same web page.

Text Link Ads

Advertising within the content posted on a web page, by turning text into links.

Thin Content

Content that does not add too much value to a visitor. It is also considered low quality content and it is used by spammers on web pages for keyword stuffing purposes.

Title Tag

It is one of the first things that a web user can see in search results and it is the element that describes the content on a web page. This is the first place where an SEO keyword is usually inserted.

Top Heavy Update

See Page Layout Algorithm. This is the nickname given to a search engine update that de-ranked websites that affected user experience by placing too many ads on a web page, above the fold.

Top Heavy

Also known as Top heavy algorithm – see Top Heavy Update and Page Layout Algorithm. It’s the algorithm that penalized websites that display too many ads above the fold of a web page.

Topical Relevance

It is used together with backlinks and it usually describes websites that have similar content. Backlinks from sites that have topical relevance carry more weight on a website’s ranking than a backlink from a site that does not have anything to do with the content published on the one it points to.

Topic-Sensitive PageRank

A way of computing PageRank to focus on creating topic related PageRank scores instead of producing just one global score.

Top-Level Domain

Also known as TLD, it is the extension of a web address. Example: .com, .org, .net and so on.

Trust Flow

Part of an SEO metrics suite owned by Majestic SEO, this tool offers a score to a website based on the level of trustworthiness associated with the backlinks that point to it. The highest score that can be given is 100.

TrustRank

An algorithm based on search relevancy that pays additional attention to links from websites that are controlled by major corporations, governmental institutions or even educational institutions.

U

Unethical SEO

See also Ethical SEO. The only part of SEO that can be unethical is related to the way that some agencies run their business and treat their customers. They need to explain risks to webmasters that opt for their services.

Unnatural Link

A link that is deemed by Google as manipulative or suspicious.

User Generated Content

Content that is generated by the visitors of a website. For example, comments which are posted on blog posts or product reviews qualify as user generated content.

User-Friendly

Easy to use, understand and learn from a web user’s point of view. This is an attribute that is often associated with the design of a website. In this case, it means that the user can navigate it without any issues.

V

Venice Update

A Google update that is based on the web user’s location and that offers local businesses the chance to compete with large corporations, from a local SEO point of view.

Vertical Search Engine

A search engine with special functions that focuses on a specific type of content that can be found online. Example of vertical search engines: Google Maps, YouTube, Google Images and so on.

Video Optimization

A process that has the purpose of increasing the search visibility of a video. Usually associated with YouTube, this type of optimization involves two aspects – optimizing the actual video and optimizing your channel. For this, you would need to find the best keywords, write a relevant description for viewers and bots, use tags and interesting thumbnails.

Viral Content

A piece of content, regardless if we are talking about an image, an article, a tweet and so on, that gets incredibly popular in a really short time. This means that it spreads in the online environment by being shared and getting backlinks from multiple sources.

Viral Marketing

A business advertising strategy that uses social networks to promote a product. It’s viral because the information about the product spreads in the online world from one web user to another just like a virus.

Visibility

The position occupied by a website in search results. If a website is located near the top of the SERP, it benefits from increased visibility.

Voice Search

Technology that is voice-activated and that offers users the option to speak into their phones, ask questions and perform online searches without needing to touch their devices or type any search terms.

W

Web 2.0

A way to describe the way that the internet has been used lately. More specifically, the content that is popular right now is dynamic content, while social media is heavily used.

Web Directory

A collection of linked web addresses that are organized into categories and used to be sought after for link building purposes. Due to the overuse of this link building technique, it no longer offers too much value when talking about a website’s rank.

Webmaster Guidelines

A set of guidelines meant to help webmasters learn more about website optimization practices, what aspects they need to focus on and what sort of practices can lead to penalties.

Webpage

A HTML document that is connected to the internet and can be read by a web browser. A website can have a variable number of webpages.

Website Navigation

The manner in which a website connects its pages so that users can navigate it. There are different forms used, such as main navigation, which focuses on main topics, secondary navigation which focuses on topics that are related to the main ones, footer navigation, which links to all sorts of information resources and so on.

Website Quality

Search engine bots focus on a set of features to determine the quality of a website. This means that a bot will look at factors like: content relevance, content-length, user engagement, spelling, readability, backlink profile and so on.

Website Structure

Also known as Site structure, Website architecture – a map of your website that shows the connections between the existing web pages. It should be clear for the purpose of offering easy navigation to the web user. It matters for determining site relevance as well as increasing conversion and click through rates.

Webspam

See Search engine spam. Basically, it is a black hat tactic used to manipulate search results by trying to rank high on search results pages, a website of low quality.

White Hat SEO

Good SEO tactics that follow search engine guidelines and focus on optimizing websites for humans and not for search engines.

Widget

An application that performs a function and is embedded into a website for this exact purpose.

Word Count

The number of words included in a piece of content.

X

XML Sitemap

A file that shows the structure of a website, its web pages and how they are connected. Its purpose is to make the website easier to find, crawl and index by search engine bots.

X-Robots-Tag

A tag that instructs search engine bots how to crawl and index a specific web page.