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SEO Dictionary

List of common SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) words and phrases you might come across.

10x Content

Content that is at least ten times better than the current top-ranking result for a target keyword.

301 Redirect

A permanent redirect that takes users and search engines to a new URL.

302 Redirect

A temporary redirect indicating a web page has moved to another location for a short period.

304 Not Modified

An HTTP response code indicating that a resource has not been modified, so the client can use its cached copy.

404 Error

An HTTP status code indicating that the server couldn’t find the requested page or resource.

410 Gone

An HTTP status code indicating that the requested resource is no longer available and this condition is likely permanent.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

A Google-created HTML framework for creating stripped-down, fast-loading web pages optimised for mobile.

Ad Impressions

A metric counting how many times an advertisement is displayed, regardless of clicks.

ADA Website Compliance

Adherence of a website to the standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

AhrefsBot

A web crawler run by Ahrefs SEO software suite that powers its index of pages and links.

Alt Text

A text description of an image on a web page, used by screen readers and search engines.

Anchor Text

The visible, clickable text of a hyperlink, used by Google to understand linked page content.

Article Spinning

Rewriting a piece of content to create many “new” pieces, either manually or using automated software.

Article Syndication

When third-party sites republish an exact copy of content that originally appeared elsewhere.

Auto-Generated Content

Content automatically generated using a program or code.

Links from one website’s page to another, analysed by search engines to estimate page importance.

Bing Webmaster Tools

A free Microsoft service to monitor and troubleshoot a website’s appearance in Bing search results.

Bingbot

The web crawler used by Microsoft to gather information and build a searchable web index.

Black Hat SEO

SEO strategies violating search engine guidelines, focused on exploiting algorithmic loopholes.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors who take no further action after landing on a website.

Branded Content

Content created by brands to promote their products, services, or values.

Branded Keywords

Words and phrases associated with a brand, its products, or services.

Internal links that provide users and search engines with a clear trail to follow around a site.

Bridge Page

A page solely designed to send users elsewhere, often used by affiliate marketers.

A link on a web page pointing to a non-existent (or “dead”) resource, either internal or external.

Cached Page

A version of a web page saved by Google on its servers from the last visit.

Canonical Tag

An HTML code snippet that defines the main version for duplicate or similar pages.

Canonical URL

A URL that Google sees as the “master” version of a set of duplicate or near-duplicate pages.

Cloaking

A deceptive SEO technique presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines.

Co-citation

When two documents are cited together by other documents.

Co-occurrence

When keywords appear together on pages about a certain topic.

Computer-Generated Content

Content created by software, aiming to be on par with human-created content.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A globally distributed server network that speeds up user access to a website.

Content Gap Analysis

Using competitor research to identify missing or underrepresented topics on a website.

Content Hub

Interlinked collections of content about a similar topic.

Content Relevance

The extent to which content is relevant to the needs, interests, and preferences of the reader.

Core Web Vitals

Metrics forming part of Google’s Page Experience signals, used to measure user experience.

Cornerstone Content

The collection of articles on a website that are most desired to rank for in search engines.

Crawl Budget

How fast and how many pages a search engine wants to crawl on a site.

Crawlability

A search engine’s ability to access content on a page.

Crawler

An internet program designed to browse the internet systematically, commonly used by search engines to discover and process pages.

Customer Journey

A comprehensive mapping of the steps a consumer takes from initial brand awareness to eventual purchase and beyond.

A link that transfers PageRank, also known as a “followed” link.

Domain Rating (DR)

The relative strength of a website’s authority based on its backlink profile.

Domain Structure

The organisation of a website’s domain name, its subdomains, and directories.

Doorway Page

Pages designed to rank for similar search queries, often redirecting users elsewhere without providing useful information.

Duplicate Content

Content that appears on the web in more than one place.

Dwell Time

The time passed between clicking a search result and returning to the search results.

Dynamic URL

A URL with content that depends on variable parameters.

A link pointing to a site that was not solicited or paid for.

Ego Bait

A digital marketing tactic involving creating content designed to attract attention and engagement from influential individuals or experts.

Email Outreach

The process of promoting a product or content to relevant people by sending personalised emails.

Entity-Based SEO

An SEO approach focusing on entities as the central element, rather than solely on keywords.

Entry Page

The first page a searcher views on a site.

Evergreen Content

Content that does not go out of date.

A link from a site to another site.

Faceted Navigation

A type of navigation found on websites with a large number of listings, such as e-commerce sites.

Gated Content

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

Gateway Page

A web page designed to rank for specific search queries without offering useful information, redirecting visitors to a different page.

Google Alerts

A free Google service that monitors the web for content changes matching a specific search query.

Google Algorithm

A set of rules used by Google to rank matching results when a user performs a search.

Google Analytics

A free web tracking tool from Google to analyse how visitors interact with a website.

Google Autocomplete

Search suggestions provided by Google when entering a search query.

Google Bombing

A practice where individuals or groups intentionally manipulate search engine rankings for unexpected or humorous results.

Google Business Profile

A free business listing from Google that appears in maps and web search results.

Google Caffeine

A search index introduced by Google in 2010, allowing them to index more content and provide fresher search results.

Google Dance

A slang term describing the volatility a new website or page experiences when Google is determining its ranking.

Google Hummingbird

An algorithm update released by Google in 2013 to better understand natural language search queries, emphasising meaning over individual keywords.

Google Knowledge Graph

A knowledge base of entities and the relationships between them.

Google Knowledge Panel

A SERP feature providing information about the main subject of a query.

Google Panda

An algorithm update launched to filter out sites with lower-quality, thin content, now part of Google’s core algorithm.

Google Penalty

A punishment imposed by a human reviewer on a website for violating Google’s webmaster quality guidelines.

Google Penguin

An algorithm update released in 2012 by Google to downgrade sites engaging in manipulative link schemes and keyword stuffing.

Google Pigeon

An algorithm update released in 2013 by Google to improve search results for local search queries.

Google Sandbox

An alleged filter by Google preventing new websites from ranking in top results.

Google Search Console

A free Google service to monitor and troubleshoot a website’s appearance in search results.

Google Top Heavy Update

An algorithm update released in 2012 by Google to downgrade web pages with too many ads at the top.

Google Webmaster Guidelines

Best practices from Google to help them find, index, and rank a site.

Google Webmaster Tools

Now Google Search Console, a free Google tool allowing users to check website performance in search results and identify issues.

Googlebot

The web crawler that powers Google’s search engine.

Grey Hat SEO

SEO strategies and tactics that blur the line between white-hat and black-hat methods.

Guest Blogging

The practice of writing and publishing a blog post on another person or company’s website.

Guestographic

An infographic created by one entity but published on other websites.

H1 Tag

An HTML heading most commonly used to mark up a web page title.

Header Tags

HTML tags (H1 to H6) used to set apart headings and subheadings from the rest of the content on a webpage.

Hilltop Algorithm

An algorithm adopted by Google in 2003 to identify authoritative web pages to rank.

Holistic SEO

The practice of improving all aspects of a website to rank higher in search engines.

Hreflang

An HTML attribute used to tell Google about alternate versions of a web page for different languages and regions.

HTTP 200 Response Code

The HTTP 200 (OK) status response code from a server for successful HTTP requests.

HTTPS

An encrypted version of HTTP that protects communications between a browser and server.

A link from another site to a website.

Index Bloat

Occurs when a large portion of a website’s less important web pages are indexed.

Indexability

A search engine’s ability to analyse and store a web page in its database.

Informational Query

A search query where someone wants to find information, not products.

A link from one page on a website to another page on the same website.

Interstitial Ad

Full-screen interactive ads that cover the interface of a website or app.

JavaScript SEO

A part of technical SEO that aims to make JavaScript-heavy websites more search-friendly.

Keyword Cannibalisation

When a single website unintentionally targets the same keyword across multiple posts or pages.

Keyword Clustering

The practice in SEO of combining similar, relevant keywords into groups.

Keyword Density

A metric indicating how frequently a keyword is used within content relative to the overall word count.

Keyword Difficulty

A metric from SEO tools estimating a keyword’s ranking difficulty.

Keyword Ranking

A website’s organic ranking position in search results for a particular keyword.

Keyword Stemming

The process of reducing a word to its ‘stem’ or ‘root’ (e.g., flowers, flowery -> flower).

Keyword Stuffing

Repeating the same keywords (or similar phrases) in content to manipulate rankings.

Keywords

Words and phrases that a web page is associated with.

Landing Page

A web page where a visitor “lands” after clicking on a link in a specific marketing campaign.

Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA)

A technique in natural language processing used to analyse relationships between documents and their terms.

Content specifically designed to attract backlinks.

The process of getting other websites to link to pages on a website.

‘Authority’ passed when one page links to another.

An agreement between two websites to link to each other.

A group of websites created to link to each other to improve search engine rankings.

The value that one page or website can pass to another page or website through a link.

The number of backlinks that point to a website.

An assessment of all the backlinks (quantity, quality, diversity, etc.) a website has.

The process of trying to recover lost links.

The natural tendency for links to become broken on the web over time.

Links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results.

Irrelevant links placed on pages to try and improve search engine rankings.

Link Text

The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink, also known as “anchor text.”

The rate at which a website’s backlink profile is growing.

Local Business Schema

A specific type of structured data for local businesses, recognised by search engines for local search results.

Local Citation

Any online mention of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP).

Local Pack

A SERP feature appearing for local queries, displaying local Google business listings.

Local Search Marketing

The process of improving a local business’s online search visibility.

Local SEO

The process of optimising an online presence to show up and rank higher in relevant local searches.

Log File Analysis

Analysing the crawl behaviour of search engine bots in server logs to find SEO improvement opportunities.

Long-tail Keyword

A low-volume search query on a specific topic.

LSI Keywords

A misnomer for semantically-related words and phrases (LSI keywords do not actually exist).

Manual Action

A demotion or removal of websites/webpages issued by Google for violating their webmaster quality guidelines.

Meta Description

An HTML attribute used to describe what a page is about.

Meta Keywords

Meta tags that give some search engines (not Google) more information about a page’s content.

Meta Redirect

Code that tells the web browser to redirect the user to a different URL after a set amount of time.

Meta Robots Tag

An HTML snippet that tells search engines how to crawl and index a page.

Meta Tags

Snippets of code that provide search engines with important information about a web page.

Mirror Site

A copy of a site hosted on another server.

Mobile-First Indexing

Google’s shift to using the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking.

NAP

In SEO, stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number, key details in a business’s online profile.

Natural Language Understanding (NLU)

Enabling computers to understand and interpret human language, recognising nuances, intent, and sentiment.

An external link created voluntarily by a website owner or content creator.

A search query where someone is looking for a specific website.

Negative SEO

When a competitor uses black-hat tactics to sabotage the rankings of a competing website or web page.

Nofollow

A tag that tells Google not to take a link into account for ranking purposes.

Noindex Tag

A tag that instructs search engines not to index a page.

Noopener

The rel="noopener" HTML attribute added to links opening in a new browser tab or window for security reasons.

Noreferrer

An HTML attribute that prevents referrer information from passing through a link.

Not Provided in Google Analytics

Keyword data that Google omits from sharing in Google Analytics.

Off-page SEO

Any efforts taken outside of a website to improve its search engine rankings.

On-page SEO

The practice of optimising a web page’s visible content and source code to rank higher.

Open Graph Meta Tags

Snippets of code that control how URLs are displayed when shared on social media.

Organic Search Results

Non-paid search results from a search engine that cannot be bought or influenced by advertisers.

Organic Traffic

Traffic from a search engine’s organic results.

Orphan Page

A page with no internal links pointing to it.

A link that points to a page not on a website.

Page Speed

The amount of time it takes for a web page to load.

PageRank

A formula that judges the value of a page by looking at the quantity and quality of other pages that link to it.

A backlink that is paid for.

People Also Ask

A SERP feature that answers questions related to the user’s search query.

Pillar Page

A high-level guide about a broad topic, part of a topic cluster designed for ranking.

Pogo-Sticking

The back-and-forth process between SERPs and their results when a searcher cannot find the content they want.

Primary Keyword

The single, main keyword around which a web page is created and optimised.

Private Blog Network (PBN)

A network of websites created solely to link out to another website and improve its organic search visibility.

Query Deserves Freshness (QDF)

A Google search ranking system designed to show fresher content for search queries where it would be expected.

RankBrain

A deep machine learning system developed by Google to better understand new and long-tail search queries and return more relevant search results.

When two websites link to each other.

Reconsideration Request

A request to have Google review a site after fixing problems identified in a manual action or security issues notification.

Search queries related to the keyword typed into a search engine, typically found at the bottom of the SERP.

Relative URL

A URL that specifies the path to a resource relative to the current document, as opposed to an absolute URL.

Resource Pages

Web pages that curate and link out to useful industry resources.

Rich Snippet

A Google search result with additional data shown alongside it, usually from structured data on the page.

Robots.txt

A file that tells search engines where they can and cannot go on a site.

Schema Markup

Code that helps search engines better understand and represent content in search results.

Search Algorithm

A list of rules used by search engines to rank matching results when a user performs a search.

Search Engine Poisoning

When malicious hackers create dummy websites appearing as legitimate search results to steal personal information or install malware.

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

The pages that search engines show in response to a user’s search query.

Search Intent

The reason behind a search.

Search Results

A list of webpages from a search engine that appear in response to a particular search query.

Search Term

A word or set of words a person enters into a search engine to generate specific results.

Search Visibility

The estimated percentage of clicks a website gets from its organic rankings for one or more keywords.

Search Volume

The average number of times users enter a particular search query into a search engine each month.

Secondary Keywords

Terms closely related to the primary keyword a user wants to target.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

A protocol for establishing a secure private connection between networked computers.

Seed Keywords

Words or phrases used as a starting point in keyword research to unlock more keyword suggestions.

SEO

The practice of optimising a website or webpage to get more high-quality traffic from a search engine’s organic results.

SEO Audit

The process of evaluating a website to see how well it is performing in search engines.

SEO Silo

The grouping together of topically-related web pages via internal links.

SERP Features

Elements of search engines’ search result pages that are not traditional organic search results, providing additional information.

Share of Voice

How visible a brand is in the market.

Short-Tail Keywords

Terms with high search volumes.

Links to other pages or sections of a page that appear under some Google search results.

Sitemaps

An XML file listing all the pages on a website that are desired for search engine indexing.

An outbound link that appears on every page of a website.

Spamdexing

Deliberate manipulation of search engine results using techniques against their guidelines.

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

Srcset

An HTML image attribute specifying a list of images to use in different browser situations, allowing the browser to pick the most optimal version.

Structured Data

A standardised way to provide additional information about a web page to search engines, social networks, and other services.

Subdomain

A part of a website placed under its root directory, represented by an addition at the front of the root domain name.

Taxonomy SEO

Optimising for search engines by organising the structure of content.

Technical SEO

Making technical adjustments to help search engines find, crawl, understand, and index pages.

TF-IDF

A statistical measure that aims to judge the relative importance of a word in a document.

Thin Content

Content that has little or no value for the user.

Creating links to external pages that, in turn, link to a website or page.

Title Tag

An HTML element used to specify the title of a webpage.

Top-Level Domain (TLD)

The segment of a domain that immediately follows the last dot symbol in a domain name, holding the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System.

Topical Relevance

In link-building and SEO, means the content of the linking page is closely related to the content of the linked page.

Transactional Query

A search query where someone is looking to purchase something but has not yet decided where to buy it from.

Transport Layer Security (TLS)

An updated, more secure version of SSL, often used interchangeably with SSL.

TrustRank

An algorithm that analyses links to separate useful web pages from spam.

A link attribute indicating that a link is user-generated content (UGC), used for comments, forum posts, or other user-contributed sections.

An expansion of search results introduced in 2007 to incorporate other media formats like images, videos, maps, and news into SERPs.

Links in a page’s content that are not editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner.

URL Rating (UR)

The strength of a target page’s backlink profile on a 0–100 scale, with 100 being the strongest.

URL Slug

The part of the URL that follows the slash (“/”) after the domain name or subfolder.

User Intent

The purpose behind a user’s search query on a search engine.

A search engine dedicated to a specific area of focus.

The use of voice to interact with a search engine rather than searching by text.

Website Authority

A metric from SEO tool providers that measures the relative strength of a site (e.g., Domain Rating).

Website Hit

Any request made to the server hosting a website, including requests for individual elements like HTML pages, images, or scripts.

Website Structure

How a site is organised and its web pages interlinked.

Webspam

Any online content created to manipulate search engine rankings.

White-hat SEO

The use of Google-approved website SEO strategies, techniques, and tactics.

X-Robots-Tag

An HTTP header sent from a web server containing directives for web crawlers like Googlebot.

YMYL Pages

Pages about topics that could impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.