SEO Glossary
Content
10x Content
"Content that is 10 times stronger than regular content" initially introduced by Rand Fishkin in his Whiteboard Friday video series.
Measurement
A/B Test
A way to compare different versions of strategies to figure out which performs better.
Content
Above The Fold
Refers to the content a viewer logging into a website sees before they scroll down.
Technical SEO
Allow Command
Refers to the code for web pages that are to be crawled and indexed.
Content
Alt Text
The alt text tag helps search engine bots to make sense of a given image. Alt text tags are visible to both visitors and engine bots.
Technical SEO
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
AMP helps mobile pages load faster by keeping them in Google's cache.
Link Building
Anchor Text
Anchor text refers to the hyperlinks that are used to direct users to another page.
Technical SEO
ASO (App Store Optimization)
Refers to optimization practices aimed at making mobile apps more visible in stores.
Measurement
Average Position
The average of the top positions of a website across all search results.
Measurement
Average Session Duration
A metric that reports the average amount of time users spend on your website.
Link Building
Backlink
An inbound hyperlink from one website to another — historically the strongest single ranking signal in Google's algorithm, treated as a vote of confidence in the linked page's authority.
Link Building
Black Hat Link Building
Black hat link building refers to link building strategies utilized by actors who attempt to rank higher in search results by exploiting backlinks.
Other
Black Hat SEO
Refers to malicious activities for manipulating search engine results.
Content
Blog Content
The set of SEO-friendly content published on blogs or in the blog sections of websites are called blog content.
Measurement
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate refers to visitors that leave a web page without engaging with its contents.
Link Building
Brand Anchor Text
Hyperlinks that are brand names and direct users to the brand website are called brand anchor texts.
Technical SEO
Breadcrumb
Breadcrumbs are a navigation aid that helps users easily understand the relation between their location on a page and higher-level pages.
Link Building
Broken Link
Hyperlinks on a page that do not work for one reason or another are called broken links.
Technical SEO
Cache
It is a type of memory that allows users to engage with the relevant web page faster on their next visit.
Technical SEO
Canonical Tag
An HTML `<link rel="canonical">` element in the page head that tells search engines which URL is the authoritative version when duplicate or near-duplicate content exists across multiple URLs.
Content
Category Content
SEO-friendly content that is created in order to inform website visitors and search engine bots about a category is called category content.
Technical SEO
CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Refers to the network technology that enables data to be transmitted over servers in certain locations.
Measurement
Citation Flow
Developed by Majestic, Citation Flow is a metric that is calculated using the number of backlinks on a website.
Measurement
Click
Refers to the action of a user visiting a website after doing a search on a search engine.
Technical SEO
Client Side Rendering (CSR)
Refers to the technique by which the HTML file is processed by the browser and the content is rendered by the browser.
Technical SEO
Cloaking
Refers to the technique by which search engine bots are directed to a specially prepared page.
Technical SEO
CMS (Content Management System)
CMS refers to systems where content can be managed, edited or various updates can be made.
Technical SEO
Code 200
A status code indicating that the server has responded successfully.
Technical SEO
Code 301
A status code indicating that a web page has been permanently redirected.
Technical SEO
Code 302
A status code indicating that a web page has been temporarily redirected.
Technical SEO
Code 400
A status code indicating that the server could not process the request due to a problem with the browser.
Technical SEO
Code 403
A status code indicating that access is not allowed or the relevant web page is banned.
Technical SEO
Code 404
A status code indicating that the web page is not on the relevant server.
Technical SEO
Code 410
A status code indicating that the web page is not on the relevant server, definitively and permanently.
Technical SEO
Code 500
A status code indicating that there is a server-related problem.
Technical SEO
Code 502
A status code that occurs when the server receives a negative response from a different server.
Technical SEO
Code 503
A status code indicating that the server is either too busy to respond or under maintenance.
Technical SEO
Code 504
A status code indicating a technical issue with the server.
Technical SEO
Code 509
A status code indicating that the server has reached its monthly hosting traffic limit.
Content
Commercial Intent
User queries that are made by users who intend to make a purchase but want to do research and obtain information beforehand are called queries with commercial intent.
Link Building
Compound Anchor Text
Compound anchor texts are hyperlinks that possess the characteristics of different types of anchor texts.
Technical SEO
Compressing Images
Refers to the process of optimizing and resizing images in order to increase the loading speed of pages.
Content
Content Marketing
The method of promoting a product, service, or brand of a website through content that will benefit the users is called content marketing.
Measurement
Conversion Rate
Defined as the number of visitors to a website, who complete the desired action out of the total number of visitors.
Measurement
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rate optimization refers to the practice of increasing the percentage of users who perform a desired action on a website.
Other
Cookies
Small text files saved on users' devices by websites are called cookies.
Technical SEO
Country Code Top-Level Domains (CcTLD)
Refers to a two-letter Internet top-level domain specifically designated for a particular country.
Technical SEO
Crawl Budget
The number of URLs a crawler will fetch on a site within a given timeframe — a function of server capacity (crawl rate limit) and content popularity/freshness (crawl demand).
Technical SEO
Crawl Depth
The term crawl depth refers to how many pages a search engine's bot will access and index on a site.
Technical SEO
Crawling
Crawling refers to the process whereby bots systematically browse through a website.
Technical SEO
Critical Rendering Path
Refers to a specific set of steps that must be completed before any page content can be shown to a visitor.
Technical SEO
CSS
A markup language that helps visually shape the elements of a web page.
Technical SEO
CSS Sprite
Refers to the process of combining multiple images and retrieving over a single image file.
Measurement
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
The percentage of users who click on a search result, ad, or link after seeing it — calculated as (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100 — and a primary signal of how compelling your SERP listing is at the position it occupies.
Measurement
DCL (DOM Content Loaded)
Refers to the time frame from entering a web page to the loading of the content.
Measurement
Direct Traffic
Direct traffic, a Google Analytics metric, refers to users entering a URL into their browser to directly access the website.
Technical SEO
Disallow Command
A command used for web pages that are not to be crawled and indexed by bots.
Link Building
Disavow File
It is a .txt file that is created to disavow spam backlinks.
Link Building
Dofollow Link
When an external link from a website is marked as "dofollow", it means that the origin site passes its authority to the destination site and Google knows about it.
Technical SEO
Domain
Addresses that allow Internet users to access websites are called domains.
Technical SEO
Domain Age
Domain age represents how long it has been since the domain was first registered.
Measurement
Domain Authority
A third-party proprietary score (Moz DA, Ahrefs DR, SEMrush AS) on a 1–100 scale that estimates a domain's competitive ranking strength based on link profile quantity and quality — not a metric Google uses directly.
Content
Duplicate Content
Identical or fairly similar pieces of content on the same or different websites are called duplicate content.
Technical SEO
Dynamic Rendering
An intermediate solution developed to facilitate the crawling of bots on JavaScript-based sites.
Content
Evergreen Content
SEO-friendly content that is not outdated and can be continuously consumed by users is called evergreen content.
Link Building
Exact Match Anchor Text
Hyperlinks containing the targeted keyword are called exact match anchor texts.
Measurement
Exit Page
The last page viewed by a visitor during a visit.
Measurement
FCP (First Contentful Paint)
Refers to the point at which the first pixel renders on a screen after a user navigates to a web page.
Content
Featured Snippets
Boxed answer-extractions Google displays above the normal blue-link results — paragraphs, lists, tables, or steps lifted directly from a top-ranking page to answer a query without requiring a click.
Technical SEO
Fetch As Google
A free tool available on Search Console.
Measurement
FID (First Input Delay)
Refers to the metric that represents how quickly a response is given when an action is requested after the page is loaded.
Measurement
FMP (First Meaningful Paint)
The metric representing the time it takes for a page's primary content to appear on the screen.
Technical SEO
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
An Internet protocol that allows the exchange of files between two online computers.
Technical SEO
Generic Domains (gTLD)
Refer to domains formed out of words with a dictionary meaning that have no suffix.
Measurement
Google Analytics
A free performance analysis tool that provides detailed information about visitors to a website.
Content
Google Discover
Proactively serves relevant content to users based on their interests.
Technical SEO
Google My Business
Helps businesses to become more visible on Google searches and maps.
Technical SEO
Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Refers to the tool that allows you to manage custom codes and tags on the website.
Measurement
Google Trends
Offers data based on Google Search, which shows how frequently a particular search term is searched by users.
Technical SEO
Googlebot
Refers to the software developed by Google to create a searchable index and crawl the web.
Link Building
Guest Posting
Webmasters can serve as guest bloggers on different websites operating in their field of activity.
Technical SEO
Gzip Compression
Refers to the process of combining and compressing similar indexes, repeated texts, and spaces in a source file.
Content
Heading Tags
Refer to tags that provide information about the hierarchy of content on a web page.
Link Building
Hidden Links
Links whose font colors are the same as the background of a website are called hidden links.
Technical SEO
Hosting & Server
Refers to the service for enabling users to access a website.
Technical SEO
Hreflang Tag
Refers to tags for specifying the language and geographical targeting of a webpage.
Technical SEO
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)
A text markup language that enables the creation and editing of web pages and their components.
Technical SEO
HTML Sitemap
Sitemaps specially designed for users are called HTML sitemaps.
Technical SEO
Htaccess File
Refers to configuration files that allow restrictions and arrangements on a server.
Technical SEO
Image Optimization
The process of optimizing images in terms of SEO and user experience is called image optimization.
Technical SEO
Image Sitemap
Sitemaps that list URLs containing visual content.
Technical SEO
Image Title
Title tags that help search engine bots make sense of the image are called image titles.
Measurement
Impression
Refers to how many users view a web page on search engine results pages.
Technical SEO
Index
Index refers to the archive of web pages created for users by Google.
Technical SEO
Indexing
Indexing refers to allowing bots crawling and indexing a webpage.
Content
Infographics
Infographics are files in which information or data are presented using images and graphics.
Content
Informational Intent
User queries that are carried out to gain information about a topic, to get answers to a question, or to satisfy one's curiosity about a topic are called queries with informational intent.
Technical SEO
Internal Links
Hyperlinks that direct users from one page to another within a website are called internal links.
Technical SEO
IP (Internet Protocol)
Refers to unique sequences of numbers assigned by service providers for devices connected to the Internet to communicate.
Technical SEO
JavaScript
A popular software language that adds functionality, interaction, and dynamism to the page.
Technical SEO
Jump Link
Links that allow users to flow through seemingly long and complex website pages.
Content
Keyword
The words or phrases that most accurately represent the content on a page are called keywords.
Content
Keyword Cannibalization
When two or more pages on the same site compete for the same target keyword, causing search engines to split ranking signals across the duplicates instead of consolidating them on one strong page.
Content
Keyword Density
Keyword density is the term used to express how often a targeted keyword is used on a web page.
Content
Keyword Research
The process of discovering, analyzing, and prioritizing the words and phrases potential customers type into search engines and AI assistants — combining search volume, intent, and competitive difficulty into a content-strategy plan.
Content
Keyword Stuffing
The method of hiding keywords on the page in a way that is invisible to users is called keyword stuffing.
Content
Landing Page
Refers to the page a user lands on after clicking on a link in an email, ad, etc.
Technical SEO
Lazy Loading
Refers to the practice of delaying the load of an object on a page until the point at which it is needed.
Measurement
Lighthouse
An open source performance analysis tool developed to improve the performance of websites.
Link Building
Link Bait
Link Bait is the method by means of which interesting and quality content that users will willingly share with the people around them is created.
Link Building
Link Farm
Websites that contain a large number of irrelevant links are called link farms.
Link Building
Link Juice
Link juice is the ranking potential distributed among the relevant pages or websites through hyperlinks.
Other
Local SEO
A specialization of SEO focused on improving visibility in geographically-bound search results — the Google local pack, Maps, and "near me" queries — driven by Google Business Profile optimization, citation consistency, and review velocity.
Technical SEO
Log File
Refers to files in which the transactions and movements of users are recorded on a daily basis.
Content
Long Tail Keywords
Keywords the user query volumes of which are lower than those of short-tail keywords and usually consist of three or more words are called long-tail keywords.
Content
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)
Refers to a technique for examining the relationship between content and keywords used which user searches.
Content
Meta Description Tag
Refers to a tag that provides information to users about the relevant web page on the results pages.
Content
Meta Keywords
Refer to keywords in the source code that give information to the search engines about the page.
Link Building
Money Anchor Text
Money anchor texts are hyperlinks that contain keywords which the website getting the backlink uses to achieve sales.
Link Building
Naked Link
Naked links are hyperlinks that use the URL itself as the anchor text rather than a keyword.
Content
Navigational Intent
Queries of users who know what they are looking for and search for a helpful resource are called queries with navigational intent.
Link Building
Negative SEO
Any malicious and unethical practice aimed at sabotaging the search rankings of a competitor's website.
Technical SEO
News Sitemap
Refers to sitemaps where webpages with news content are listed.
Measurement
New Users
Each visitor landing on a website is identified by Google Analytics with a unique ID.
Link Building
Nofollow Tag
Nofollow tag is the href rel tag that gives the signal to the search engine bots to disregard specific links.
Technical SEO
Noindex Tag
Refers to tags for pages that are not to be indexed by bots.
Content
On Page SEO
All actions taken to comply with Google criteria and improve the performance of a website on search engine results pages are called On-Page SEO activities.
Measurement
Organic Traffic
The traffic that comes from accessing the site directly from visitor queries on search engines.
Link Building
Other Anchor Texts
Hyperlinks that contain words that are not keywords or brand names are used are called other anchor text.
Measurement
PageRank
This is a metric developed by Google to measure the importance of website pages.
Measurement
Pages / Session
The average number of pages viewed by a visitor during a session.
Measurement
PageSpeed Insights
A Google tool that provides information about page opening speeds and user experience metrics.
Measurement
Paid Traffic
Paid traffic is characterized by the fact that it comes from paid promotions or advertisements.
Technical SEO
Pagination Tags
Refer to tags that allow linking between sequential pages and provide navigation.
Technical SEO
Path/Subfolder
Subfolder refers to a folder on a computer that is located within another folder while a path refers to links formed by the ordering of folders.
Measurement
Pogo Sticking
It occurs when a user performs a search, clicks on a result, and very quickly clicks back to the search result page.
Other
Pop-up
Refers to pop-up windows that users encounter when they visit a page.
Technical SEO
Protocol
Refers to rules and standards for how communication between the browser and the server takes place.
Technical SEO
Proxy
Refers to connecting to the Internet via a proxy server.
Measurement
Rank Tracker
Tools that help you keep track of all your rankings on your target keywords.
Other
Ranking Factor
Describes the criteria applied by search engines when compiling the rankings of their search results.
Technical SEO
Redirect Chain
Refers to cases where websites are redirected to other sites more than once.
Technical SEO
Redirect Loop
Refers to web pages offering endless redirects to other pages.
Link Building
Referring Domains
The value showing the number of different domains from which a website has backlinks.
Technical SEO
Resizing Images
Refers to the process of converting an image file in such a way that it consumes less space.
Technical SEO
Rich Snippets (Rich Results)
Enhanced Google search-result listings that include structured-data-driven visual elements — star ratings, prices, breadcrumbs, FAQ accordions, event dates, product availability — beyond the standard title, URL, and description.
Technical SEO
Robots.txt File
A plain-text file at the root of a domain that uses the Robots Exclusion Protocol to tell compliant crawlers which paths they may or may not request.
Technical SEO
Schema (Structured Data Markup)
Machine-readable code, typically JSON-LD, that labels a page's entities and relationships so search engines and AI systems can interpret content with high confidence.
Measurement
Search Console
It is a free Google tool that helps monitor the performance of a website and allows users to take a number of actions related to that website.
Technical SEO
Search Operators
Special characters and commands that extend the capabilities of regular text searches.
Content
Search Query
A phrase or a keyword combination users enter in search engines.
Measurement
SEO Visibility
SEO Visibility, a scoring metric, is an indicator of how visible a website is in search results.
Technical SEO
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
The page a search engine returns in response to a query — increasingly less a list of "10 blue links" and more a composed surface combining AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask, local pack, ads, and organic results.
Technical SEO
Server Side Rendering (SSR)
Refers to the technique by which the request is processed by the server and the output is passed to the browser.
Technical SEO
Server Status Codes
Refers to the three-digit responses that a server gives to a browser's request.
Measurement
Session
A group of user interactions with your website that take place within a given time frame.
Content
Short Tail Keywords
Keywords that consist of one or two words, offer the most general framework, and have the highest search volumes are called short-tail keywords.
Technical SEO
Sitemap
Refers to xml extension files that allow bots to examine the website faster and in more detail.
Technical SEO
Sitemap Command
Refers to the Robots.txt command that shows bots the path to the sitemap.
Technical SEO
Sitelinks
Refer to hyperlinks beneath the main URL that appear under search results pages.
Technical SEO
Soft 404
Refers to situations when the website server sends a 200 OK status for a page, but Google thinks the page should return a 404 code.
Link Building
Spam Link
Artificial, bad, or manipulative links are called spam links.
Link Building
Sponsored Tag
The "sponsored tag" is used for hyperlinks that are advertisements, sponsored, or paid placements.
Technical SEO
SSL Certificate
Refers to a digital certificate that establishes a secure connection between websites and users.
Technical SEO
Subdomain
Refers to a domain that is part of another domain.
Technical SEO
TF-IDF
TF measures the keyword density, while IDF measures how many different texts the keyword appears in.
Content
Thin Content
Pages with insufficient unique value relative to user expectations — often very short, templated, auto-generated, scraped, or thinly differentiated from existing pages — and a primary target of Google's Helpful Content System.
Technical SEO
Third Party Resources
Refer to external resources not originally included in a website.
Content
Title Tag
Refers to a tag that specifies the title of a web page.
Content
Transactional Intent
User queries made with the aim of purchasing a product or service are called queries with transactional intent.
Measurement
Trust Flow
Developed by Majestic, Trust Flow is a metric that measures the trustworthiness of websites.
Measurement
TTFB (Time to First Byte)
Refers to the time between the browser requesting a page and when it receives the first byte of information from the server.
Link Building
UGC Tag
The tags used in backlinks given through user-generated content are called ugc tags.
Technical SEO
URL
Refers to unique web addresses that provide access to a resource on the Internet.
Technical SEO
URL Shortening
Refers to shortening long and complicated links into more manageable URLs.
Technical SEO
User Agent
Refers to the robots.txt command for giving permissions to bots visiting a website.
Content
User Comments
User comments about the content of a web page are of great value. Google gives great importance to user experience, and therefore, to users' positive or negative comments.
Other
User Experience
Refers to how a user interacts with and experiences a product, system, or service.
Content
User Intent (Search Intent)
The underlying purpose behind a search query — typically classified as informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional — and the primary signal modern search algorithms use to decide which page format to surface.
Technical SEO
UTM
Refers to pieces of code that allow traffic-related information to be displayed and analyzed.
Technical SEO
Video Sitemap
Refers to a sitemap with additional information about video hosted on pages.
Other
VPN
Refers to an encrypted connection over the Internet from a device to a network.
Technical SEO
WebM
Refers to a file format capable of making audio and video files considerably smaller.
Technical SEO
WebP
Refers to an image format designed to create files that are smaller for the same quality.
Technical SEO
Website Speed Optimization
Refers to practices to provide faster access to websites.
Other
Whois
Refers to the service that provides access to a lot of information about domain names.
Other
WordPress
One of the most popular content management systems that allows you to create and manage websites for free.
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