Glossary of Web and SEO Terms

A response code from a server that indicates a successful HTTP request from a user. This HTTP response code means the file, web page, or page component was successfully found.

A 301 Redirect takes a browser or user agent from one URL to another. A 301 Redirect signals to search crawlers that the URL change should be considered permanent. SEO technicians use 301 Redirects when a URL changes, in order to avoid broken links (link rot and 404 Errors), to redirect the link equity to the new URL, and to make user experience seamless.

A 302 Redirect is similar to a 301 Redirect, except this type of redirect signals to the search crawlers that the change is intended to be temporary. When you move a page or resource to another URL for a temporary amount of time, that is when you should use a 302 Redirect.

The 304 Not Modified status code tells your browser that the page or resource has not changed since the last time you accessed it. 304 Not Modified means there is no need to retransmit the page since the client (web browser) still has a cached copy of that resource.

A browser shows the 404 Not Found HTTP status code when the server cannot find a web page or resource (like a PDF). 404 Errors can occur when there are broken links to a page or document, if a linked URL changes and no 301 Redirects are in place, or if a linked page or website is deleted.

The 410 Gone HTTP status code appears when the requested page or resource is no longer available on the server and that this condition is likely to be permanent.

The visible area on a website a viewer sees before scrolling down. A preview of the web page content. This term comes from newspapers, which were displayed folded in half, with the top half of the page being visible. Content that appears “above the fold” may vary, depending on the device and screen size. Google rolled out the Page Layout Update in 2012 to demote web pages with too may ads displayed above the fold.

An open-source framework designed by Google to speed up load times for mobile browsers. AMP enables publishers to generate web pages and serve content optimized for fast delivery across all devices.

The scientific field develops complex computer programs to perform tasks that normally use human intelligence. Instead of awaiting human input, the AI program learns and adapts accordingly. Basically, AI is a digital neural net. See also, Machine Learning.

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is a type of program that allows a webpage to send and receive information from servers to update the page without the need to reload.

Think of an algorithm as a complex mathematical formula. Search engines use algorithms to input a bunch of factors and output a list of results. Social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn use algorithms to determine what you see in your feed or to suggest people for you to connect with.

What you need to know about algorithms is they are complex, proprietary math equations that companies like Google use to figure out rankings.

Are you aware of recent Google algorithm changes? When search engines update, refresh or introduce a new algorithm update that affects how search queries are displayed to users, that epitomizes an algorithm change. The impact of major algorithm changes takes time though some can be observed within a short time.

The img element in HTML, which renders images, has an attribute, alt. This attribute is meant to contain a description of the image that is read by screen reader browsers. Visually-impaired people use screen readers to read the page aloud, so they can browse websites. Including ALT attribute text on all images is considered a best practice for SEO, and is also a requirement for passing WCAG accessibility standards.

The deliberate action of collection, analysis, and interpretation of data to make future determinations based on efficiency and utility.

The visible text displayed on a website as a link to a specific web page. By default, anchor text is underlined and colored blue in most browsers. However, if you’ve visited the webpage before, the anchor text is a purple color. Essentially, anchor text helps search engines evaluate the relevance of the destination page.

In simple terms, this refers to recreating the same content using many words without infusing any new ideas/topics. Also known as content spinning. Can be done manually or by using automated software.

The republishing of an exact copy of content by one or more third parties.

The cumulative signals search engine use to evaluate websites for ranking purposes. This can be roughly evaluated in terms of incoming backlinks, or through topical relevance and ability to meet searchers’ intent.

Refers to the reputation and credentials of a content creator in a specific niche. Google’s attempts to implement this as a ranking factor are unproven. Therefore, it’s not a ranking factor.

However, Google currently advocates for the E-A-T model for building a brand’s credibility though whether this is a ranking factor is debatable.

Content generated from a code or a program.

An abbreviation for business-to-business. Characterized by a longer buying cycle, expensive services, and products, and targets professional audiences.

A shortened version of business-to-consumer. Depending on the industry, it’s characterized by a shorter buying cycle, cheap products and services, and targets relevant consumers.

Links from external domains pointing to pages on your domain. Also known as inbound links. Earning backlinks from trusted sites is an important part of SEO.

The most popular search engine in China, with 75% market share in China. The fourth largest search engine in the world after Google, Microsoft Bing, and Yahoo!. Founded by Eric Xu and Robin Li in 2000.

Refers to the practice of ranking your brand on secondary sites, like a specialized directory, or an industry-specific site (Houzz for contractors, Avvo for lawyers, Zillow for real estate, etc). Yelp, Facebook, YP.com, LinkedIn and other profiles are all examples of Barnacle SEO. The idea is to increase your chances of being seen in search results, leveraging other sites in addition to your own website. May also be referred to as Parasite SEO.

Microsoft’s search engine, which launched in 2009, replacing Microsoft Live Search/MSN Live Search. Bing is the second most popular search engine in the United States and worldwide. Yahoo! Search results are powered by Bing, and have been since 2009.

The search crawler bot which crawls and indexes web pages for the Bing search engine.

An intricate often mysterious computer program without an objective understanding. While the inputs and outputs are observable, one cannot interpret the process due to the confidential nature of the program. For instance, Google’s ranking algorithm remains vague.

Techniques, strategies, and tactics that violate search engine guidelines. A shortcut to manipulate and exploit any weaknesses in search engine algorithms to gain unfair rankings. Generally, black-hat techniques are looked down upon by the professional SEO community. For mainstream businesses, reliance on black-hat SEO tactics is incredibly risky, as loopholes in the Google algorithm tend to be short-lived.

An ongoing digital collection of articles published by a website. Often appears with the most recent or most relevant content appearing at the top. Websites with blogs tend to post articles in reverse chronological order. A blog seeks to meet the interests of the individual, corporate, or party generating it. Blogs were originally called “weblogs” in the early days of the web. This was eventually shortened to “blog”. Authors of articles are known as bloggers.

A software application programmed to execute a specific set of tasks. In SEO, this usually refers to search crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot.

The percentage of site visitors who exit a webpage without clicking through to another webpage. The number of one-page sessions divided by all sessions. Bounce rate occurs when site visitors leave after visiting the initial page they entered upon. Many SEOs believe a high bounce rate is a negative ranking factor, although several Google representatives have said bounce rate is a noisy and spammable signal for ranking purposes.

Keywords and search phrases associated with a specific brand, product, or service. For instance, Lockedown SEO is a branded keyword for our company.

Internal navigational links that help website visitors understand their location within a website architecture. Breadcrumb navigation links are usually smaller than the main navigation, and are often placed near the top of the main content of a page. A characteristic of breadcrumb navigation is to show links to pages that are above the current page in the URL hierarchy, with the home page being the topmost page in the breadcrumb navigation.

A page specifically developed to direct users elsewhere. Often, it’s used in affiliate marketing to generate traffic to affiliate sites.

Any link that results in a 404 error when clicked. A link to a resource that does not exist at the linked URL. Broken links can be external or internal. The main causes for broken links are: removal of a web page or document without a URL redirect, a web page that is temporarily offline, or the destination URL is changed without a redirect being implemented.

A storage location for temporary data that helps apps, websites, and web pages load faster in browsers. Usually a directory on a web hosting server.

The snapshot of a page as seen when it was last crawled by search engines.

A canonical tag (rel = “canonical”) refers to a snippet of HTML code in a web page that defines the main, or canonical, version of a URL. Canonical tags are used for pages that are duplicates, near-duplicates, or homogeneous versions of existing pages. Using canonical tags to define canonical pages is useful for telling Google and other search engines which version of a page is the preferred one to index.

When there are multiple URLs with similar content, an HTML code element specifies the most preferred website URL. This HTML code element is known as a Canonical URL.

Abbreviation for country-code top-level domain. Used to define the domain for a specific country. (Examples: .co.uk for United Kingdom, .au for Australia, .fr for France, .za for South Africa, .ke for Kenya, .br for Brazil.

The online mention of a brand name, address, phone, and website (NAPW citations). Citations are found in online directories, local listings, lead generation sites, social networks, niche community profiles, etc. NAPW citations are thought to have influence in local SEO by most SEO experts. In the past, these citations were believed to have major influence on rankings in Google Maps, though this has believed to have diminished slightly in recent years.

Manipulative content designed to entice users to click, by overpromising, or using misleading headlines. In most cases, clickbait aims to generate advertising revenue.

Click depth is the distance (in clicks) it take to get from a home page or landing page to a destination page on a website. Pages nearer to the home page in the hierarchy were traditionally thought to have higher priority in crawling, indexing, and ranking by many SEO consultants.

For indexing purposes, click depth is important, as the less number of clicks a crawler needs to travel to find a page, the more likely it will be crawled and indexed. Click depth can also play a role in link equity in regards to internal links.

A decpetive practice where different inforamtion or URLs are shown to people and search engines. Cloaking is a violation of Google Webmaster guidelines.

Like the hard drive on your computer, but millions of times bigger. We like to talk about “the cloud” like it’s a singular thing, but really, there are several clouds. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Dropbox, and dozens of other players each have their own cloud.

“The Cloud” is essentially someone else’s really big hard drive.

The frequency at which two websites or webpages are mentioned by third-party websites even when the two don’t share links or reference each other. Helps search engines establish subject homogeneity.

The amount of text visible on a page compared to the quantity of code used to build the page. While a higher code-to-text ratio is perceived as a better user experience, it’s not a ranking factor.

Comments left on websites for the sole purpose of obtaining a low-value link. These are often promotional, poorly written, off-topic, or links to questionable topics. Can be written by spambots or humans.

Competitors for either sales, SEO rankings, or both. Direct competitors sell the same products or services that you sell. SEO competitors attempt to rank for the same keywords you are targeting, and may or may not sell similar products to your company.

Content generated from software, purportedly at par with human capacity.

Text, images, video, audio, or any other information that can be consumed and interpreted. The content of books are words and illustrations. The content of YouTube is videos and comments. The content of a podcast is the audio and show notes. Most websites contain a content mix of text and images, some also have video and audio.

A global server network that eases access to any website.

Correlated collection of content about a certain topic.

A phrase made popular by SEO practitioners. It underlines the value of content to acquire success in digital marketing, SEO, or online business. The oft-repeated phrase dates back to a Bill Gates essay, “Content is King“, published January 3, 1996.

A web-based application that enables people to create, upload and monitor digital assets. Examples: WordPress, Drupal, Kentico, Microsoft SharePoint, Sitecore, Shopify, Joomla.

It’s when a user completes the desired action on a website. For example, on an e-commerce site, when a site visitor makes a purchase, or on a marketing site when a user fills out a form.

The percentage rate at which website visitors complete the desired action. It’s calculated by dividing total conversions by traffic; multiplied by 100.

The art and science of enhancing the overall number, percentage and quality of conversions taking place on a website. Some common CRO activities include improving copywriting, messaging, calls-to-action, A/B testing, and website design.

When a set of keywords show up together on high-ranking pages on a certain topic.

A subset of Web Vitals, which Google uses in part to evaluate user experience for websites and web pages. The notable measurements which you can see recent data for on Google’s Page Speed Insights tool are: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

Occurs when Google makes far-reaching updates to its ranking algorithm. While Google provides heads-up for its algorithm changes, Core Updates usually happen about three or four times a year. Many SEO consultants believe these Core Updates combine several smaller updates into the main ranking algorithm after a period of experimentation and data analysis.

A select collection of articles that you most wish to rank for in search engines.

The extent of the relationship between two or more events in SEO. For example: high-ranking sites have more inbound links than low-ranking sites. In SEO, correlation trends closely with causation, but it does not mean that correlation of a common event causes high or low ranking.

The ability of a search engine crawler to access the content of a web page.

The quantity of page URLs search engines, such as Googlebot, allocate to crawl on a website over a given time period.

When a search crawler cannot crawl a web page. The two main types: URLs that crawler bots cannot crawl, URLs that result in a status code error.

An program that systematically browses the internet to collect data, which goes into an index. Crawlers discover and process pages for indexing, thereby helping search engines show current pages on search results. Googlebot and Bingbot are examples of crawlers.

The process of crawlers gathering information from all public webpages for updating, addition, and organization into a search engine’s index.

CSS provides the styling (visual presentation rules) for web pages and apps. Along with HTML, one of the foundational components of web development.

Click-Through Rate is how often people click on a given search result or ad versus how many impressions that search result or ad receive. If a search results has a 100% CTR, that means every time someone saw that search result, they clicked on it. If half the people who see the search result clicked on it, that is a 50% CTR.

The potential touch points a prospect is exposed to while engaging with a brand. The overall goal of these touch points is get customer conversions.

Empirical numbers on user behavior that is used for interpretations and insights. Data is often used to determine a SEO course of action.

Think of a database like a gigantic spreadsheet (like Excel). Except that in a database, specific values can be related to other values in more complex ways.

PHP based sites, including WordPress sites, rely on a database to store and retrieve information from.

A web page that has no outgoing links to other web pages. When a human user or crawler bot arrives on the page, there’s nowhere else to go.

A link pointing to a page other than the homepage on a website, or a link to content within a mobile app.

The ratio of deep links compared to home page links. The more deep links a website has, the higher the content quality and quantity the site is likely to have.

Happens when Google temporarily or permanently removes a website or webpage from the search index. This can happen due to thin content or very poor content quality, or as a result of an algorithmic or manual Google penalty.

Users that manually type a website URL on browsers to land on a website or through bookmark clicking. Google classifies unknown sources as direct traffic.

A record of websites, listed in familiar/related categories usually updated through human input. The inclusion of your website in a directory depends on whether it’s a subscription or a free service. From an SEO perspective, directory listing was highly relevant in the past but was degraded due to abuse and manipulation for link building.

Sometimes you find low-quality links, spammy and unwanted inbound links that you have no control over, and you cannot legitimately remove. Google’s Disavow tool enables you to instruct the search engine to ignore such links. The Disavow Tool is also there if a site has engaged in black hat link building tactics in the past.

(Note: Many people have also gone overboard in disavowing links, because SEO tools flag certain links as “toxic” or “spammy”. Google reps in recent years have advised that Google’s ranking algorithm naturally ignores the vast majority of low-quality links, so there is no need to disavow. Also, our advice is to not disavow any links unless you have tried everything else when it comes to boosting your rankings. Use the Disavow Tool only as a path of last resort. – J. Locke)

The Open Directory Project was a human curated directory which ran from June 5, 1998 to March 17, 2017. The project was an open-source initiative with oversight by Mozilla, until it was sold to AOL in 2017. DMOZ was launched when the human-curated Yahoo Directory was popular, and volunteers (with editor oversight) would admit or reject websites which applied to be listed in certain categories. Editors could also add websites on their own to categories which they managed.

DMOZ was seen for many years as a desirable link to get, because not every site that was submitted would be listed. There is currently an archive of the DMOZ directory at https://www.dmoz-odp.org.

A hyperlink that passes link equity, aka Follow Links. All hyperlinks are follow links by default. Links that are follow links are written in one of these two formats.

1. <a href="https://lockedownseo.com" rel="follow">
2. <a href="https://lockedownseo.com">

Both the above links are followed links that pass link equity. Changing the rel attribute to rel="nofollow" prevents the link from passing link equity.

A domain name is a human-readable web address, mapped to a specific site on the internet.

The registration date of a domain to the current moment. For example, the domain name, lockedowndesign.com was first registered on July 31st, 2012.

At one time, domain age was thought to be a SEO ranking factor, and “aged domains” that were more than a year old were thought to have more trust than newly registered domains.

Since at least 2017, Google representatives have said the age of the domain is not a ranking factor.

In simple terms, domain authority infers to the strength and influence of a website which accumulates over time. Factors such as links, content, and other SEO parameters contribute to the domain authority.

[Note: Some SEO tools use proprietary ratings to approximate the strength of a domain, such as Ahrefs with “Domain Rating (DR)” and Moz with “Domain Authority (DA)”. Most SEO specialists use the generic term “domain authority” to refer to the perceived strength of a domain, even though Google does not use a single internal metric to measure this domain strength. – J. Locke]

The cumulative activities previously associated with and built into a domain. SEO practioners should check a domain to see if it has received any manual penalties, or if the domain engaged in questionable link building practices before buying a domain for use. Domain history can also refer to what type of content was on the website in the past.

The Domain Name System deals with pointing domain names towards IP addresses, or specific server installations.

Much like a street address is easier to remember than the latitude and longitude of your house, domain names allow websites to use a human-readable system to get to websites.

A space where domain records are managed by an administrator account. Every site has a DNS zone that handles information such as what servers a domain name should point to, the email records associated with that domain, and other info.

Websites or web pages created to rank for specific, similar search queries. Doorway pages are considered bad for users because they lead to many similar pages in search results, where each destination page is essentially the same. These can also be pages that act as intermediary pages that are designed to lead users to the same page. Examples of doorway pages:

• City or region landing pages that lack differentiation.
• Multiple domain names or landing pages that funnel users to a single page.
• Pages that are extremely similar that lack searchable hierarchy in your website.

A recent search engine launched in 2008. It’s famed for its insistence on user privacy and anonymity for user search. DuckDuckGo is not owned by Google or Bing. The serach engine uses its own crawler, DuckDuckBot, and partner sources, such as Bing and Yandex, to generate search results. As of August 2022, DuckDuckGo is about 2.5% of the US search engine market share.

Content available on the web in multiple places. Duplicate content is close-to-the-same content found on the same website, or other websites on the web.

Time spent on a website after clicking one of the search results, before heading back to the search results. Longer dwell time is believed to have a high correlation with higher rankings by many SEO experts. Low dwell time (a few seconds) from real human traffic is believed to indicate low-quality content.

A web page bearing content that depends on the variable parameters fed into the server that executes it. The parameters can either be input or present within the URL itself.

Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is a concept found in the Google Quality Rater Guidelines. These human search evaluators follow guidelines to evaluate results, and this feedback is given to Google engineers who continually improve the ranking algorithm. The goal is to give positive signals to websites and pages that exhibit these qualities.

E-A-T is not a singular signal — Google representatives have been very clear on this. It is a consolidation of signals used by Google in determining the quality of the content. It aligns with Google’s efforts to curb the spread of misinformation and the promotion of low low-quality content. Search engines attempt to find authoritative content to promote in search rankings.

Online buying and selling of goods. An e-Commerce website facilitates the selling of goods and products.

Ecosia is a search engine founded on December 7, 2009. Since 2017, search results for Ecosia have been provided by Microsoft Bing. Ecosia donates 100% of their profits to reforestation, as the company is positioned as a C0₂ neutral. In 2018, Ecosia committed to becoming a privacy-friendly search engine. As of August 2022, Ecosia is about 0.1% of the US search engine market share, and is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

A link provided to an external website without the recipient asking for or paying for link placement.

Most educational institutions have a top-level domain ending with .edu, and any links from such an institution are known as a .edu link. Since educational institutions have great authority for search ranking purposes, these links have traditionally been highly sought by link builders. Many tactics, such as the “scholarship link” became abused by many SEO agencies, and many of these links have subsequently become devalued.

The ongoing process of promoting your products and services to potential customers who opt-in to emails from your organization. These emails are often personalized using the name with which a user signed up. Some email marketing campaigns segment users into different sub-lists, based on their behavior, and they may see different emails based on actions they have taken in the past.

Evaluation methods to get insights into how users interact with website pages and content. Such methods include click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, etc.

Entities can be people, places, organizations, websites, events, groups, creative works, historical events, facts, or any other notwworthy other things. Search engines track information on entities in their respective Knowledge Graphs (Google and Bing each have Knowledge Graphs.)

The first page a user views when they come to your website.

Content that constantly remains relevant by offering value to the target audience.

Hyperlink from your website to a page on another website (not your own). Also known as an Outbound Link.

A type of navigation that allows for filtering by different parameters. Often appears on e-commerce sites and other sites with multiple listings. Faceted navigation is a UX pattern that aims to help website users quickly find what they are looking for. For instance, Airbnb utilizes faceted navigation on its platform to filter houses by destination, check-in dates, and location. E-commerce sites using faceted navigation might allow filtering by price, size, color, or other options.

Featured Snippets are highlighted text, video, or text and image content at the top of the page in selected search results in Google. About 19% of search queries produce a Featured Snippet.

The ease through which website content is discoverable by users (internally) and by search engines (externally).

Controversy exists on the validity of this concept. However, it implies Google and other search engines attach more prominence and importance to the first link on a web page whenever there are multiple links to the same page. Some SEOs believe the anchor text from the first link on the page is weighted more heavily than subsequent links. There is no emprical evidence to confirm this theory. However, it’s imperative to always consider relevance and user experience when undertaking internal and external linking.

Any link appearing at the bottom section of a website.

Refers to the age of published content on websites in certain categories.

A wide consensus exists that Google gives preference to the freshest content on some topics such as health and breaking news. The Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) is part of Google’s algorithms and determines when up-to-date information should be made more prominent in search results.

FTP is a technology that allows someone to connect to a specific server or folder on a server, and upload, download, or edit files there. Most FTP accounts require at least three components to connect: the host (IP address or URL), user (username or email address), and address.

Content that users can access only after providing their contact information.

The most dominant and popular search engine founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google marked the departure from human-edited directories and revolutionized the use of web crawlers and indexing, using hyperlink patterns, content analysis, and other complex algorithms to determine search rankings. Today, Google is the most popular serach engine in the world, and the top search engine in most countries.

A systematic and rational set of rules used by Google to rank search results for different search queries. The Google ranking algorithm is continuously updated to improve results.

A concerted group effort to make a certain page rank for an unexpected term. Usuualy this is accompliched by having multiple sites link to a page with spexifix anchor text. A primary example is in 2003, when the Wikipedia page for George W. Bush was ranking number one for the term ‘miserable failure’.

The web crawler Google uses to crawl and index content for their search engine.

Google Business Profiles are listings on Google Maps, either with a physical location, or a service area without a physical location. These GBP listings can be claimed by the business owner, usually via a postcard with a unique code. You can add or edit information about your business on your Google Business Profile, including services offered, hours of operation, phone number, website link, business name, logo, and photos. Users can also leave reviews for your business on GBP/Google Maps and upload photos. The Google Business Profile also pulls in information from third-party sites like Yelp or the Better Business Bureau, and sometimes can automatically detect your brand social media accounts (you cannot set social accounts in GBP). This profile is also part of Google’s Knowledge Graph about your company, and the GBP is the “entity” that other third-party profiles are compared against. A Google Business Profile is a foundational part of a local SEO strategy.

Search index introduced by Google in 2010 that allowed them to index more content and provide fresher search results.

A slang term coined around 2002 for the volatility period when a new page or site settles into an approximate position in rankings.

Introduced in 2013, the Hummingbird update sought to better understand batural language queries and semantic meaning rather than individual keywords.

Google’s Panda update was a major algorithm change first rolled out in 2011 aimed at devaluing low-quality, thin content produced by content farms. It went through many subsequent updates and since 2016, has been part of the core Google algorithm.

A fine imposed algorithmically (algorithmic peanlty) by a human reviewer (manual penalty) for a violation of the Google Search Essentials (Google Webmaster) Guidelines. It’s imperative to avoid Google penalties since they negatively affect ranking.

Arounf July 204, Google released an update to local search, later dubbed “Pigeon” by SEO publications. Pigeon updated hundreds of ranking signals in organic search and Google Maps to improve local search results. The update rewarded sites with strong organic signals, improved location searches, and downgraded attempts at keyword stuffing in business names in Google Maps. It is belived by many SEOs that smaller updates to Pigeon happen on a consistent basis to continuously improve local search results.

In 2015, Google announced RankBrain was the third most important ranking factor, behind content and links. RankBrain is a machine learning component of its ranking algorithm, and affects almost all search queries. In 2016, Google announced that RankBrain is involved search queries.

Theorized probabtion period for new sites, when Google alledgedly does not give them the full optimization. After the sandbox period, supposedly, sites settle into an approximate final postition.

A free tool used to monitor website performance and highlight potential issues affecting the ranking metrics.

These are the appropriate, recommended best practices by Google for finding, indexing, and eventually ranking websites.

A document, updated periodically, from Google showing internal guidelines on how to manually review websites by the internal quality raters. While these guidelines aren’t a direct ranking signal, the feedback that the search quality raters give the Google engineers via search results evaluations is used to improve the ranking algorithm. The Quality Rater Guidelines mentions the concept of E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) several times.

A 2012 update released to downgrade web pages containing too many ads on top.

A website containing all the most recent and relevant search trends, topics, and stories. One can explore the information through data visualization.

Governments have Top Level Domains (TLDs), and these websites are a highly-trusted source of relevant information to the public. US government organizations have the .gov links while other countries have customized country-specific domains. Links from these sites are highly desireable for linkbuilding.

SEO strategies and tactics that walk an alledged “thin line” between black hat and white hat SEO practices. These tactics bend the rules on Google Sarch Essentials Guidelines.

When a writer gets to publish a blog post on someone else’s website or blog. This is usually done to build up authority for the author, or to link back to their own website.

Content or information prepared by one person but published on a different website.

A GUI is a user-friendly way to interact with software without having to use the black terminal screen. A good example of this is Windows, which is a GUI for MS-DOS, which runs PC style computers. Most every type of software has a GUI of some sort. People pronounce this acronym as “gooey” — like chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven. Mmmm…cookies.

Basically, the headline of a web page. In technical terms, refers to the HTML heading that represents the web page title. For accessibility and SEO best practices, there should be onlye one of these in a web page.

HTML elements used to separate headings and subheadings from the rest of the content; usually in descending priority order (H1 to H6).

A popular short-tail keyword (one or two words) with a massive search volume and high competition that makes it difficult to rank for this term.

From the onset, please note this is a black hat SEO practice since it goes against the Google Webmaster Guidelines and can easily lead to a penalty. It refers to any text inaccessible by users and is intended for manipulating search engines by loading webpages supposedly rich with content and copy. Some people do this by using text that’s too small to read, or applying CSS to push text offscreen.

A product of the HITS Algorithm which came into force in 2003, it assigned expertise to certain domains and webpages covering specific niches, and also unaffiliated pages linking to the domain.

Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search assesses the value not just based on the content and internal links but also the outbound links.

A highly recommended practice of compliance and taking care of all SEO elements on a website to ensure higher rankings on search engines.

The key page, introductory page, or root page of a website. This page appears when you type the domain URL into a web browser.

An HTML attribute that indicates to Google alternate versions of a webpage for different regions and languages.

A server configuration file used for redirects and rewriting of URLs.

A markup language that is the foundation of web development. If your website were a building, then HTML would be the steel girders and frame holding it all together.

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is how data is transferred from a computer server to a web browser. HTTP is the protocol used for fetching web pages and documents over the internet. As a client-server protocol, the data transfer is initiated by the web browser, such as when you type a URL into a web browser or click a hyperlink. HTTP facilitates the download of the components needed to render a web page, for example HTML, scripts, images, stylesheets, and other parts of a web document.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure uses a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) in the encryption of data transferable between a website and a website browser. In the SEO field, HTTPS is classified as a minor ranking factor. Your website should use HTTPS for data privacy, SEO, and for customer trust.

The most authoritative and detailed page on a specific keyword/niche containing the most recent, relevant, and quality information. Such a page contains both inbound and outbound links to further boost its topical authority.

An impression is the point where a page visitor sees a search result or ad, or if an ad is loaded and displayed on a web page. In Google Search Console, an impression is counted when any URL from your site appears in search results that are viewed by a user. (This impression count does not count AdWords ads or other paid ads).

A link from an external webpage. For instance, if Google links to LockedownSEO, that would be an inbound link to the latter.

If your domain name is a human-readable web address, then your IP address is the hard-to-remember version of that web address.

An IP address is a series of numbers, connected by periods (IPv4) or colons (IPv6), that point towards a specific device, computer, or server in a network. Every device on Earth has an IP address, though with the number of devices connected to the web, many of these are now dynamic (temporarily assigned). Hosting servers generally use static (unchanging) IP addresses.

A nearly universal scripting language that provides behavior rules for web pages. If HTML is the structure of a website, and CSS is the visual component, JavaScript provides many of the behavior rules.

In recent years, scores of JavaScript “libraries” have begun to emerge, making web development increasingly difficult to keep up with.

The target phrase or words that guides how to best meet search intent for ranking purposes.

A damaging self-competition which arises when multiple web pages rank for a similar query on SERP. In SEO terms, this leads to lower CTR, diminished conversion rates, and overall low domain authority.

An SEO practice of combining similar and relevant keywords into groups.

The frequency at which a target keyword appears within the page content. There seems to be some controversy on the value of this concept in ranking impact since it lacks a measurable metric.

A metric made available by different SEO tools with the intent to show a keyword’s ranking ease/difficult to rank.

This is a website’s ranking position for a particular keyword on SERP.

A method of uncovering the relevant topics, subjects, and terms relevant to users based on SERP results, depending on the volume and competition level. One can use a variety of free and paid tools to understand these trends.

When one wants to build a niche around a certain anchor word, such as smartphones, one can build a cluster using brand names. For instance, words such as Samsung, Oppo, and iPhone among others buttress such a keyword. The search engines interpret these words as a ‘stem’ of the keywords. Keyword stemming infers to Google’s ability to comprehend the variations of the primary keyword. The algorithms detect these ‘stems’ through their processes.

Inappropriate, unnatural, and irrelevant addition (read repetition) of keywords with the goal of increasing rankings. It’s a spam tactic that violates Google Webmaster Guidelines and can easily result in penalties.

When you see company profiles on the right hand side of the search results, that is the Knowledge Graph. Google is trying to organize information about different companies, people, organizations, creative works, or entities, and the Knowledge Graph is how the search engine understands them to fit together. When you search your own company on Google, you may see certain things in your Knowledge Graph, like hours of operation, social media profiles, photos of your business from Google Maps, a location map, your logo, Google reviews, or other information that Google has found from other websites about your business.

Key Performance Indicators are the critical, or key, metrics that indicate progress towards in intended goal. KPIs provide a focus for strategic decisions, daily operations, and analytical evaluation. Management uses KPIs to set performance targets for an organization or department, showing what metrics the team should focus on attaining. Leading indicators often predict lagging success. In other words, leading indicators precede an intended result which follows afterwards. Lagging indicators shows how successful a team was at achieving results in the past.

refers to one of these meanings: 1) any page a user can navigate to, 2) the page by which a user first enters a website durring a session, 3) a page designed to capture leads, usually used for paid ads, or for email signups.

A person or organization who has expressed interest in your products or services, or someone in your marketing funnel. A marketing qualified lead is a lead who is likely to convert, who willingly shares their email or other contact information in exchange for something they deem valuable on the website. Leads can come into your system through a contact form, an email newsletter signup, or another lead acquisition channel.

A HTML hyperlink connecting two web pages. A key ranking factor due to the passing of link equity across various domains, links enable users to easily navigate across apps and websites.

Content developed with the intent to attract backlinks. Sometimes link bait is intentionally provocative or covering topics that are hotly debated, controversial, or polarizing.

Systemic process to get other websites to link to pages on a target website. Link building can including site outreach, partner relationships, editorial links, and manual link building on properties you own or manage.

Link equity is the authority and ranking power passed when one web page links to another. This usually refers to inbound links, but also applies to external links, and internal linking. In the past, this was referred to as ‘link juice’, but that term is considered undesirable now.

A mutual consensus between two websites to link to each other.

A group of website domains created solely to provide links to one another, or to sell links to interested parties.

See Link Equity/.

Refers to the number of backlinks pointing to a website.

A process for trying to regain any lost backlinks to a website.

The natural tendency for links to start losing value and get broken on the website over time.

A disparaged practice of trying to manipulate link equity unnaturally, which can attract Google penalties, both algorithmically and manual, due to violation of webmaster guidelines.

Misleading and irrelevant links placed on the pages in an attempt to boost the page rankings.

Situation whereby a link remains available on a page persistently over a period of time without any changes or variations.

The frequency at which the backlink profile of a website is growing.

See Internal Link.

See Nofollow Attribute aka Nofollow Link.

See Outbound Link.

Any online mention of your website/business name, address, and phone number (NAP). Examples of local citations are Yelp profiles, Facebook pages, branded social profiles, marketplace listings, local business website listings, Chamber of Commerce listings, and many more.

SERP feature which features local Google Business / Google Maps Listings for local or regional search queries.

Any and all attempts to improve the search engine visibility of local businesses. This can include organic and paid ads, the map listings, and local marketplaces and directories like Yelp. SEO usually refers to just organic, Search Marketing usually means paid and organic.

Processes, science, and art of optimizing your online serach visibility to rank higher for local searches, usually focuses on Google and Bing organic and map listings.

Analysis of the crawling behavior of the google search bots, usually in the server logs, with the aim to unearth any avenues to improve SEO.

A file that collects and records the user’s information including the IP address, browser used, click times, time, etc.

Search term composed of three or more words, usually lower search volume. These search terms are valid sources of interest and targeted content can yield high conversion rates. People often ignore long tail keywords because of the low estimated search volume, but these keywords can still be highly valuable.

Placeholder text used for graphic and web design. The classic lorum ipsum comes from a 1st Century speech by the Roman orator, Cicero, entitled De Finibus Bonorum Et Malorum. Lorem ipsum takes its name from the first words from this excerpt. In recent years, several online lorum ipsum generators have sprung up, each having a particular theme.

Latent Semantic Analysis and Latent Semantic Indexing refer to a process of information retreival and analyzing relationships between words and documents. In the SEO community, “LSI keywords” became a misused buzzword, referring to synonyms and related words to a target keyword used foro content creation. In reality, “LSI keywords” is a nonsensical phrase, as they do not exist for purposes of the ranking algorithm. Search engines do use natural language processing and other methods to understand the appropriate context of words in realtions to ideas and search intent.

A subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that uses data and algorithsm to imitate human learning, and adjusts to complex processes to improve accuracy with limited human interference.

A Google penalty which is applied after a human reviewer validates compliance, or lack of it, for the Google Webmaster guidelines. Penalties can apply wholesomely or partially.

Essentially, data about data. Formats like Schema.org, RFDa, Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Microformats are used by search engines. Dublin Core is another type of metadata used on the web. Metadata helps search engines figure out what certain things are easier.

A description, added in the head section of an HTML document, that summarizes the content of a web page. When one uses a vivid and engaging meta description, Google can use it in your search result listing, which can increase click-through rate.

A meta tag in the head of a HTML document which lists keywords for that page. Long ago, this was used for ranking purposes, though it has not been used by search engines for many years.

A meta refresh redirect tag uses client-side (browser) instructions to send the visitor to a different URL.

Meta tag that tells search crawlers how to crawl, index, or ignore a web page. Example of how this looks: <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

HTML tags in the head of a HTML document that add sadditional information describing the contents of a page, used by search engines.

A standard to evaluate the activity and efficiency of SEO initiatives.

Clone of an existing site hosted on another server.

A shift in Google’s approach several years ago that emphasizes the mobile version of content and rendering for a webpage for indexing and ranking purposes.

A database language. Specifically, a relational database management system. WordPress and many other database systems use MySQL to store and retrieve values to create web pages.

The specific servers where a site and its files are stored. A domain name points at specific nameservers.

An external link voluntarily created by the content creator. A link knowingly placed into content without compensation or payment. Also known as an Editorial Link.

A search query whereby the user seeks to find a specific website.

Process of using malicious, black-hat techniques to harm the rankings of a competitor in order to gain an SEO advantage. Many of the techniques commonly used in the 2000s and early 2010s are ineffective today.

A highly specific topic or market area mainly driven by a small group of people with shared interests and passion.

A meta tag telling search engines not to store cached versions of your page.

Link attribute that tells search engines to not consider a link for ranking purposes, and for crawlers like Bingbot and Googlebot not to follow (crawl) that link. This link attribute should be used for paid or sponsored links, affiliate links, or links which cannot be vouched for by the website (Example: social media profile links). The nofollow attribute appears in a link in the following manner: <a href="https://www.example.com" rel="nofollow"></a>.

A meta tag instructing search engine crawlers to not add a specific page to their search index on their servers. This essentially prevents a page from showing up in search results. More information can be found on implementing the noindex tag here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/block-indexing.

A term referring to rel="noopener" as an HTML attribute added to links. This attribute tells browsers to open the link in a new browser tab or window, usually for security reasons.

An HTML attribute disabling the passage of referrer information through a link.

In 2011, search engines moved to secure search, hence eliminating certain keyword data from Google Analytics, and replacing it with “not provided”. Previous to this change, it was possible to see what keywords serachers typed into search to land on specific pages on your site in Google Analytics. After the change, it became impossible to kow with absolute certainty which search queries brought organic traffic to a website.

A meta tag instructing search engines to not showcase a segment of the page as a “featured snippet” or “position zero snippet” in search results.

Cumulative actions undertaken to build and generate brand awareness and drive organic awareness exclusive to the website. These actions include link building, email marketing, social media campaigns, content marketing, etc.

All activities happening within a website to boost its organic reach. They include publishing quality, high-quality content, internal linking, and optimizing HTML. Measuring aspects such as page load speed and UX structure all fall under this category.

All activities happening within a website to boost its organic reach. They include publishing quality, high-quality content, internal linking, and optimizing HTML. Measuring aspects such as page load speed and UX structure all fall under this category.

Natural, unpaid search results visible on SERPs. Organic search placement is earned through relevancy, quality, and other factors computed by the ranking algorithm.

A webpage not linked to by any other pages on a website.

A link on a website that takes visitors to a different website than the one they are currently browsing. Remember, as a best practice for SEO, outbound links must have relevancy to the content of the current page and website.

Code snippets in the HTML of a pages that control how the current URL is displayed when shared on social media.

Site traffic generated naturally through organic search. Excludes all traffic from paid ads.

The People Also Ask feature is something that appears on a Google search results page for certain search queries. This does not trigger on all search queries, but tends to appear when the query is an informational question. When People Also Ask appears, it initially shows as three to four “accordion” style questions. When you click a question, a short excerpt is revealed with a link to the source page. Another thing that happen when you click to reveal an answer is more questions are loaded dynamically.

The value and authority attached to a webpage depending on incomimg links. Google says, “PageRank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site’s PageRank. Not all links are equal.” Named after a co-founder of Google, Larry Page.

Ranking factor that infers the total time a webpage takes to completely load and display.

When a webpage is visibly loaded on a browser. Usually tracked in analytics software.

A backlink acquired after payment for the same/ a purchased backlink.

The pay-per-click (PPC) ads usually displayed on the top/below the organic SERP for a specific query.

Private Blog Network, a network of link farms used to manipulate rankings artificially.

This stands for Portable Document Format and can contain all sorts of elements such as images, links, text, etc. These can be uploaded to a website, and linked in a web page. PDFs can also be indivudual listings in search results.

A manual action taken by humans or more commonly an algorithmic action enacted programmatically to lessen the ranking power of a page or website due to violation of the search engine guidelines.

A extrapolated representation of the target audience for a website – based on aspects such as demographics, purchasing power, needs, goals, and status – derived from actual data.

A trend through which search engines analyze a person’s location, browsing history, search history, and connections to tailor search results for the specific user.

Yes, that abbreviation still doesn’t make sense.

PHP is a popular scripting language. But while a language like JavaScript does it’s work in the web browser (front-end scripting), PHP is a server-side (back-end) scripting language, meaning it performs it’s logic on the web server, and then gives that information to the web browser.

PHP is used by frameworks like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, as well as by large sites like Facebook.

The most authoritative and comprehensive guide about a specific topic on a website. In most cases, pillar pages are part of cluster pages that cover different subtopics aimed to bring in higher rankings.

Infringement of copyrights, which search engines aim to prevent by ensuring sites that continually get DCMA-related takedowns to receive reduced visibility/total bans.

A plugin can be a file, or set of files, that are added to a website to provide specific functionality. This may refer to a JavaScript plugin, or plugins built for specific frameworks (like WordPress, ExpressionEngine, or Drupal).

WordPress plugins generally consist of a set of files containing PHP, JavaScript, and CSS. These provide added functionality to a website. They save information to a WordPress database, and operate independently from WordPress themes (which is good) — unless they are bundled in a theme (which is bad). Many commercial themes, especially those found on theme marketplaces, bundle plugins into their themes to make them sell. Most custom built themes add plugins independently of the theme, which is a best practice for both security and adaptability.

When you click on a search results, then go back to the SERP results, looking at the pages listed for the most appropriate answer, that’s pogo sticking.

The rank of a listing in the search results pages. Example: ranking in the number two position would be the second result on the page.

An advertising method whereby proprietors pay a specific amount (determined by various factors such as account history, bid, relevance, and competition) each time users click on the ad. It’s highly advisable to combine both SEO and PPC advertising for better conversions and higher organic traffic. Plus, PPC can be used in creating a data-driven SEO strategy.

Refers to Query Deserves Freshness, and infers to a situation in which search engines may decide to showcase newer web pages, rather than the older pages, for a trending search term. In most cases, this arises when news events push demand for the search term.

Content that meets search intent and achieves desired organic metrics while aiding in both marketing and business goals. Such content is also highly shareable.

An inbound link from a trusted, relevant and authoritative website (probably already established in its niche as a thought leader).

See “Search Query“.

The positional ranking of a webpage on search results for a specific keyword query.

A machine-learning based part of the search aolgorithm developed by Google to boost understanding of new long-term search queries and ensure only the most relevant results are displayed.

A single element within a complex and diverse series of algorithms determining the rank of webpages within SERP for a certain query. Google is rumored to apply hundreds of ranking factors in assigning relevance and rank for search queries.

A consensus between two websites to exchange links.

A request to Google to re-evaluate your website after fixing issues identified after a manual action, security warning, or algorithmic penalty.

Technical implementation for sending visitors to another URL when they visit a specific URL. The most commonly used types of redirects are permanent (301) or temporary (302).

URL data identifying the origin of a user’s webpage request.

Methodology for instructing search engines to return a website or webpages to its index after de-indexing (removal from potential search results).

Means for search engines to evaluate the interconnectedness of a webpage’s content and its alignment to meet the search intent.

Closely related searches are other serach queries similar to the one appearing on your current search results page. These appear at the bottom of the page.

Efforts to craft and maintain a positive online brand image and perception – even on social media and reviews – by repressing the visibility of negative mentions.

Web pages ccurating, collecting, and pointing to useful and relevant industry resources for a specific niche.

Website design that automatically adjusts the layout of the content and page design based on the browser viewport. The website responds to the screen size on different devices, such as mobile or desktop. The term was coined by web developer Ethan Marcotte.

An enhanced listing displayed on SERPs. A rich snippet comes about when structured data is added to the HTML element of a website offering contextual information to the crawler bots.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). A metric that measures the effectiveness of a paid marketing campaign. ROAS is usually measured with a multiplier of revenue per dollar spent. For example: a Google AdWords campaign that earns $20,000 where the ad spend was $2,000 would have a ROAS or 10x. A formula for ROAS is (Revenue Dollars from Paid Ad Campaign / Ad Spend) = ROAS.

The robots.txt file is usually placed at the root of your website server, and tells crawlers like Googlebot what URLs they cannot access. The robots.txt file infers the Robots Exclusion Protocol.

Return on Investment. A way of measuring how much return (or revenue) you get back from investment in a service, piece of equipment, employee, or business strategy.

Type of structured data added to a webpage that allows search engines to understand more about the content and context of a web page. Can sometimes trigger a rich snippet in search results.

A method of copying a website’s content using a computer program or script.

A set of rules applied by search engines to return a set of search results for a given keyword that meet the search intent. See Algorithm.

Websites that allow users to access a large index of websites using a search function. Usually this means sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo, or Baidu. These sites show a list of search results for visitors typing in keyword seraches. The results are crawled and indexed from the publicly accessible web. Results are presented in a ranking by relvance to the user’s search using an algorithm, designed to present results that the user wants to see, in order to find what they are looking for.

Process of creating spammy and decpetive websites and promiting them in search engines. These decpetive poisoned websites either install malware on the browsing device or harvest user information. The sites are meant to gain traffic by manipulating search results.

Websites that allow users to access a large index of websites using a search function. Usually this means sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo, or Baidu. These sites show a list of search results for visitors typing in keyword seraches. The results are crawled and indexed from the publicly accessible web. Results are presented in a ranking by relvance to the user’s search using an algorithm, designed to present results that the user wants to see, in order to find what they are looking for.

The intended goal a searcher wants to accomplish when they do a keyword search.

General term encompassing all paid and organic actions undertaken to drive visibility on search results pages.

Record of one’s browsing print for both text and voice, such as sites visited and ads clicked on. For signed users, search engines may utilize this data to personalize results.

When you type words into a search engine to perform a search, that phrase is the search query. This may also be known as the keyword phrase, search phrase, or keyword search.

The list of web pages on a search results page for a given search query.

The phrases entered into search by a user.

Estimate of the percentage of clicks a website gains from its organic rankings for one or more keywords.

The monthly average number of times a particular search query is entered into search engines.

Phrases closely related to the target keyword.

The starting point for keywords that can be used to unlock more related keyword phrases.

SEO is the art and science of getting a specific website or URL to rank higher in search engines when users type in a specific search. (For example, ranking high in Google, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, Yelp, etc.)

An SEO Audit is a detailed assessment of a website, which shows weknesses to be improved, both on-page and off-page, and shows what needs to be done to improve rankings in search engines.

Grouping topically-related web pages using internal links, site architecture, and content strategy.

The Search Engine Results Pages are what appear when you type a search query into Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or another search engine. Being at the top of the first SERP (Page One of Google) is generally considered desirable. There are usually different elements on the Search Engine Results Page, especially the first page. This first results page may include several paid ads, a map of local businesses fitting the query, suggestions of what “People Also Ask”, videos, breaking news results, and company or organization profiles on the right hand side of the page (aka the Knowledge Graph).

Elements on search results pages that are not the traditional organic text links. These provide additional o[tion for user to click on. These can include Knowledge Graph results, videos, shopping carousels, maps, interactive features, and other enhanced features.

In very simplified terms, a huge hard drive where your site files are stored. When someone visits your site, the server gives it the files it needs to construct a webpage. Servers usually run specific programs (like Apache, PHP, and others) in order to run your website files. Without a server on a hosting platform, people cannot visit your website.

Number of impressions a website receives in search results compared to the total impressions received by its competitors for the same search terms.

Search phrases that are one or two words long, usually with massive search volume.

A set of two to six algorithmically-chosen links visible for the same website of a top-ranked search result. You can exclude certain URLs on your site from appearing in sitelinks using Google Search Console.

A list of pages or files on a website. HTML sitemaps usually public-facing — built for human users to find information, and for search engines to crawl. XML sitemaps are generally not public-facing, and built primarily for the benefit of search engines.

Links visible on all pages of a website. In most cases, this can be at the footer or sidebar on blogs and websites.

Websites and apps meant to attract regular users who interact with each other. Social media platforms allow people to create, share and consume content while interacting.

Measureable engagement, influence, authority, and popularity on specific social metworks. Maeasured through engaement such as shares, likes, comments, etc. At one point, it was believed that social signals had some limited influence on search rankings. Currently, it is believed these are unreliable ranking factors, and search engines are not likley to use them for ranking factors because they can be manipulated easily.

Deliberate violation of webmaster guidelines to manipulate page rankings.

Another name for a crawler, like Googlebot or Bingbot. People used to call crawlers ‘spiders’ because they would move across the world wide web (it’s a pun).

Controlled experiments to evaluate the efficacy and conversion rate of two versions of a web page. The tests evaluate the impact of different variables on conversions. A winner emerges after a long period of time based on insights gathered from user preferences.

Link attribute indicating a link is an advertisement, paid placement, affiliate, or paid sponsorship.

An HTML image attribute specifying the list of images for use in different browser circumstances. Based on screen size and resolution, the browser picks the most optimal image.

A digital certificate of validation that authenticates a website’s identity, and encrypts data sent to the server through the Secure Sockets Layer technology.

code responses from a server whenever fetching a requested webpage, link clicked or a form submitted. These are the commonest status codes in SEO:

• 200 – OK
• 404 – Not Found
• 410 – Gone
• 500 – Internal Service Error
• 503 – Unavailable service

Frequently used words in URLs, such as the, a, an, is, in, etc. SEOs used to recommend against using stop words in URLs. In the 2020s, search engines generally understand and consider so-called stop words in URLs. At one point, many years ago, it was widely believed search crawlers ignored these words in URLs to save time and crawl budget. You should not overthink using or not using these in the 2020s.

A standardized way of encoding web page information for distribution to search engines, social metworks, and other sites to extract and present said information.

a separate section existing within the central domain. For example, https://ads.google.com is a subdomain existing within the main domain of https://google.com

A means for organizing and categorizing content on a website to make it easier for users to find similar content, and accomplish their goals.

A means for organizing and categorizing content on a website to make it easier for users to find similar content, and accomplish their goals.

A statistical parameter that gauges the value of a word within a document. TF-IDF is an algorithm that uses the frequency of words in a document or set of documents to determine relevancy of those to a given document, like a web page.

Focuses primarily on the discoveralbility, crawling indexing, and interpretation of your web pages. Technical SEO can include 404 remediation, 3101 redirects, servier logs, server rendering, sitemaps, information architecture, internal links, uptime, crawl rate, and indexing and deindexing pages, among other things.

The word “template” means different things, depending on what language or framework you’re talking about. In WordPress, a template file generally means a PHP file that makes up part of a WordPress theme.

Template files in WordPress can be assigned to a specific page or set of pages. There are also rules for which template file controls the layout and information on a page, if no specific template file is specified.

Think of template files of individual pieces of logic that the page grabs in a certain order and
assembles to make each specific page.

Web pages that have very little content or very little value to searchers are said to be thin content.

An estimate of how long a user session is on a page, often expressed an approximation of time spent on a web page by a user. This can be a statistic in Google Analytics and other analytics tools. Pages with a high bounce rate can skew this measurement to make it lower than it is in real time.

A specific type of HTML tag that sets the title for the web page. Th title tag is what appears in the browser tab. Search engines look at title tags for importance in search listings, so adding keywords in a compelling manner is important. The title tag also appears in search listings on Google and Bing. Google can rewrite title tags depending on the search query, as can Bing, though Google does more often. It is a best practice to keep title tags to about 60 to 70 characters, so the title is not truncated in search listings.

A Top Level Domain just means .com, .net, or country specific domains like .us, .co.uk, .fr and so on. There are new Top Level Domain extensions added every so often by ICANN, the non-profit organization which is responsible for the Domain Name System.

The amount of visitors to your website by human users, and also bots.

An updated and more secure version of SSL.

A search query where the user wants to make a purchase, and is deciding from which website to buy an item.

General term for overall brand recognition, authority, relevance of a domain within a nicheadhenrance to the Google Webmaster guidelines.

TrustRank is an algorithm created to separate “good” websites form spam sites. The guiding principle is that good sites are unlikely to link to bad sites. TrustRank is used by search engines to predict whether a site is high-quality or spam. Human reviewed “seed sites” which are highly trustworthy are used as a bais point. The fewer degrees of link separation from these sites to the target site, the higher the TrustRank. This algorithm was first introduced by Zoltan Gyongyi and Hector Garcia-Molina of Stanford University and Jan Pedersen of Yahoo! in their paper Combating Web Spam with TrustRank in 2004. The reason TrustRank was introduced is that PageRank was too easy to manipulate through link schemes, and another algorithm was necessary to help produce better esearch results.

Content that is created by the guests or users of the sites, not the site owners. Examples of User Generated Content are blog comments, reviews, Pinterest Pins, Tweets, Facebook Posts, Quora questions and answers, Reddit threads, Stack Overflow questions and answers, and forum threads.

– A link attribute that indicates a link originates from user-generated content (UGC). It’s used for comments, forums, and all other platforms open for users to add content.

Data from multiple specialties (text, images, videos, news, ads, etc) availed by search engines for the same SERP.

A deceptive link not acquired within the conventional link-building strategies. This can easily attract a manual action or penalty.

A web address for a specific web page or file. What you type into the browser to go to a specific page on the web.

Values attached to URLs to track the source of traffic. It’s also known as the query string.

The strength of a target’s page backlink profile, measured on a scale of 0 – 100.

The part of a URL following the slash (“/”) that comes after the domain or subdomain name.

Ease of use for a website to the visitors.

Software used to browse a website. These can be traditional web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. They can also be crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot.

Overall impression site visitors get after interacting with a brand; physically or online, and also its products and services.

A specialized search engine focused primarily on a single topic or media. For instance, Amazon is a vertical search platform for online shopping; YouTube is a vertical search engine for videos; Booking.com is a vertical search engine for hotel, flight, and car rental reservations.

A voice-enabled technology application that allows users to use search engines by using voice, usually by a microphone on a smartphone or other smart device.

The measure of prominence and ranking metrics of a website within the organic search engine results.

Either a 1) human remote office assistant, or 2) a bot that can perform to perform tasks such as web searches by integrating natural language. This second type of virtual assistant includes Apple’s Siri and Cortana from Microsoft.

A collection of files and data that make up a specific viewable “page” on the web.

black hat methods that primarily exist purely to manipulate search engine algorithms and/or users.

All the web pages, files, and data organized under a specific domain name.

The relative domain strength as assigned by various SEO tools; indicates a valuation of ranking metrics.

The connection in a website that helps users navigate the site. It happens in various ways:

• Major Navigation: Focuses on the core website areas. Examples: Services, Contact, Home etc.
• Secondary Navigation: Focuses on topics related to the main navigation. For instance, home pages link to guides, galleries, etc.
• Footer Navigation: Usually at the bottom of a website, and carries important links to information about a website.
• Related Links: Appears on the right rail or beneath the content, and may be referred to as ‘Trending’ and such terms.
• Content Links: Links found within your main content.
• Breadcrumbs: A trail on webpages aimed at quickly telling visitors where they are on your website, and helping them retrace their steps.

TOverall site organization and interlinking of web pages.

SEO practices that follow Google’s quality guidelines.

The total number of words available on content. At times, too much/little word count for some queries leads to low rankings.

A web framework which began in the early 1990s as blogging software, but has since expanded in complexity and popularity to power over 28% of all websites on the internet.

A markup language that is both human-readable and machine-readable. Sitemaps, various web applications and websites use XML.

A list of pages written in XML that is parsed for crawling and indexing by search crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot.

A HTTP header which that controls indexing of a web page, and how specific aspects of the page may be indexed by search engines.

Yahoo was founded in April 1994 in Sunnyvale, California, and is the fourth biggest search engine worldwide. In the 1990s, was the leading search engine in the United States before the ascent of Google. Yahoo search was mostly human-powered early on, eventually, they licensed other search engines for results. From the early 2000s to 2004, Google provided Yahoo’s search results. From 2004 to 2009, Yahoo provided their own independent search results. Yahoo Search results have been powered by Microsoft Bing from 2009 to present day.

The most popular search engine in Russia, Yandex was launched September 23, 1997 at the Softool exhibition in Moscow. The name stands for “Yet Another iNDEXer”. Incorporated in 2000 as a standalone company by Arkady Volozh. Reincorporated in 2007 in the Netherlands. In 2007, Yandex introduced a customized search engine for Ukrainian users. Today, Yandex is the largest technology company in Russia, and has the largest share of search for any search engine based in Europe. Yandex is the fifth largest search engine worldwide, after Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Baidu.

Abbreviation for “Your Money or Your Life” pages. These pages are about topics that can impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety. YMYL pages are graded more stringently and judiciously than normal web pages, as they have a more substantial and long-lasting aefect on people acting on the information contained therein.

The z-index property in CSS specifies the stack order of an element. The higher z-index value a HTML element has, the higher the layer will appear in a rendered web page.