[400+] SEO Glossary & Industry Terms Defined | Quattr
SEO GLOSSARY
The SEO industry is a fast-moving and ever-changing one. It’s also an industry filled with jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms that can make it hard to stay up to date. Our handy SEO glossary will help you cut through the jargon and keep up with the latest developments in SEO.
SEO GLOSSARY
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10x Content
10x content is a piece of content that is 10 times better than anything else on the web on that topic.
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1xx HTTP Status
URL returning a 1xx status class means that they are informational messages that don’t necessarily indicate an error. Learn about all 1xx HTTP Status Codes here.
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2xx HTTP Status
URL returning a status class of 2xx indicates it was successfully requested, provided, displayed, and completed. Read about all 2xx HTTP Status Codes here.
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3xx HTTP Status
A URL status of "3xx" indicates that the requested resource has been temporarily moved. Read about all 3xx HTTP Status Codes here.
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4xx HTTP Status
4xx URL status code indicates that the requested resource could not be found or that the client's request was not accepted for some reason. Learn about all 4xx HTTP Status Codes here.
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5xx HTTP Status
5xx URL status code indicates that the server failed to fulfill an apparently valid request made by the client. Read about all 5xx HTTP Status Codes here.
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tag is a container for all the content in a document.#
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tag is an HTML tag that defines a header for a document or section of a document.A
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Above the Fold
The fold is the bottom edge of the visible area of a web page. Above the fold content is the visible content that is shown without scrolling. Google created the Page Layout Algorithm in 2012 to lower the rankings of websites featuring too many ads in this space.
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A/B Testing
A/B Testing is a way to compare two different versions of a web page to see which one performs better. This can be used to test different versions of a headline, different colors, or different calls to action.
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Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source HTML framework that allows for the fast loading of web pages on mobile devices. AMP pages are designed to be as fast as possible, with a smaller payload and simplified layout. AMP also provides a way for web developers to add interactive elements to their pages.
AMP was initially a criterion to gain visibility on Google’s top stories but now the focus has shifted to Core Web Vitals.
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Accessibility
When it comes to SEO, accessibility means that your website is easy to use for all people, including those with disabilities. This includes making sure your website's content is accessible to those who use screen readers and other assistive technologies, as well as those who have difficulty using a mouse or keyboard.
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Ads Campaign
An advertising campaign is a coordinated set of marketing messages that promote a specific product or service. The goal of an advertising campaign is to increase awareness of the product or service among consumers and to generate sales.
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Algorithm Updates
Google algorithm updates are changes to the ranking algorithm that Google uses to determine how to rank pages in its search results.
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Alt Tag
An image alt tag is a text alternative to an image. It is used to help people who are visually impaired understand what is on the screen.
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Analytic Events
Analytics Events are specific actions that can be tracked within an analytics platform like Google Analytics. They can range from web visits, to button clicks and form fills.
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Analytic Medium
Medium refers to the general category of a source of traffic and can be mapped to the following types of different mediums including direct, organic, referral, and paid search.
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Analytics
Analytics is a type of software that helps you understand your website traffic. They can show you things like where your visitors are coming from, what they're doing on your site, and how they're behaving. This information can help you make decisions about how to improve your website.
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Analytics Code
Analytics code is a snippet of code that is used to track user engagement with a website or app. It is used to collect data about how users interact with a site or app, and then use that data to improve the user experience.
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Analytics Consent
Analytics Consent is a term used in the context of data analytics, referring to the agreement between a website or other online service and a user, whereby the user agrees to allow the collection and analysis of data pertaining to their use of the service. This data may include, but is not limited to, information about the user's activity on the site, their IP address, and the date and time of their visit.
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Analytic Source
An analytics source is a data set that is used to generate insights. The data can come from a variety of internal and external sources, including surveys, social media, website data, and CRM data. The insights can be used to improve business performance, customer engagement, and marketing efforts.
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Anchored Link
An anchor link is a hyperlink that points to a specific location within a document. Anchor links are often used to create a table of contents or to provide links to specific sections of a document.
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Anchor Text
Anchor text is a text that is hyperlinked to another document or web page. When a user clicks on the text, they are taken to the destination that is linked to. Anchor text is also used to help improve search engine rankings, as it is seen as a signal of relevance. Read how to perform anchor text optimization here.
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Answer Engine Optimization
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing your content so that search engines and AI systems can extract and display it directly as answers to user questions. Instead of competing only for blue-link rankings, AEO tools focuses on making your content answer-ready, using clear structures like FAQs, schema markup, tables, and concise explanations that search engines and generative models can easily pull into featured snippets, AI overviews, or conversational responses. In short, AEO is about positioning your brand as the trusted source when users (or AI assistants) ask questions.
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Article
An article is a form of nonfiction writing that is part of a larger publication, series, or knowledge base. Articles are one of the most common forms of writing, and they’re used in everything from newspapers to magazines and websites. Articles can be written about any topic or subject, but they typically have one or more main points that you want to get across.
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Asynchronous Loading
Asynchronous loading of a web page is a technique used to speed up the loading of a web page by loading its contents in the background. This technique is used by most web browsers today. A few contents that are loaded in the background include images, scripts, and style sheets.
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Authorship
Authorship is the practice of including an author's name, picture, and bio with a piece of content. As it applies to SEO, authorship is the authority that comes from being a trusted source of information on a topic. Authorship is a factor used by Google to gauge the quality of the end user's experience. In other words, when you're looking for information on a specific topic, you want to find something that seems credible and authoritative—and that's where authorship comes in.
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Average Position
The average position refers to where your website typically ranks in search results for a specific keyword. It gives you an idea of how visible your site is to users searching for that keyword. Aim for a lower average position to increase your site's visibility and attract more clicks. If your average position is closer to number 1, your site will be more likely to be seen immediately. If it's a higher number, your site might be further down the list, making it harder for people to find.
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B2B SEO
B2B SEO is the process of optimizing a website for B2B buyers. It's also called "business-to-business," or B2B, search engine optimization. B2B SEO is used to improve the visibility of your business on search engines so that potential customers can find you when they search for products or services like yours. Read how to maximize your B2B content marketing ROI here.
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B2C SEO
B2C SEO, or Business to Consumer Search Engine Optimization, is a form of SEO that focuses on improving the visibility of business websites in search engine results pages (SERPs). It's used to drive traffic back to a website and help customers find the products they want. The goal of B2C SEO is to help your business rank higher in search results so that you can reach more potential customers.
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Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites back to your website. They are an important part of SEO because they help improve your website's rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). When choosing which methods to use, be sure to focus on quality over quantity. Only link to websites that are relevant to your website's topic, and make sure the links are high-quality and provide value to your visitors.
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Banner Blindness
Banner blindness is a term used to describe the phenomenon where users ignore banner-style advertisements. Ads on the web often interrupt the user's workflow and take up valuable screen space. Users have learned to tune them out over time, which has led to decreased click-through rates for advertisers.
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Bingbot
Bingbot is the name of the web crawler used by the Bing search engine. It is used to retrieve information about web pages it visits.
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Bing Search
Bing is a global search engine owned by Microsoft. It is the second largest search engine in the world, after Google. Bing allows users to search the internet for information, images, and videos.
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Bing Webmaster Tools
Similar to Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools is a set of tools offered by Microsoft that allow site owners to see how their site is performing on Bing, how to optimize their site, and how to submit their site to Bing for indexing.
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Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO is a name given to a wide range of techniques used in an attempt to improve the performance of a website in search engines through methods that violate their webmaster guidelines.
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Blogs
A blog is a website that publishes content in the form of posts. Blogs are usually updated with new content on a regular basis. A blog post is a piece of content that provides an opinion or commentary about a topic related to the blog's subject matter.
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Bounce Rate
Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a website and then leave without visiting another page on the site.
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Bounce Rate Optimization
Bounce rate optimization is the process of improving the percentage of visitors to a website who remain on the site after visiting a single page. Improving bounce rate can involve improving the design or content, or improving the usability of the website.
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Branded Knowledge Panel
A branded knowledge panel is a Google Knowledge Panel that features information about a specific company or organization. They are often used by businesses to provide information about their products and services. They can also be used to provide contact information and customer support services.
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Branded Search
A branded search is a query on a search engine that is conducted referencing a specific brand. The results are usually restricted to the entity owning the brand or in the case of e-commerce, pages where that product can be purchased.
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Brand Terms
Brand terms are words or phrases that are uniquely associated with a company or its products. It can include the company name, product names, slogans, taglines & other unique phrases commonly associated with the brand. Using brand terms helps increase brand recognition, build brand identity & create a consistent brand voice across all marketing channels.
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Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are a structured data markup. A breadcrumb trail indicates a page's position within a site hierarchy, which may aid users in understanding and navigating the site. By following the breadcrumb trail, a user can navigate all the way up the site hierarchy, one level at a time.
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Broken Links
Broken links are hyperlinks that no longer work. A broken link maybe caused due to a number of factors like the link no longer exists, or has been moved, or the page the link leads to has been deleted. A broken link creates a negative experience for users it interrupts the user's journey. It is also not healthy from an SEO standpoint since it interrupts search bots crawling and can decrease a website's search ranking. Read how to fix broken link errors here.
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Browser
A browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. Users employ web browsers to search for information by following hyperlinks to other web pages or other resources in the internet. The most popular browsers are Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox.
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Business Citations
A business citation references a business that includes the business name, phone number, and address in a digital format. Business citations typically take the form of an online business directory, but other types of citations exist as well. The most commonly used forms of business citations are on Google My Business, Bing Maps, Facebook, and Yelp. Business Citations are becoming increasingly important for local SEO.
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Business Reviews
A business review is a detailed, written evaluation of a company's products or services. Business reviews can be submitted by customers, employees, and other stakeholders. They typically appear on the business's website and include information about the reviewer's experience with the product or service. Google uses ratings and reviews to determine the quality of a business. Businesses that consistently get a large number of high star ratings and reviews are more likely to rank higher in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
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Cache
A cache is a component of a computer's memory that stores frequently used data so that the computer can access it more quickly.
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Cached Pages
Cached pages are stored copies of web pages that have been accessed frequently by a user or by a computer program. When a user visits a cached page, the page is retrieved from the cache instead of from the web server. This can speed up the loading of pages, especially if the pages have large files or are located on a remote server.
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California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a data privacy law that gives California residents the right to know what personal information companies collect about them, why it is being collected, and to whom it is being shared. The law also gives residents the right to ask companies to delete their personal information and to stop companies from selling their personal information.
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Call to Action (CTA)
A call to action (CTA) is an instruction to the audience to do something, typically to buy a product or service. A CTA is also a button or text on a web page that encourages visitors to click it to learn more or to take an action, such as subscribing to a newsletter. Read how to optimize your CTA for SEO here.
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Call Tracking
Call tracking is a marketing term used in online advertising that describes a special type of online ad campaign that uses a phone number as the destination URL. When someone clicks on the phone number in the ad, they are taken to a special landing page on the advertiser's website where they can enter their phone number. The advertiser's call tracking software then captures the phone number and tracks the number of times it is called as a result of the ad campaign.
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Canonical URL
It is an HTML code element that is used when multiple URLs exist for a single resource. It is used to reduce duplicate content on your website and instead point to the authoritative source of the content on your website.
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Captcha
A captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. It stands for: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. It will commonly be found whenever user data input is found online to prevent automated submissions and may also be deployed if engagement on a website is determined to be overly mechanical.
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Capterra
Capterra is an online marketplace that helps businesses find the best software for their needs.
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Carousel
Carousels are rich results that people can swipe through on mobile devices. Carousels display multiple cards from a single site (also known as host carousels). Add Carousel structured data to one of the following content types to enable a carousel on your site: Courses, Movies, Recipes, or Restaurants.
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Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
CSS is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in markup language. A style sheet is a collection of rules that tells a web browser how to display a document written in HTML or XML.
CSS is used to style all HTML tags, including the document's body, headings, paragraphs, and other pieces of text. CSS can also be used to style the display of table elements, grid elements, and images.
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Category Pages
These are pages, usually found in a blog or news environment which group or organize a series of related pages by topic. For example, an article about political events in Argentina might be found in a category called South America. The category pages are often linked prominently in navigation so users can easily find content surrounding a particular topic.
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Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX)
The Chrome User Experience Report, AKA Chrome UX Report (CrUX) is a public dataset that provides performance data for websites across different Chrome platforms. The CrUX tool generates the dataset which takes into account actual user performance feedback. CrUX data comes from opted-in users to aggregate data from many sources to produce a more reliable representative output. It measures the Core Web Vitals metrics, including Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), as well as diagnostic metrics like Time to First Byte (TTFB) and First Contentful Paint (FCP).
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Citations
The expression “citation” in relation to search engines is a reference to a page or piece of information on a website from an external web page not associated with the entity. For example, a news publisher may “cite” a piece of content as a supporting source of information for their article. It may reference the entity by name only but often includes an HTML link directly to the supporting document so readers can access it directly.
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Clickbait
Clickbait is a term used to describe online content that is designed to attract attention and encourage readers to click on a link to view the content. Clickbait articles typically contain sensational headlines or eye-catching images with little or no substantive content.
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Click Depth
Click depth is usually considered the numerical value associated with the minimum number of clicks it takes to reach a given page from a starting point using standard HTML (<a href=) navigation.
It is generally accepted that the fewer clicks it takes to access a page, the easier it will be for search engines to find it. Search engines may also assume that a page that is placed more prominently in navigation has greater business importance. People often refer to sites where most pages are three or fewer clicks from the home page as having “flat architecture".
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Clicks
Clicks from a search engine are those that are directed to a website as a result of a user entering a particular query and clicking on one of the links displayed on the results page.
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Click-Through Rate (CTR)
At a high level, the click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on a link from a search engine results page (SERP) to that link. It would be the portion of clicks as a percentage of impressions which means the number of times a particular search result was exposed to consumers. If consumers were exposed to a search result 100 times and clicked 50 times, it would result in a 50% CTR.
It can get more complicated at a URL level where a single page can perform for a large variety of search terms. If the number of different search terms increases for a given page, impressions will usually grow but since the ranking performance of those terms can vary greatly, the CTR might decrease as a result. Thus, dropping CTR isn’t necessarily representative of a problem or concern.
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Client Side Rendering
Client Side Rendering is the process that occurs when a web browser retrieves and displays HTML content from a web server. The content is usually retrieved using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and the display is generally rendered on the client's computer or device using a web browser. Also, see Server Side Rendering.
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Cloaking
Cloaking is delivering misleading content to search engines that differs significantly from that shown to users.
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Commercial Intent
Commercial search intent is when a person is looking to buy a product or service. It is different from research intent is when a person is looking for information, not necessarily a purchase.
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Competition
A peer group of websites with content that occupies space in search engine results for queries that your own site would like to occupy.
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Competitor
A website with content that occupies space in search engine results for queries that your own site would like to occupy.
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Confirmed Algorithm Updates
Confirmed algorithm updates are updates to Google’s search engine algorithms that are announced by Google. They are usually aimed at improving the search engine’s ability to return better quality results to users.
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Content Authorship
Content Authorship is a term used to describe the act of creating content. The author is typically the person who creates the content, although it is not always the case. Sometimes authors are people who curate or compile content from other sources.
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Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a system of interconnected servers deployed in multiple data centers across the globe. A CDN service provider offers a globally-distributed platform of servers that deliver web content, such as static files and streaming video, to users based on their geographic location.
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Content Management System (CMS)
A content management system (CMS) is a type of software that enables you to create, manage, and publish content on your website. A CMS typically provides a user interface that allows you to easily create, edit, and publish articles, pages, and other types of content on your website. Some popular Content Management Systems are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.
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Content Strategy
A content strategy is a plan for creating, managing and distributing content that meets the business and communication goals of an organization. A content strategy roadmap provides a framework for your marketing and communications plan.
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Conversion
Conversion is the action that you want your prospects, leads, contacts, or customers to take after seeing your ad or promotional message. It is the desired action performed by a recipient of a marketing campaign. For example, if you're running an ad for a new product, your conversion could be a purchase or sign-up.
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Conversion Rate
A conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who take the desired action, such as filling out a contact form or making a purchase. This metric is critical to measure if a business wants to gauge the effectiveness of its online marketing efforts.
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Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the percentage of website visitors that take the desired action, such as signing up for a mailing list, completing a lead capture form, making a purchase, or downloading a white paper.
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Cookies
Cookies are text files that websites place on a user's desktop or mobile devices to help the site store specific information about users (such as their login credentials, shopping cart contents, and user preferences).
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Copywriter
Copywriters are professionals who write persuasive, compelling, and interesting marketing materials. They are responsible for crafting the words that will be used to promote a product or service. Copywriters must be able to understand the product or service that they are promoting, and must be able to create copy that is both accurate and engaging.
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Core Algorithm Updates
Core algorithm updates are changes to the ranking algorithms that Google uses to determine where websites appear in search results. The purpose of these updates is to improve the quality of search results by ensuring that the most relevant websites are returned first.
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Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals is a website performance monitoring tool that collects data about website performance and provides it in a user-friendly interface. The data collected by Core Web Vitals includes information about website response time, page size, and a number of requests. This information can help website owners and developers troubleshoot performance issues and improve website performance. Read our guide on how to optimize webpages for Core Web Vitals here.
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Cornerstone Content
Cornerstone content is a term used in content marketing to describe any content that is especially important or valuable to a business. This content can be used to attract and engage customers, and can help to establish a business's authority in its industry.
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Cost Per Acquistion (CPA)
The cost per acquisition (CPA) is how much it costs to acquire a customer. This metric is used to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and to determine how much to spend on acquiring new customers.
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Cost Per Click (CPC)
CPC is the cost per click on an advertisement. It is the amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks on one of their ads.
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Cost Per Conversion
The cost per conversion is the average cost of acquiring a customer divided by the number of conversions.
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Country Code Level Domain (ccTLD)
A Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) is a top-level domain (TLD) assigned to a country or sovereign state. They are often used to signal the regional location from which a website operates.
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Crawl Budget
Crawl budget is generally the number of pages a search engine visits on a website during a set period of time. The number of pages visited can be influenced by how fast pages load, consumer demand for the pages, the effectiveness of navigation, errors encountered, etc. The crawl budget usually increases as websites gain popularity.
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Crawler
A crawler, sometimes known as a spider, is a computer program that browses the internet automatically, following links from one web page to another and gathering information about the pages it discovers.
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Crawling
In information retrieval, crawling is the process by which search engines discover new content by visiting links between web pages.
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Crawling Error
Crawling errors are pages found to be inaccessible by search engine bots trying to access and index a website. These errors can be caused by a number of issues, such as incorrect robots.txt files, deleted pages, missing or incorrect metatags, and server errors.
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Crawling Software
A crawling software is a type of software that is used to collect information from the Internet or a specific website. This information can be used for a variety of purposes, such as data mining, market research, or website optimization.
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Crawl Rate
The crawl rate is how frequently a search engine visits a website to collect information for its index. It is different from the crawl budget which is how much of a website a search engine will visit in a given period of time.
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Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures the visual stability of a web page, when a page loads it is the amount of deviation between the actual layout and the desired or "target" layout. Read our guide on Cumululative Layout Shifts and how to optimize web pages for CLS.
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Data
Data is the collection of facts and figures that are gathered and analyzed to better understand a situation. Data can come from many different sources, including surveys, polls, and experiments. The data is often presented in graphs, charts, and tables to help make it easier to understand. Data can be used to make decisions, forecast trends, and plan strategies.
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Data Collection
Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information on a certain topic or subject. It is an important part of research and is used to provide insights and understanding into a particular issue or problem. There are a number of different methods that can be used to collect data, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observational studies.
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Desktop
A desktop is a personal computer that is used at a desk in a person's home or office. A desktop is used for tasks such as word processing, internet browsing, and email.
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Desktop Search
Desktop Search is a technology that allows users to search their personal computers for specific files and data. Desktop search engines can also include the ability to search the Internet, email, and other digital data.
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Desktop Site
Desktop sites are websites that are designed to be viewed on a desktop or laptop computer. They typically have a larger screen width than mobile sites and may include features that are not available on mobile devices.
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Device Type
The device type is a way to describe the type of device a user is using to access the internet. Device types can be laptops, desktops, mobile phones, or tablets.
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Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the process of promoting your company or product through digital channels. It includes Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Email marketing, Display advertising, and Social media marketing. Read how to manage a drastically decreasing marketing budget.
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Disavow
A disavow file for Google is a text file that you create to tell Google not to trust or use specific links to your site from other websites. This is a way to protect your site from any potentially harmful links that could negatively affect your site's search engine ranking when a manual penalty is applied.
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Dofollow Links
Dofollow links are those links that pass on the search engine ranking benefits to the target site. They are the opposite of nofollow links, which do not pass on the ranking benefits.
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Domain
A domain (in the case of the web) is a name that is assigned to a website. A web domain can be a personal name, a business name, or a web address (such as "www.yahoo.com").
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Domain Authority
Domain authority is a measure of how authoritative a website is in the eyes of search engines like Google. Domain authority can be determined by a number of factors, including the number and quality of links pointing to a website, the age of the website, and the number of pages on the website.
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Domain Host
Domain host is the company or organization that provides the domain name service for a website. A domain host can provide other web services such as hosting and email. Some examples of domain hosts include GoDaddy, Google Domains, and Namecheap.
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Duck Duck Go Search
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that indexes websites and returns search results. It is unique in that it does not track user data, making it a more private option than other search engines. DuckDuckGo also offers a variety of features such as Instant Answers, which provides information directly from websites without having to click through to them, and Zero Click Info, which provides information about certain topics without having to type anything into the search bar.
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Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is an issue on a website where more than one page has the same or very similar content. Generally, this is not good for SEO because Google will not know which page to rank in the search engine results pages (SERP). This causes a problem for the site because it can dilute the power of the original page and make it harder for that page to rank higher.
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Dwell Time
Dwell time is the length of time a user spends on a particular web page. This metric is often used as a measure of how engaging a page is.
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Dynamic Layout
Dynamic layout refers to a website's design that can change to fit the size of the screen it is being viewed on. This is important for SEO because it ensures that the site's ranking and visibility will be the same no matter what device it is being accessed from.
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Dynamic Rendering
Dynamic rendering is a workaround solution used by some websites dependent upon JavaScript rendering of content. It provides search engines with important equivalent server-side HTML content that may not be otherwise available during the client-side rendering process.
As JavaScript rendering matures, it is no longer a recommended method to solve search engine indexing issues since it introduces currently unnecessary complexity into the development process.
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Dynamic URL
Dynamic URLs are URLs that change depending on various factors, such as user input. They are generally less user-friendly than static URLs, and can also be more difficult for search engines to crawl and index.
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Ecommerce SEO
Ecommerce SEO is the process of optimizing a website for the purpose of increasing sales and revenue through organic search engine traffic. It helps increase traffic to an eCommerce website, and as a result, generates leads, and conversions. Read how to create E-commerce content strategy for your business here.
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Enriched Search Results
Google Search offers enriched search results in addition to standard rich results. An immersive pop-up experience or other advanced interaction feature is often included in enriched search results. For example, a Jobs enriched result popup might appear if a user searched for "jobs in Mountain View".
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Event
An event is an action that a user takes on a website that can be tracked in website analytics. This could be something like clicking on a specific link, filling out a form, or making a purchase. Events can be tracked through website analytics tools to see how users interact with your website and what pages they visit most often.
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Event Tracking
Event tracking is a technique used by web developers to track user interactions with a website. By adding special code to links and buttons, developers can log when a user clicks or taps on them. This data can then be used to measure how successful different elements of a website are, and to guide future design decisions.
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Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is a term used to describe content that is always fresh and relevant, regardless of when it was published.
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Expertise, Authority, and Trust (EAT)
Expertise, Authority, and Trust (EAT) is a model of trust put forward by marketing scholar Itamar Simonson and colleagues. The model posits that consumers trust experts more than non-expert sources and that this trust increases when authority is added to expertise. The model has been tested in a number of settings and has been found to be a valid predictor of trust. Read more about What is E-A-T in our blog.
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External Link
External links, also known as backlinks are links that are directed toward your website. These links can be important because they suggest to search engines that your site is an authority on a particular topic. The more external links you have from trusted sources, the higher your website may rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).
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External Linking
External linking is the process of adding hyperlinks from one webpage to another on another site. When a web surfer clicks on the external link, they are taken to the web page specified in the hyperlink.
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Faceted Navigation
Faceted navigation is a technique for organizing and navigating large amounts of information. It uses filters to allow users to narrow down search results to specific criteria. For example, on a website selling shoes, the user may be able to narrow the results down to specific stacked criteria such as brand, size, style, and color. Read our Faceted Navigation SEO Guide for more.
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FAQ Page
A Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page contains a list of questions and answers pertaining to a particular topic. Properly marked-up FAQ pages may be eligible to have a rich result on Search and an Action on Google Assistant, which can help your site reach the right users.
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Favicon
A Favicon is a small graphic image used in web browsers, typically 16x16 pixels in size, to identify a website. When a user bookmarks a website, the Favicon is displayed next to the website's name in the list of bookmarked websites.
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Featured Images
A featured image is a representative image for a post or page. Featured images are used in a number of places on many CMSs such as WordPress, including the homepage, post, and page templates, and as part of the RSS feed.
It should be representative of the content of the post or page and often created using several different sizes so that it will look great no matter where it’s used.
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Featured Products
Featured products are part of many eCommerce platforms that allow merchants to highlight and promote specific products in their stores. Merchants can create a featured product collection, add products to it, and then display it on their store's home page.
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Featured/Rich Snippets
Google defines featured snippets as "a summary of an answer to a question that is pulled from a web page and displayed in a box at the top of the search results page."
Rich snippets, also known as rich results, are bits of extra data displayed in search results and are the result of structured data markup added to your HTML to help search engines better understand the content of your page. Rich snippets may include information such as the title of a book, the author of a blog post, the price of a product, or the rating of a movie. Learn how to optimize for rich snippets here.
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First Contentful Paint (FCP)
First Contentful Paint (FCP) is a Google Chrome Developer Tools performance metric that indicates the time at which the browser has first rendered meaningful content on the screen. Read how to optimize your FCP scores here.
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First Input Delay (FID)
First Input Delay (FID) is the time between when a user first interacts with a web page and when they see the response. Read our full guide to FID Core Web Vitals here.
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Footer Section
The footer section of a website typically contains information about the website's owner, contact information, copyright information, and other legal disclaimers. It is also an important UX component that allows users who have scrolled to the bottom of a page to navigate to other critical pages without having to scroll back to the top.
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Forward Slash "/"
A forward slash, also known as a trailing slash, is used to designate a folder or directory in website URLs.
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Frame Rate
Frame rate is the speed at which a web page is loaded. This is the number of frames that are displayed per second. It is an important metric to measure page speed loading and it is recommended to have a frame rate of 24 fps for webpages.
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Gateaway Page
Gateway Page is a service that allows website owners to create a custom landing page for their website. Gateway Page can be used to promote a new website or product or to collect email addresses for marketing purposes. Gateway Page also includes a built-in analytics tool that allows website owners to track the number of visitors to their page and the conversion rate.
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Gated Content
Gated content is content that is hidden behind a form or survey that must be filled out before the content is revealed. This is a common practice among websites that want to capture leads through content marketing.
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General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a set of strict regulations outlining how businesses must handle personal information when conducting business within EU member states.
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Generative Engine Optimization
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the process of optimizing your website and content so generative AI systems, like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Claude, can easily discover, understand, and cite your brand in their answers. Unlike traditional SEO tools, which focuses on ranking links in search results, GEO tools ensures your content is structured, accurate, and interconnected in ways that AI models can parse and surface in real time, helping you gain visibility, credibility, and measurable impact directly inside AI-generated responses.
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Google is a multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, and software. It was founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998.
Google search engine provides web search results from Google.com, as well as from other sources, including images, news, and product listings. Google revolutionized web search as its search engine technology makes use of algorithms that look for the best results for a given search, as well as Page Rank, which ranks individual web pages according to the number and quality of links from other websites.
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Google Ads
Google Ads is a web-based advertising platform that advertisers can use to promote their businesses and generate leads on Google Search, YouTube, and other sites across the internet
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Google Alerts
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest Google results for your chosen queries. It is a free service and you can create as many alerts as you want. Access Google Alerts free service from here.
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Google Algorithm
Google's Algorithm is a set of rules that Google uses to determine how websites are ranked in search result pages. These rules are constantly evolving, but they all share one thing in common: They're designed to give people the most useful and actionable information possible at any given moment in time.
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Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It provides information such as website visits, pageviews, bounce rates, and other engagement data. This data can be used to improve a website's marketing and user experience.
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Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
GA4 is a newer version of Google Analytics that offers more in-depth insights into website traffic and user engagement. It also provides users with the ability to create custom reports and conduct more sophisticated analyses of their website data. Learn how to setup GA4 here.
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Google Autocomplete
Google autocomplete is a search feature that provides suggested phrases as you type into the Google search bar.
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Googlebot
Googlebot is the name of Google's web crawler, which is a program that automatically retrieves and indexes web pages for the Google search engine.
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Google Cache
The Google cache is a copy of a web page that is stored on Google's servers. When you search for a web page, Google often displays a cached version of the page, which is a snapshot taken at the time the page was indexed. You can view the cached version of a page by clicking on the "Cached" link next to the page's URL.
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Google Chrome
Google's Chrome browser is an open-source web application that lets users access and navigates the Internet.
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Google Merchant Center
Google Merchant Center is a tool that lets you control how Google displays your store's online and in-store products.
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Google My Business
Google My Business is a tool you can use to manage and optimize your business profile on Google.
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Google My Business Profile
The Google Business Profile is a free tool created by Google to help businesses and organizations manage their Google presence. By verifying your business and editing the information about it, you can help customers find your organization more easily.
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Google My Business Reviews
Google My Business Reviews refers to the reviews that have been posted on your Google My Business page. Reviews on your Google My Business page can be a powerful tool in increasing business. However, it is important to understand how reviews affect Google’s search engine rankings. Google uses a lot of signals to determine the ranking of businesses in its search results. One of these signals is the number and quality of reviews that your business has received on the Google My Business page.
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Google Optimize
Google Optimize is a tool that lets you A/B test your website, by creating variations of webpages (e.g., two versions of the same landing page) and showing one version to some visitors while serving other users another page.
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Google Penalty
A google penalty is when Google takes manual or algorithmic action against a website for violating its Webmaster Guidelines. This is typically seen as a demotion or even complete removal from specific search results or Google search as a whole.
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Googler
An employee of Google LLC is called a Googler.
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Google Search
Google Search is the process of using the Google search engine which makes use of the information retrieval technology Google has developed since it was founded in 1998. Users can input a search query and Google will analyze its corpus of data created by the index of the world wide web it has made because of its vast crawling of the internet.
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Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a web-based tool that helps website owners track their website's visibility and performance in Google search results. Read how to access & optimize your website's performance using GSC here.
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Google's Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines
The Google Search Quality Evaluators Guidelines (or Google Rater Guidelines) are used by Google to evaluate the quality of search results from the perspective of a human as opposed to a bot. They are intended to help these individuals evaluate the quality of a search engine's results. These guidelines are regularly updated and publicly available for anyone to view so that they can understand the various quality signals a rater may be looking for if their site were to be reviewed. View the full documentation here.
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Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a tag management system developed by Google. It allows users to manage website tags through a user interface. These include tags for conversion tracking, site analytics, and remarketing tags. This technology helps reduce the risk of coding errors and allows marketers to make changes to tags without having to touch the code of the website. Access Google Tag Manager from here.
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Google Trends
Google Trends is a service provided by Google that allows users to view the relative frequency of searches conducted on the Google search engine over time. Google Trends shows a visual representation of data points like "web search interest" over time, mapped by country.
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Google Universal Analytics (UA)
Google Universal Analytics is a free analytics tool offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic data. It gathers data from users across all devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. Google Universal Analytics also provides insights into user behavior, such as how users navigate a website and how much time they spend on each page.
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Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools is the former name of the website analytics platform developed to help diagnose website problems, submit and check sitemaps, and see how Googlebot is indexing its pages. It was launched in 2001 and had its name changed to Google Search Console in 2015.
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Gray Hat SEO
Gray Hat SEO is a form of SEO that falls in between black hat SEO and white hat SEO. Practitioners try to stay within the bounds of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, but may occasionally exploit some loopholes or shortcuts to achieve better search engine rankings.
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Guest Posting
Guest posting is a marketing technique whereby a person or company writes an article for another person or company in order to promote themselves or their product.
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H1 Tag
The H1 tag is an HTML element that is used to indicate the most important and usually largest heading on a web page. Also, see Header Tag.
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Hack
A website hack is unauthorized access and use of a website. Website hacks can include stealing sensitive data, such as passwords and credit card information, loading alternate content, or taking down the website entirely.
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Header Section
The header section is the most visible top-most part of a web page that usually consists of a logo, a menu bar, and a search bar.
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Header Tag
Header tags are a type of HTML tags that are used to identify the most important text on a web page. Header tags are usually formatted as h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 in order of priority, highest to lowest.
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Heatmaps SEO
A heatmap for SEO is a visual representation of website analytics data that shows which areas of a page received the most attention from users. Heatmap data helps identify which content is more likely to be seen, clicked on, shared, and interacted with by visitors. Heatmaps enable you to optimize the page for keywords and phrases that are more likely to draw organic traffic for better search engine rankings. Read how to optimize your website using heatmaps here.
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Hidden Text
Text that is hidden from view on a web page, typically used for purposes of styling or layout is called hidden text. It is a black hat SEO technique used to improve search engine rankings by adding target keywords as hidden texts. This practice is against Google's Rater Guidelines and can result in a penalty.
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Holistic SEO
Holistic SEO can generally be described as a comprehensive approach to SEO that takes all aspects of the site into account. This includes on-page optimization, link building, and social media engagement.
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Hotlinking
Hotlinking is the direct linking of web content from another site. It happens when a website embeds an image or other media file onto its website instead of hosting the file on its servers.
Hotlinking can cause website owners to lose bandwidth, as the traffic is sent to the other website instead of their own. It is also a form of copyright infringement, as the content is typically not obtained with the proper permissions or licenses.
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How To Structured Data
A How To structured data tag explicitly tells search engines like Google that your content is a how-to. In a how-to, users are guided through a series of steps to successfully complete a task, and video, images, and text can all be included. For example, "How to tie a tie or "How to tile a kitchen backsplash". Read how to add structured data in our guide here.
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Href
In HTML, the href attribute is the part of the anchor () tag that designates the target URL of a link.
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Hreflang
Hreflang is an HTML tag used on a website's pages to indicate to Google alternate URLs which contain translated content and/or target specific countries. Read how to implement hreflang tags on your website here.
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HTML
HTML is the acronym for HyperText Markup Language. It is a markup language used to create and identify different parts of a web page.
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HTML Sitemap
An HTML sitemap is usually a list of all the major pages on a website. It can help your visitors and search engines quickly find content on the site. Learn about the difference between HTML & XML sitemaps here.
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HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the method used by websites to send and receive data. When you enter a website's address into your browser, your computer makes a request to the server hosting that website. The server then responds with the requested information, which your browser displays in the window.
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HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a secure version of the HTTP protocol. It is used to encrypt communications between a user's browser and a web server. HTTPS is commonly used to protect login credentials and credit card information
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HTTP Status Codes
HTTP status codes are a set of numbers that indicate the result of a request to a web server. When you access a web page, your browser sends a request to the server hosting the page. The server responds with a status code, which tells your browser whether the page was found and what happened to the request. Learn about all the HTTP Status codes & what they mean here.
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Hummingbird Algorithm Update
Google Hummingbird algorithm is an update announced on September 26, 2013, which aimed to improve the quality of search results by better understanding the intent of users.
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Image
An image is an object or composition that is visually appealing or stimulating. In a digital world, an image is typically represented as a two-dimensional array of pixels that can be viewed on a screen, such as a computer monitor, a television, or a mobile device.
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Image Carousel/Pack
An image carousel (or image pack) is a rotating set of images, usually found on the first page of search engine results. They are used to entice users to click through to other pages on the site. Read more about how to get your images on the image pack SERP feature.
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Image Compression
It is the process of reducing the size of digital images. Images for search engines should be compressed before they are uploaded because uncompressed images can slow down the loading of a web page.
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Image License on Google Images
You can display a Licensable badge on image thumbnails in Google Images when you specify license information for the images on your website. A link to the license is provided in the Image Viewer, which gives more detail about how the image can be used. Learn more here.
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Image Optimization
Image optimization is the process of making images available on the web as small as possible while still maintaining good visual quality. This is done by optimizing the file size and compression of the image, and by optimizing the HTML and CSS code that references the image. Learn more about SEO Image Optimization here.
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Image Search
An image search is a process of searching for images on the Internet. When you conduct an image search, you input a term such as "rain" or "clouds," and Google will aim to show you the most relevant images related to that search term. Reverse image search is when you start off by uploading an image or adding the URL of an image. Then, you'll be shown other places where that same image has been used online or other images that are similar in content or style.
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Image SEO
Image SEO is the process of optimizing images to rank higher in search engine results pages. This can be done through optimizing the file name, adding keywords to the image alt text, and optimizing the image metadata. Read our guide on SEO Image Optimization here.
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Image Sitemap
An Image Sitemap is a specialized XML file that helps search engines understand and index images on a website. It enhances the visibility and context of your images, resulting in more traffic to your site when users search for image-related content. Read our guide on Image sitemaps here.
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Impressions
An impression is when a user sees an advertisement without clicking on it. Impressions are recorded by ad networks, which then send reports to publishers based on their own standards for what constitutes an impression.
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Incognito Mode
Incognito mode is a privacy setting available in most browsers that blocks your Internet browser from storing your browsing history. When you use incognito mode, everything you do on the page, including searches and forms you fill out, will be deleted when you close the incognito window. Incognito mode will also prevent you from being tracked by advertisers and websites that use cookies to track your behavior.
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Incognito Search
Incognito search is a special kind of search that can be done in Incognito Mode on your browser. When you perform a new incognito search, Google won't save your searches in your browser history. That means that anyone else using your device won't see what you've been searching for.
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Index
An index is a search engine database that holds information about web pages.
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Indexability
Indexability is the degree to which a web page can be indexed and made searchable. Indexability can be controlled by webmasters by ensuring that their web pages are crawlable by search engine bots and is also affected by the use of metatags and other optimization techniques.
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Index Bloat
Index bloat is a term used in SEO to describe a situation where the number of pages in a search engine's index exceeds the number of pages that are actually being used by searchers. This can be the result of the search engine indexing too many low-quality or duplicate pages, or of search engine crawlers indexing pages that shouldn't be indexed (such as pages that are only meant to be used for tracking purposes).
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Indexing
Indexing is the process by which a search engine adds new or updated content to its database so that it can be returned in search results.
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Indexing Error
Indexing errors are anything that might prevent a search engine from adding a page to its index of pages served in search results. This can be caused by a number of factors, including website design, the amount of content on the website, and the way the website is coded.
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Infinite Scroll
Infinite scroll is a web design technique that loads more content as you scroll down, making it seem endless. This approach can make browsing smoother and more engaging for users. However, it can pose SEO challenges as search engines might struggle to index dynamically loaded content, potentially affecting visibility. Also, users might find it frustrating if they lose track of where they are or have difficulty finding specific information.
Learn more about infinite scroll vs pagination in our blog.
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Informational Intent
Informational intent is a type of user search intent. It signifies the desire of a searcher to obtain information. This type of search may include questions such as "What is the capital of Maine?", "How to change a tire?" or “Who invented the steam engine?”. Learn how to optimize your website for search intents here.
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Information Architecture
Information Architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments. It is the discipline of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, online communities, and other digital information structures to make them easy to use. The goal of information architecture is to make the design of digital spaces clear and understandable for everyone, regardless of their technical expertise or experience.
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Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a field metric that measures the latency of all user interactions with a web page. Low scores would indicate quick responsiveness in responding to user engagement. Understand more about Interaction to Next Paint (INP) in our blog here.
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Internal Link
A link between two pages on the same website is called an internal link. Learn more about internal links here.
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Internal Linking
The act of creating HTML navigation between different pages of the same website. Read our guide on Internal Linking Strategy for more.
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Internal Link Sculpting
Internal link sculpting is a sophisticated SEO practice aimed at directing link equity, or "link juice," to high-value pages while restricting flow to less critical ones. Unlike basic linking methods, this strategy allows prioritization of key content, optimizing the internal distribution of authority. By selectively applying followed links and nofollow attributes, you can influence both user navigation and search engine crawler paths, boosting the ranking potential of targeted pages such as high-conversion landing pages or core content hubs.
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International SEO
International SEO is the process of optimizing a website so its content is accessible and often translated to accommodate users in many different countries.
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Javascript
Javascript is a computer programming language that allows web developers to create interactive effects within the pages of their websites. It is often used in conjunction with HTML and CSS and can be used to create almost any kind of website, from simple static pages to complex applications.
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JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
JSON is a lightweight data format used to store and communicate information. Common uses of JSON include transmitting data between servers and web applications or storing small bits of structured information in databases. JSON can be used as a data interchange format for REST APIs or as a storage format for databases like MongoDB.
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JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data)
JSON-LD is an extension of the well-known JSON format. It uses multi-dimensional arrays to describe data and objects. JSON-LD is a standard for describing Linked Data. It allows you to use popular web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to build machine-readable data. JSON-LD lets you create a web of linked data that can be used by search engines and other applications.
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Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric that business executives use to measure and track the performance of their organization. KPIs are also used in SEO to track the performance of individual pages and assess their overall effectiveness in achieving business goals. Some common KPI metrics to track include website traffic, conversion rates, and organic search engine rankings.
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Keyword
It is a word or phrase that is used to identify and describe the content of a document or web page. In search, a keyword is important as it is the main way to find information on the internet.
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Keyword Cannibalization
When multiple pages target the same keyword, this can cause keyword cannibalization. This can happen when each page is trying to rank for the same keyword, and as a result, the pages are competing against each other for ranking. This can hurt your SEO efforts, as it can lead to your pages not ranking as high as they could.
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Keyword Cluster
A keyword cluster is a group of keywords that are related to each other. This is usually determined by how often they are used together and relate to the same semantic topic.
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Keyword Cluster(s)
Keyword clusters are groups of keywords organized into different segments so that one can better understand traffic and rank trends with a larger site instead of consuming data keyword by keyword. Learn more about Keyword Clusters here.
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Keyword Density
The density of keywords is the number of times a keyword is used in a document, compared to the total number of words in the document. This is an early metric within SEO that is largely redundant today.
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Keyword Difficulty
The keyword difficulty is a metric that is used to measure how difficult it is to rank for a particular keyword in search engine results pages (SERPs).
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Keyword Optimization
Keyword optimization is the process of increasing the visibility of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs) through the use of keywords and keyword phrases.
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Keyword Performance
Generally speaking, keyword performance involves optimizing a website's content and on-page elements around the targeted keyword, as well as actively seeking links from other websites that are relevant to the keyword. The performance of keywords as they relate to SEO will vary depending on the competitiveness of the keyword and the website's ability to rank for it.
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Keyword Planner
The Google AdWords keyword planner is a free tool that allows you to find and research keywords, as well as get estimates for how much traffic those keywords could bring to your website. While the primary use case is for Paid Search, many use it for keyword research.
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Keyword Position
The position of a keyword in SEO refers to the rank of the website that is hosting the keyword. A higher rank typically means that the website is more visible and therefore, more likely to be clicked on by potential customers.
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Keyword Ranking
Keyword ranking is the position that a keyword appears on a search engine results page (SERP). Keyword rankings can be improved by optimizing a website for certain keywords and publishing high-quality content that is relevant to those keywords.
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Keyword Relevance
Keyword relevance is how well a given keyword is aligned with the content on a given page. In order to rank well for a given keyword, a page must include that keyword in a way that accurately reflects the topic of the page.
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Keyword Research
In SEO, keyword research is the process of identifying, researching, and selecting keywords and phrases with the intent of improving a website's search engine ranking. Learn how to perform keyword research here.
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Keyword Search Volume
The keyword search volume is the estimated number of times a particular keyword is being searched for on the internet in a given month. This is a valuable metric to consider when trying to determine the popularity of a keyword and the relative competition for its ranking on search engines.
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Keyword Stemming
Keyword stemming is the process of reducing a word to its root form, or the base form of a word. For example, the words ‘books’, ‘booking’, ‘booker’, all stem from the word ‘book’.
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Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the act of filling a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in search engine results. This is a spam tactic that is penalized by Google and can lead to a site being removed from the search engine's results pages.
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Knowledge Graph
The Google Knowledge Graph is a searchable knowledge base that provides information about people, places, things, and concepts. It is built on the principles of linked data, which allows data to be connected and queried in a variety of ways.
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Knowledge Panel
The Knowledge Panel is a Google feature that provides users with information about entities such as people, places, things, and events. The information displayed in the Knowledge Panel is pulled from a variety of sources, including Google Knowledge Graph, Wikipedia, and other third-party sources.
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Language HTML Attribute
The language HTML attribute (lang) specifies the language of an element's content. This is useful for defining the language of some text, such as "en" for English, "es" for Spanish, and so on.
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Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Largest contentful paint (LCP) is an optimization strategy that web developers can use to improve their page load times. It is the point at which the majority of the content on the page has been loaded, which in turn allows the user to start consuming it.
The term was first coined in a blog post by Addy Osmani, a Chrome engineer at Google. Read how to optimize your LCP scores here.
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Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is a technique for optimizing online content. Lazy loading delays the loading of resources until they’re needed, to improve performance. For example, if a web page has an image that the user has to scroll down to see, you can display its placeholder as soon as the page loads and load only when it is visible on-screen.
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Lead
A lead is a person who has expressed interest in your product or service. Leads can come from various sources, including marketing campaigns, referrals, or your website.
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Lead Attribution
Lead attribution is the process of measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by giving credit to all your various touchpoints for each lead that led to a conversion or sale.
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Lead Form
A lead form is an online form that you can use to capture information from leads. Lead forms usually ask for the lead's name, email, and phone number. Some lead forms can even ask qualifying questions like "What is the size of your SEO team?" or "How large is your Marketing budget?".
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Lead Funnel
A lead funnel is a series of stages that leads go through as they become aware of your company or product, express interest in it, and then convert from being a lead to being a paying customer. Lead funnels are an essential part of any marketing strategy. They help you understand where people are in the sales cycle and what they need to move forward.
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Lead Generation
Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into customers and clients. There are many different ways to generate leads, including advertising, networking, SEO, and content marketing. However, the most effective methods vary depending on the business and the target market.
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse is an open-source tool that helps you audit and improve the quality of web pages. You can run it against any public or private website—it can help you to improve the speed, user experience, and SEO of your pages.
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Lighthouse Score
A lighthouse score is a score given by lighthouse to every web page that is crawled by a search engine, evaluating it in 5 categories: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Progressive Web Apps (PWA). Read how to optimize your website for good Lighthouse scores here.
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Link Authority or Link Equity or ”Link Juice”
Major search engines including Bing and Google have found that there is a strong correlation between the number and quality of links to a given page and the quality and popularity of the page. Some of the links to a given page may help the overall reputation of that page which then passes value through other links to help contribute to the overall quality signals of a given website. The flow of positive “value” a link provides is often referred to as its authority, equity or “juice.”
Due to the proprietary nature of the formula, search engines don’t provide any transparency regarding how these metrics are calculated or which links are most valuable. The basic groundwork for this methodology is provided in the original Google PageRank patent which laid the foundation for algorithmic ranking of web pages within its search engine.
It is notable that search engines provide a method for blocking any value from links through the introduction of the nofollow attribute which can be applied to links. Doing so theoretically removes any authority, equity, or “juice.” It is commonly used for advertising, affiliate links, and any other case where a publisher may not want to pass positive value onto another website.
It is generally accepted that having well-constructed internal navigation where there is robust linking between pages is the best method to ensure the value each page possesses is distributed throughout a website. Read our guide on internal linking to optimize your website.
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Link Building
The process or action of encouraging other websites to link to your own. This can take many forms, such as creating content that attracts links, building relationships with journalists who need source data, to bartering between webmasters. Search engines consider any barter relationship or quid pro quo to violate their Webmaster Guidelines as a scheme to artificially inflate link quality metrics.
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Link Removal
The process of removing links pointing to a given website through requests to the webmaster, editing content, or as a last resort using the search engine “ Disavow” process which tells search engines to ignore the link “value” provided by a given page or domain.
Link removal is most common after a Manual Action (a penalty) has been applied to a website after search engines determine that the site has been actively engaged in link manipulation.
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Link Velocity
The term "link velocity" generally refers to the rate at which a website's link popularity (or inbound links) is increasing. This metric can be used to help gauge how successful a website is at acquiring links from other websites.
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Local SEO
The process of optimizing a website to more prominently appear in localized search results. This is most commonly performed for websites that service consumers in a regional area such as restaurants and other service-oriented industries with physical addresses. A common tactic would be to ensure the address and phone number for an entity is prominently displayed on a website and third party references use the same address format and phone number to help establish trust and credibility.
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Logo
A logo is a graphical image that represents a company, product, service, or individual. Logos are used to identify and promote a company or product in a memorable way. To make your logo appear on search engines platform like Google’s Knowledge panel, add the logo structured data markup. Find instructions on how to do the same here.
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Long Tail Keywords
In SEO, long tail keywords are a specific type of keyword phrase that is longer and more specific than the standard, generic keyword. Long tail keywords are often used to describe a product or service in detail and are less competitive because they are less common. Learn how to use long tail keywords for SEO here.
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Map Pack or Local Pack or Snack Pack
These are business or entity listings that appear outside of normal organic search results and represent local establishments related to a given search query. They are intended to help consumers quickly find businesses nearby.
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Maps Search
Maps search is a feature on search engine maps that allows users to search for addresses, businesses, and other points of interest.
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Market Share
Market share is the percentage of the total market that your product or service takes up.
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Meta Description
These are brief non-visible excerpts of descriptive text provided by a website and found in the of a web page. They are often displayed as snippets in search results to help people decide if a web page is relevant to their query.
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Meta Refresh Redirect
Meta refresh redirect is a technique used on the web to automatically refresh a web page or to redirect a web page to another web page. Meta refresh redirect is a client-side redirect and unlike HTML redirect, it notifies the web browser to refresh the web page after the number of seconds specified in the "redirect" parameter.
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Meta Tags
Meta Tags are pieces of information that describe a web page. They are not seen by users but are important for search engines to understand what a page is about. Meta tags include title, description, keywords, and author etc.
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Metric
A metric in search is a unit of measurement that is used to track and compare the success of different search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns. Metrics can include things like the number of visitors to a website from a search engine, the number of pages on a website that are indexed by a search engine, or the number of backlinks to a website.
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Microformats
A type of structured data that can be added to web pages making it possible for search engines and other applications to extract important information from web pages automatically. They are typically used to mark up contact information, events, and recipes.
Microformats have been largely replaced by schema markup which accomplishes the same goal but with more universal acceptance by search engines.
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Mobile
A mobile is a personal or work phone that is used by an individual for personal or business use. Mobile is used for tasks such as calls, internet browsing, and email.
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Mobile-First Approach
A mobile-first approach is an information technology strategy where the mobile version of a website is designed and developed before the desktop version. A mobile-first approach is also picking up in SEO since search engines now give priority to mobile-friendly websites when users search from their handheld devices.
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Mobile-First Indexing
Mobile-First Indexing is a Google indexation method that uses the mobile version of a website to determine its ranking in search results. Google made the shift to mobile over desktop indexing since many people are now using mobile devices as their primary means of accessing the internet.
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Mobile Friendliness
Mobile friendliness is a bit of a nebulous term, but generally, it refers to the ability of your website to perform well on mobile devices. That includes phones and tablets, smartwatches, and any other device that interacts with the web somehow. There are many terms that describe this, including mobile-friendly, mobile-first, responsive design, and adaptive design. But the bottom line is that a mobile-friendly website performs well on a mobile device like a phone or tablet. Read how to create a mobile-friendly website here.
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Mobile Page Speed
Mobile page speed refers to the time it takes for a web page to load and become usable on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet. It is a critical factor in the overall user experience, as mobile users typically have shorter attention spans and expect fast-loading pages. Read how to optimize your mobile website for a higher page speed score here.
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Mobile Search
Mobile search is conducting a search on a mobile device. A mobile search may be conducted via a mobile browser or a dedicated app, such as Google Search or Siri.
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Mobile Site
A mobile site is a version of your desktop site that is optimized for mobile devices. It typically has a simplified design, less content and features, and the ability to access key information quickly.
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National SEO
National SEO is the process of optimizing a website for visibility in the search engines of a specific country or region. Optimizing a website for national visibility requires understanding the unique search engine landscapes of different countries, as well as the cultural and linguistic differences that can impact how people search for information online.
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Navigational Intent
Navigational intent is the intent of a user when navigating a website or application. This intent is typically inferred from the user's actions, such as clicking on links or typing in text input. Read how to optimize web pages for search intents here.
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News Search
Search results limited to only websites publishing news related content. Usually sorted by most recent and prominent stories.
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Noarchive Tag
Noarchive tags are used to prevent a web page from being cached by search engines. This can be useful if you want to ensure that users are always viewing the most up-to-date version of a page.
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Nofollow Links
Nofollow links are links that webmasters can use to instruct search engines not to follow the link. They are used to prevent link spam, and are commonly found in comments sections and blogrolls.
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Noindex Tag
A Noindex tag is a meta tag that tells a search engine not to index a page. This is used to keep pages from being included in search engine results.
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Non-Branded Search
Non-branded search is a term used to describe a type of search engine optimization (SEO) that focuses on optimizing a website for unbranded search queries. Non-branded search queries are those that do not include any specific brand names or trademarks.
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Noreferrer Attribute
The noreferrer attribute is a HTML attribute that can be used to instruct browsers not to pass referrer information when a link is followed.
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Nosnippet Tag
Markup that can be placed in website code that directs search engines not to provide a cached version of a page. Very commonly used by news websites that might edit or refine their content frequently without revealing older versions of the page.
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Off-Page SEO
Off page SEO is the process of optimizing your website's online presence in order to improve your ranking in search engine results pages. This can be done by creating high-quality links to your site from other reputable websites, optimizing your website's title and meta descriptions, and publishing great content that will attract links from other websites. Read more about Off-Page SEO optimization here.
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Onpage CTR
Onpage CTR is the percentage of time that a user clicks on a given link when it is displayed on a given page. Onpage CTR can be optimized by adding engaging and relevant content, using effective titles and descriptions, and ensuring that the links are easy to find and click.
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On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more organic web traffic. On-page SEO involves optimizing the title, meta description, header tags, images, and other elements on a page in order to make it as relevant as possible to search engines. Read more about On-Page SEO in our guide.
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Onsite CTR
Onsite CTR is the percentage of users who clicked on a result from your site after performing a search. Onsite CTR can be optimized by optimizing meta tags for top keywords, making sure your site’s pages are well-indexed by Google, and providing high-quality content that is relevant to your audience among other ranking factors.
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Organic Competitors
See: Competitor, Competition, SERP Competitor, SERP Competition
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Organic Search
Organic search results are results that appear in the main area of a search engine results page (SERP) and are not paid for by the advertiser. These are free or unpaid search engine search results organized by algorithm.
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Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is the traffic that comes to your site from free or unpaid search engine results. This type of traffic is typically the most valuable, as it's coming from people who are interested in what you have to offer and are more likely to convert into customers.
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Orphan Page
An orphan page is a page on a website that is not linked to or from any other pages on the website. Orphan pages are not ideal for SEO growth since they do not have the opportunity to earn links from other internal pages.
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Page Authority Scores
Metrics provided by a variety of third party search engine data aggregators such as Moz and Majestic which assign a weight or value to a webpage based on a predictive model of how well that page may perform in organic search results. These are often mistaken for metrics that search engines actually use which often causes confusion when actual search results don’t align with the estimated rating provided by the data provider. See, Site Authority Scores.
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Page-Depth
Page depth is a measure of how deep a website's pages are within the website's hierarchy. The deeper the pages are, the more difficult it is to rank them in search engine results pages.
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Page Layout Algorithm Update
Google introduced the Page Layout Algorithm update was first announced in 2012, and updated in 2013. The algorithm update was designed to penalize websites that feature too many ads above the fold.
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Page Rank
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by Google. It is designed to measure the importance of a web page. As per Google, PageRank is the measure of “the importance of a web page relative to other pages on the web.”
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Page Relevance
It is a measure of how relevant a specific page is to a particular user search query. A page that is highly relevant will contain the search term and/or closely related text is likely to rank higher in search engine results than a page that is less relevant.
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Page Speed
Page Speed is a metric that measures how quickly a web page loads. It measures the time it takes for the page to be loaded from the time the user clicks on the link to the page. Page speed is an important ranking metric for Google. Read how to optimize your website for good Page Speed scores here.
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Page Speed Insights (PSI)
Page Speed Insights is a tool that Google provides to help webmasters measure the performance of their websites. It evaluates both the desktop and mobile versions of a web page, and provides feedback on how to improve the website's performance. Read more about Page Speed Insights here.
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Pages Per Session
Pages per session (PPS) is a metric that measures how many pages a user visits during a single session on your website. This is used as a way to measure engagement and how likely users are to continue exploring your website.
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Page Views
Page views are the number of times a particular page was loaded in a web browser. They are an important metric used to measure the popularity of a website or specific page.
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Pagination
Pagination is a technique used on websites to split up long lists of items into multiple pages. When it comes to SEO, pagination can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, pagination can help improve page views and keep users engaged on your website. On the other hand, pagination can fragment your link popularity and make it difficult for users to find your content.
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Paid Search
Paid search is a form of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a search engine to display their ads in the sponsored links section of the search results page. Advertisers bid on keywords that their target customers might use to find their products or services. When a user searches on a keyword that an advertiser has chosen to target, their ad will be displayed in the sponsored links section of the search results page.
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Paid Traffic
Paid traffic is any type of web traffic that you pay to bring to your site. This advertising can take the form of text links, banners or videos placed on other websites, within apps—or anywhere else a prospect may see ads online.
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Panda Algorithm Update
The Panda Algorithm Update is a Google algorithm update that was first released in February 2011. The update was designed to reduce the rank of low-quality websites with thin, spammy content and increase the rank of high-quality websites.
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Path
A path is a string of text that identifies the location of a web page, post or file. A path may contain elements such as slashes (/) to differentiate between folders within your site. A path may also contain a file extension, such as .html or .php.
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Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC or pay-per-click is form of online advertising that allows you to pay only for the clicks your ad receives. When a user clicks on your ad, they are taken to a landing page where they can be converted into leads or sales.
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Penguin Algorithm Update
The Penguin algorithm update is a Google algorithm update that was first announced in April 2012. The update is aimed at penalizing websites that violate Google's webmaster guidelines by artificially increasing their rankings with techniques such as link spamming.
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People Also Ask Feature
The People Also Ask feature is a component of Google's search engine that displays a list of related questions and topics that are frequently asked along with the search results for a given keyword or phrase. The feature is designed to help users find information related to their inquiry as quickly as possible. Read how to optimize your content for people also ask here.
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Phantom Algorithm Update
The Phantom algorithm update was an undocumented change to Google's search engine algorithm that took place in May 2015. The update was believed to have penalized websites that used aggressive SEO techniques to improve their search engine rankings but a clear pattern was not found.
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PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor)
PHP is a server-side scripting language. It is used to create web-based applications.
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Pigeon Algorithm Update
The pigeon update is an algorithm update that was released by Google in July 2014. The update is designed to improve the accuracy of Google's search results by taking into account the user's location and search history.
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Pogo-sticking
Pogo-sticking is when a user clicks on a search result and quickly returns to the results page to select a different result. This behavior is often used to determine which results are the most relevant to the user.
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Private Blog Network (PBN)
Private blog networks (PBNs) are groups of websites that are used to build links. These websites are created solely for link-building purposes and the links from these websites are used to improve search engine ranking. and visibility of the website that requested their links. The PBNs are usually set up to appear to be different websites, but they are all owned by the same person.
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Product Carousel
The Google Product Carousel is a feature of Google Search that displays product results for a user's query. The carousel consists of a rotating set of product images and titles, and can be filtered by category.
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Product Star Ratings
Google product ratings are a type of Rich Snippet that allows you to display star ratings for your products on your search engine results pages (SERP). Rating stars show up in the search results as a small overlay to the product thumbnail.
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Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are websites that look and feel like native mobile apps. They can be installed on a user’s device, undergo updates in the background, and work offline. PWAs are built using modern web technologies and standards, such as Service Workers and Web App Manifests.
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Quality Content
Quality content is defined as content that is original, informative, and useful to the target audience. Quality content is an SEO ranking factor as it helps to improve website visibility and attract organic traffic.
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Quality Link
Quality link is a subjective term and generally relates to a voluntary link to a page on another site that endorses its contents. The more noteworthy the linking site, the more perceived value the link receives.
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Query
A query is the search term or phrase that you enter into the Google search bar to find results. This could be anything from a specific website address to a question you want answered.
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Rank
A rank refers to how high a website appears in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords or queries in a search engine like Google. A website's ranking can be improved through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques like optimizing the website's content, structure, and metadata, and by building links from other websites.
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Rank Bucket(s)
Rank buckets are a means of grouping keywords for better segmentation and analysis. This involves collecting the ranking of each keyword and clustering them into various cohorts of rank positions such as 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-20, 21-40, and 40+.
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Ranking Factors/Signal
A ranking factor is something that tells a search engine how important a web page is. A search engine like Google relies on over 200 ranking factors to determine which pages to show for a given search query.
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Rank Tracking
Rank tracking is the process of monitoring the positions of keywords or web pages in the search engine results pages (SERPs). This is a fundamental component of search engine optimization (SEO) as it allows webmasters and SEO practitioners to see how their website or web pages are performing.
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Rank Tracking Software
Rank tracking software monitors the position of a website or web page in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for particular keywords or phrases. The position of the website is usually displayed as a graph, allowing the user to see the progress of the website over time.
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Recipe Schema Markup
Recipe Schema markup is a standardized format for representing recipes on the web. It includes information about the recipe's ingredients, cooking instructions, and nutritional information. Recipe Schema markup can be used by search engines and other web services to extract and index recipe content. See also, Schema Markup.
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Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking is the process of exchanging links between two websites. This is a historical practice among website owners as a way to improve their site's search engine ranking. When two websites link to each other, it is seen as a vote of confidence by the search engines and can improve the ranking of both websites.
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Redirect
A redirect is a a HTTP Status Code that tells a web browser to go to a different location than the one that was originally requested. This can be done for a number of reasons, such as when a web page has been moved to a new location or when a web page has been renamed. Read our URL redirection guide for more.
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Redirect Chain
A redirect chain is a series of redirects all pointing to each other with an ultimate final destination url. In general, it is not ideal as Page Rank is diluted with each redirect hop as well as cause a deterioration in page speed.
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Referral
Referral generally refers to a web analytics medium that measures the traffic sent to a website from another website. This traffic can be sent through a number of different methods, including but not limited to links, banners, or text advertisements.
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Related Searches
A related search is a search that is related to the topic that you are currently viewing. Google will show you a list of related searches that are related to the topic that you are currently viewing.
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Reputation
In the context of online marketing and SEO, reputation is how a website or business is perceived by its customers, clients, and the public. Maintaining a good reputation is important for any business, as it can help to attract new customers and build trust with existing customers.
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Research Intent
Research intent refers to the searcher's underlying motivation for conducting a search. In the research phase of a user journey, a search may be looking to conduct research and may have no intention of purchase until they complete this phase. Read our guide on how to optimize for search intents here.
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Responsive Website Design
A responsive website design is one that responds to the width of the device it is being viewed on, whether it be a desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone. This means that the website will not be displayed in full on a small screen, but will be displayed in a way that is easy to read and navigate.
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Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
A technique used in AI systems where a language model retrieves relevant information from external data sources before generating a response. Instead of relying only on its pre-trained knowledge, the model first searches documents, databases, or knowledge bases and then uses that retrieved context to produce more accurate, up-to-date, and grounded answers. RAG helps reduce hallucinations and enables AI applications like chatbots, search assistants, and enterprise knowledge tools to generate responses based on trusted or proprietary information.
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Return On Investment (ROI)
The return on investment (ROI) is a calculation that tells you how much money you made from your investment, divided by how much money you invested. This calculation helps you to determine whether an investment is worth making. In search, ROI means the percentage of organic search traffic that a website experiences, compared to the total number of visitors that the website got.
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Robots.txt
A robots.txt file contains information about which directories and files on a website are not to be accessed by search engine crawlers. This file can also be used to prevent specific pages from being indexed. Read how to prevent the crawling of certain pages using the robots.txt file here.
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RSS Feed
RSS Feeds are a way of delivering content from a website to a user's desktop or other devices. RSS Feeds allow users to subscribe to a website's content so that they can be notified when new content is published on the website.
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Scalability
Scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of work, or its potential to be enlarged to accommodate that growth.
The term can also be used to describe the ability of an individual system, network, or process to handle increased load without significant degradation in performance.
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Schema Markup
A variety of structured data, it is code that you can add to a website to help machines or search engines better understand the content on your pages and help support rich snippets in search results which may offer additional features in search such as pricing, product ratings, availability, breadcrumb, thumbnail image etc.
It is an open source collaborative effort by many industry professionals from Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. with the goal of consolidating and unifying into a single accepted standard. See also, structured data. Read our guide on schema markups here.
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Schema Validator
Schema Validator is a tool that evaluates the code on a webpage and provides feedback on whether markup is compliant or valid. Learn how to implement & validate schema markup code.
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Scraping
Scarping is the process of using an automated machine to extract or copy elements of another website such as text, images etc. It is often used to republish the same or similar content elsewhere.
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Script Snippet
Script Snippet or Scriptible Snippet is a piece of code, often on a website assigned the task of performing a specific function for the operator or user.
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Search Ads
A search ad is an advertisement that appears next to the list of search results on the web. Search ads are shown beside the top 10 blue organic links and are paid for by the advertiser.
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Search Data
Search data is the data collected by search engines as users search the web. This data can be used to track popular trends, understand how users interact with websites, and more.
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Search Engine
A search engine is a program that helps users find information on the World Wide Web. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing allow users to enter search terms, or keywords, to find web pages that contain those terms.
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Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing is the practice of leveraging a search engine in order to drive traffic and sales. There are two main types of search engine marketing: organic and paid. Organic search engine marketing is the practice of optimizing your website for a specific keyword or phrase in the hope that it will eventually show up on page one of Google’s search results. Paid search engine marketing is placing an ad on Google (or any other search engine) in order to drive traffic to your website.
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the ranking of a website on search engines. The higher the ranking, the more likely people are to find the website. There are two main types of search engine optimization are organic and paid. Organic SEO is the process of optimizing a website so that it appears higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for certain keywords or phrases. Paid SEO is the process of buying ads on search engines that will appear above and to the right of the organic search results.
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Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
A SERP is the page that results from a web search. When a user inputs a keyword or a search query into a search engine, the engine will return a list of web pages that it considers to be the most relevant to the user’s query. A Google SERP displays 10 organic pages per page for desktop, with the first result highlighted in a green box. The SERP may also include paid search results, which are displayed in a yellow box on the right-hand side of the page, and images and videos that are related to the user’s query.
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Search Intent
Search intent is the reason why a user searched for a particular term or phrase on a search engine. Knowing intent helps a search engine understand what type of results to deliver whether it be e-commerce/shopping, research, finding a local business etc. Read our guide on how to optimize for search intents here.
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Search Operators/Modifiers/Parameters
Search operators (also known as search modifiers or parameters) are special operators that can be used to refine your search results. Some common search modifiers are:
i. Using “site:” before a domain will limit results to just that website. Example: site:wikipedia.org “US Senate” would return search results relating to US Senate from only Wikipedia
ii. Use - to exclude specific terms from search results. For example: apple orchard -tree
iii. Use "cache:" in front of a web page address to display the cached version of the page if there is one. Not every page is cached and website owners can prevent a cache from being created.
iv. Placing "...." between two numbers will limit results to any number between the two. Example: 2012..2022
v. Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase or avoid synonyms if used on a single word. Example: “exchange student” to limit results to pages containing that exact phrase or “symposium” to avoid synonyms.
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Search Performance
Search performance is an expression usually used when describing how well a website is ranking, generating impressions and attracting clicks from search engine users. This helps determine how successful a website is in making its content available to people who use search engines to find information.
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Search Quality Team
The team of Google engineers responsible for refining search results to ensure high quality standards. Other search engines would have people in similar roles.
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Search Settings
Settings provided by search engines which allow users to specify such things as language, region, number of results per page, filtering out explicit results etc.
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Search Volume
Search volume is the number of users searching using a particular query or type of query during a specified period of time.
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SEO Best Practice
While actual tactics and implementations can vary widely, SEO best practices correspond to generally understood and accepted efforts which help machines clearly understand website content. Some general best practices include ensuring each page