Search engine optimization (SEO) is a broad topic. It involves many moving parts that work together to impact a website’s usability and ranking on search engines. SEO means different things to different people, but there are quite a few terms we think everyone should understand. Here's an introductory SEO glossary of some of the most common terms we refer to frequently.
A
Algorithm: This type of computer program is used to accomplish a given task. Search engines use a combination of algorithms to retrieve data and display webpage results relevant to search queries.
Anchor Text: This text on a webpage contains a link to another page. It’s often blue and underlined, and it should provide critical context about the specific link to both users and search engines (see backlinks).
B
Backlinks: These are links from another webpage that point back to your webpage (see Inbound Link).
Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of website visits that end without any additional clicks or on-page actions. Bounce rates vary based on niche and industry, and while they may indicate issues, they don’t directly influence Google rankings.
Branded Searches: These are queries where users search for a branded keyword related to a given business or industry.
C
Cannibalization: Also known as keyword cannibalization, this form of self-competition occurs when multiple webpages on a website rank for the same keyword(s). It’s best to avoid this practice, as it can result in lower domain authority, as well as reduced click-through and conversion rates.
Crawling: This refers to how search engines use algorithms to gather information on public webpages. They use crawler algorithms to add, update, and categorize webpages into an organized index (see Index).
Content: This common term refers to many different things. It generally includes text, videos, and images that convey valuable information to users. Search engines factor content into search rankings and tend to reward unique, credible, and engaging content with more traffic and better visibility.
D
Deep Link: This is a link pointing to content within a mobile app or webpage other than a homepage.
Direct Searches: These are queries for a specific business name, URL, or physical address.
Discovery Searches: These are user queries looking for a product, service, or category. Ideally, businesses show up for queries relevant to their industry. Discovery searches are often the most valuable for companies looking to attract new customers.
Domain: A website’s unique internet address (e.g., www.go-tnt.com) (see URL). A domain name and hosting are necessary for any website to be visible to users of the public internet.
Domain Analysis: This refers to how trusted a website is over its competitors. Domain analysis is often displayed as an integer on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100, which means it's much easier to attain a score of 20 than a score of 75. Domain analysis is often confused with Domain Authority.
Domain Authority: This term refers to a specific form of domain analysis conducted by renowned digital marketing company Moz. Domain Authority predicts how likely any website is to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).
E
E-A-T: This acronym stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These represent some signals Google uses to evaluate the quality of a webpage’s content, but they don’t directly factor into search rankings.
Ecommerce: Also known as online shopping, this term refers to the buying and selling, especially of products, using the internet.
External Link: Any link that points to a webpage not included within the current website (see Outbound Link).
F
Featured Snippet: This standalone content block displays above organic search results and often answers questions to a specific query. It usually contains a brief summary using linked text, images, or videos, as well as the date and title of the published content.
G
Google Analytics: This free tool allows you to view insights about how users are engaging with your website. Website managers can use Google Analytics to see where users are coming from, what they’re doing on a page, and which pages are performing the best over time. Google Analytics 4 is its current iteration.
Google Business Profile (GBP): Previously known as Google My Business (GMB), this free (or paid) directory allows businesses to provide valuable information at a glance. It can display a website, phone number, email and physical addresses, products, services, and operating hours in a standalone content block to the side of search results. Website managers can also use GBPs to track the number of certain actions users take over time such as phone calls, direction requests, and website link clicks.
Google Search Console: Google provides this free program to help developers monitor their website’s performance in Google Search. It offers various useful features such as the ability to monitor page speed, indexing errors, and manual action notifications.
H
Header Tags: Also known as H1-H6 headings, these HTML elements structure the heading and contents of a webpage. Google often displays these within featured snippets if they directly answer a specific query. Header tags are typically larger and bolder than the body of webpage text. They separate content into sections by importance with H1 being the most prominent. For example, the bold, underlined letters separating sections in this post are H3 headings.
I
Inbound Link: This is a link to a webpage that comes from any external website (see Backlinks).
Index: This refers to the massive database that search engines organize webpage content into via crawling algorithms. The database contains webpages that are indexable and deemed valuable enough to answer relevant search queries.
Intent: Also known as search intent, this term refers to what users are actively seeking with a search query. Search engines attempt to match search intent with the most relevant webpages to provide an excellent user experience.
J
JavaScript (JS): This is one of the most important website programming languages. It allows developers to add dynamic content including links, meta data, and elements to webpages. Sometimes, JS can make it tough for search engines to crawl and index webpages, and too much JS can decrease page speed on certain devices.
K
Keyword: This refers to any word or phrases used in a search query. Grouped keywords are also known as keyphrases. Developers optimize webpages to target distinct keywords and attract users based on search intent. There are many kinds of keywords, each with specific functions (see long-tail keyword, direct searches, discovery searches, and branded searches).
Keyword Competition: This refers to how difficult it is to rank for a given keyword using a paid search strategy (Pay-Per-Click). The measure is displayed as a decimal from 0-1 with higher values being more competitive (see Pay-Per-Click and keyword difficulty).
Keyword Difficulty: This is the organic counterpart to keyword competition that shows how difficult it is to rank for a given keyword on organic search (SEO). The measure is displayed as an integer from 0-100 with higher values being more competitive (see organic search and keyword competition).
Keyword Research: This is the process of searching for relevant variations of different keywords based on volume, difficulty, and competition.
Keyword Stuffing: This is an exploitive SEO tactic that involves the overuse of relevant and irrelevant keywords on webpages. Google tends to penalize websites via manual action that practice keyword stuffing.
L
Link: Links connect websites together using HTML code. They enable users to easily navigate between and within websites, social media platforms, and mobile apps. High-quality links play a critical role in search engine rankings (see backlinks, deep links, inbound links, and outbound links).
Long-Tail Keyword: These highly specific keyphrases are 3 or more words long. While they generally have lower search volume than shorter keywords, they tend to be easier to rank for and often reflect greater purchase intent.
M
Manual Action: This is Google’s term for a penalty. It refers to action taken by Google on a website after a manual review of Google’s Webmaster guidelines. Manual actions may either demote a single webpage or a whole website domain in search rankings, or even remove it from the index entirely.
Meta Description: This is an HTML tag that can be added to the header section of a webpage. It functions as a summary of the webpage's contents and is sometimes displayed as the featured snippet in search results. Meta descriptions don’t directly factor into search rankings, but accurate descriptions can significantly improve user experience and organic click-through rate.
Mobile Optimization: Google recently shifted to mobile-first indexing. This means that its algorithms crawl and index webpages primarily based on their mobile versions. The shift was made to reflect the growing number of mobile devices that now comprise the majority of internet users. Mobile optimization is a multi-faceted process that improves how a website’s mobile version displays on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Optimized websites load quickly, display elements and text properly, and are easy to navigate for mobile users (see page speed and user experience).
N
Nofollow: These meta tags tell search engines not to analyze a particular outbound link on a webpage. Developers use nofollow tags when they wish to withhold their domain's authority from transferring to an external domain or avoid being penalized for having paid links on their webpage.
Noindex: This is another form of meta tag that tells search engines to not include a certain webpage in its index. Developers use noindex tags on login, newsletter, or curated content pages and to avoid cannibalization of duplicate webpage content.
O
Off-Page SEO: These tactics enhance demand generation and brand awareness outside of a given website's domain. They may include but aren’t limited to Google Business Profile updates, organic link building strategies, and promotional actions such as email, social media, and content marketing campaigns.
On-Page SEO: This is what most people think of when they hear the term "SEO." These methods take place within the various pages of a website's domain. They may include but aren’t limited to deep linking, mobile optimization, optimization of title, header, and meta tags, publication of high-quality, original content, website navigation, and URL structure.
Organic Search: This refers to the unpaid listings that appear on search engines. Contrasted with Pay-Per-Click, organic search results are why most people use search engines in the first place, and they’re what most SEO tactics seek to positively influence.
Orphan Page: This refers to any webpage not directly linked to any other pages on that domain. Orphan pages are difficult to find without knowing their unique URL web address.
Outbound Link: These links point users to a website different than the one they’re currently viewing. Outbound links are useful for citing sources or providing users with additional content and information (see anchor text and external link).
P
Page Speed: Many things influence how quickly a webpage loads. Different browsers, devices, website platforms, and internet bandwidths each play a major role, as do file sizes, source code, and design elements. Page speed is important because if a webpage fails to load quickly, then many users will simply leave (see mobile optimization and user experience).
Page Views: This refers to the number of users who visit a website, usually measured on a monthly basis (see traffic and unique page views).
Paid Search: This is the paid counterpart to organic search. Advertisers bid to rank for keywords relevant to specific search queries, and then they pay per click (PPC) received by users. Paid search advertisements tend to appear above and below organic search results (see Pay-Per-Click and Organic Search).
Pay-Per-Click (PPC): This refers to the act of paying to rank among specific search results for select keywords. Google Ads is one of the most popular PPC platforms. Advertisers pay per click received based on things like relevance and keyword competition. PPC campaigns can inform organic SEO strategies and vice versa. When properly combined, organic and paid search can greatly improve clicks, visibility, and conversion rates (see Paid Search).
Q
Query: This term refers to the keywords and keyphrases that users enter into a search engine. Queries often take the form of a statement, question, or branded, direct, or discovery search (see branded search, direct search, discovery search, keyword, and long-tail keyword).
Query Deserves Freshness (QDF): Search engines like Google prefer to reward recently published content. Newer webpages may receive better search rankings than older webpages, especially if they contain content relevant to a currently trending search term. This often applies to sports, major announcements, and breaking news stories.
R
Rank: Simply put, this is where a webpage appears within a set of organic search results for a specific keyword or query. Highly ranked webpages receive the majority of organic search traffic, especially on the first page of results.
Ranking Factor: Search engines like Google rank webpages based on hundreds of factors. Also known as ranking signals, these factors are measured by a complex series of algorithms to determine where webpages should appear on search results pages. Google’s algorithms consider a list of over 200 ranking factors to deliver the best possible user experience via the most relevant search results.
Redirect: This technique sends users or search engines to a different domain or webpage than the one they requested. Developers sometimes employ redirects when a website is undergoing maintenance, a domain name has changed, or they want to relay traffic away from an outdated URL. Redirects can either be temporary (301) or permanent (302).
S
Search Engine: These powerful platforms direct a majority of web traffic on the modern internet. Search engines are collections of algorithms that enables users to find quick answers to endless queries. They use crawlers to index billions of webpages into categories organized by content, freshness, and relevance. Google is the most popular search engine with over 90% of the current market share.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This ongoing process seeks to improve the ranking of a website’s individual webpages. SEO includes but isn’t limited to both on-page and off-page tactics, as well as keyword research and mobile optimization. Successful SEO strategies greatly improve user experience on a wide variety of devices by making webpages accessible to both users and search engines (see on-page SEO and off-page SEO).
Search Engine Results Page (SERP): These are the pages of results users see when entering a given query into a search engine.
Sitemap: This is a basic list of URLs that comprise a website. Search engines crawl sitemaps to discover and index valuable webpage content. Developers often use software to help them map a website’s pages to make it easier for search engines to index all pages individually.
T
Time on Page: This is an estimation of how long an average user spent viewing a certain webpage during any given online session.
Title Tag: This HTML meta tag acts as a given webpage’s title. Search engines display title tags when ranking webpages on SERPs, providing developers an opportunity to include strategic and relevant keywords within them. Title tags should generally be clear, engaging, and less than 65 characters long.
Traffic: This refers to the number of users (and bots) who visit a given webpage. Traffic breaks down into paid and organic forms, as well as new, unique, and total users (see organic search, paid search, users, and unique users).
U
Uniform Resource Locator (URL): Also known as a web address, this is a string of characters that indicates a unique webpage. URLs can be found via search engines or entered directing into a browser's address bar in order to access a given webpage.
Unique Users: This refers to the number of distinct individuals or devices that visit a given webpage. Unique users are a more targeted sample than total users and a broader sample than first-time (new) users. Google keeps track of new, unique, and total users based on their device's unique MAC and IP addresses (see Users and Traffic).
Users: This is the broadest sample of users who visit a given webpage. It includes new, unique, and repeat users in its category of total users. Users can be measured hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly, but monthly data points are often considered the most reliable metric for developers.
User Experience (UX): In the context of SEO, this refers to the feeling users have when interacting with a webpage or website. SEO and user experience go hand-in-hand, and search engines tend to reward webpages that consistently deliver a high-quality user experience.
V
Volume: In terms of search traffic, this refers to the number of times a keyword was searched within a given period of time. Search volume is often measured monthly, and it tends to fluctuate based on current events, user intent, and trending topics (see Users and Traffic).
W
Webpage: This is a single web document listed under a specific URL web address or domain. Collections of webpages are called websites (see Websites).
Website: This is a group of related webpages hosted together under a single domain name. We like to think of websites as digital storefronts for modern companies. There are hundreds of millions of active websites on the internet today, and search engines make it possible to rapidly sift through most of them.
X
XML: This acronym stands for Extensible Markup Language. Search engines use XML to understand website data, often in the form of an XML sitemap (see Sitemap and XML Sitemap).
XML Sitemap: This is a list of all the webpages contained within a domain that developers want search engines to crawl and index. It's often accessible by adding "sitemap.xml" to the end of a given domain (go-tnt.com/sitemap.xml).
Ask about Our SEO Glossary
Our basic SEO glossary is a great place to get started, but it’s certainly not an exhaustive list of terms. If you have questions about any of these terms or SEO in general, then please feel free to
reach out for more information. We’ll gladly sit down together and clear up any concerns you may have.
Originally published on July 8th, 2022.
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