Glossary of SEO Terms
We get quite a few questions asked about website or search engine terms, so we decided to put together our own SEO Glossary with examples to help you speak the SEO lingo in no time. Because the world of search change on a daily basis, we'll do our best to keep it up to date. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments!
- - Numeric Terms - -
301 Redirect – Use of this command in a link will ensure that the visitor is redirected to another page without the original page losing the search engine ranking. The index in the search engine is updated.
- - A - -
Adwords Keyword Tool (website) – Tool for estimating website traffic, competition, advertising costs and other factors of keywords based on match type.
ALT Text – The written description attached to the image in the webpage HTML. A search engine crawler cannot read or categorize an image, but an ALT text can help with that. Another name for this is ALT Attribute.
Anchor Text (Link Text) – Description of the webpage link that is visible to the visitor. The text is noticeable because of the underlining and bold lettering. Search engines use the anchor text to determine page contents.
- - B - -
Blog – A slang term for “web log.” Websites use blogs as the central repository for current events and commentary associated with the owner of the website. New entries in the blog will be noticed in the search engine, which ranks the sites according to the most recent activity.
Bookmark – A place marker that can be stored in a web browser or on a website. The visitor can return to the pages that have been visited in the past. Clear descriptions in the webpage titles are recorded in the bookmark.
Bounce Rate – The percentage of website visitors that leave the website after viewing a particular webpage. It is typically a measure of the quality or relevancy of content on a page.
- - C - -
Canonical URL – The authoritative URL that is correct for the resource. Multiple URLs (http://www.example.com, http://example.com, http://example.com.index) associated with the same landing page will point to the canonical URL. The search engine will record the canonical URL for the website as the primary entry.
Cascading Style Sheets – or CSS – A set of commands within the webpage code that describe the presentation semantics, which is the way the page looks. Each attribute, including headers, footers and fonts, will be described within the CSS.
Content Management System (CMS) – A computer program that allows the management of website information from a central interface. Popular CMS’s include WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.
Conversion Form – A webform where information is collected for each site visitor. Data gathered about each visitor can be transformed from traffic into business leads through follow-up activities.
CPC – Cost per click, the rate at which an advertiser pays for a visit to their website.
- - D - -
Directory – A comprehensive listing of all websites that has been gathered from various sources. The contents will be arranged to provide helpful information for anyone seeking websites in a given category. Top 10 listings, traffic control, SEO copywriting and other important attributes can be assigned to each entry.
Domain Name – The series of words, separated by periods, that make up the recognizable web address for the website. For example: www.TheWebsite.com. Search engines try to show preference for branded domain names, as opposed to domain names stuffed with keywords.
- - F - -
The Fold – The line at which the webpage is cut off by the bottom of the screen. An initial glimpse at a webpage should provide all pertinent information to the user without having to scroll down on the page. This is an old newspaper term that held significant meaning for the writers whose work was published “above the fold.” Ads published above the fold are priced higher than those below the fold. The same theory holds true on a webpage.
- - H - -
Headings – Text that is placed within heading tags, such as H1, H2, H3 or H4. The size and bold type provide clear reading for the visitor. A search engine will use the text within these tags for categorizing the page.
HTML – HyperText Markup Language – A standardized language for managing the contents of a webpage to present in an organized fashion to the visitor. Functionality within the page will support the placement of elements including videos, images and text that adjust to the screen size.
- - I - -
Impressions – Number of times a website, or ad for a website, is displayed in a search engine for a particular keyword.
Inbound Link – or Backlink – A website is visited through the inbound links received from other websites on the Internet. More inbound links to a website will improve the site’s search engine results ranking.
Internal Link – A link on a webpage that sends the user to another part of the same page or another page within the same website. These links can help search engines categorize pages and improve search engine rankings when used in moderation.
Indexed Pages – or Indexed Content – The webpages that have been explored and stored by a search engine. A website without any indexed pages will not appear in SERPs.
- - J - -
Javascript – A proprietary language written by Oracle Corporation. The use of Javascript on a webpage provides control over the presentation of entries on a webpage. Search engines have overlooked the contents of Javascript in the past. Changes are being made to include the contents.
- - K - -
Keyword – Common terms used to find information on the Internet. Search engines track the words typed by users to find the websites of interest. Refined keywords will return more meaningful results from search engines.
- - L - -
Landing Page – The first page a user visits after clicking on a link in a SERP.
Link – An element on a webpage allowing a user to navigate to another webpage or a new location on the current page. Search engine crawlers follow links to index webpages on the Internet.
Link Bait - Content created on a website with the primary intention of encouraging other websites to link to the content.
Link Building – Activity associated with creating more inbound links for a website. Search engine rankings tend to improve as more inbound links are created.
Link Juice (Google Juice, Link Heat) – A figure of speech for the authority given to a website or webpage by search engines that flows to other sites through links.
Long Tail Keyword – Multiple words in the string of keywords typed into a search engine. For example, a “normal” keyword may be "baseball bats", whereas a long tail search might be "wooden louisville slugger baseball bats for sale online".
- - M - -
Metadata – Internal words that are stored in the html of webpages and are not visible to users, but are noticed in by search engine crawlers.
Meta Description – Brief, written description of fewer than 160 characters that summarizes a webpage. Intended for both users and search engines, as it is visible in a SERP, and can include keywords that affect search engine rankings.
mozRank – An algorithm runs against websites to determine how many inbound links exist. SEOmoz devised this approach to assign a ranking on a scale of 0-10 for each page. A 10 represents the page with the best use of inbound links.
- - N - -
New Visitor – Similar to unique visitor, visitors in a given period that have never visited your website before.
Nofollow – A command that will cause search engines to ignore the link. A webpage will include this type of link when the owner does not want to endorse the other website. This command should never be used on internal links.
- - O - -
Organic Search Results – The non-sponsored area of a SERP. The results appear in order or relevancy for a user’s query. There are typically 10 results displayed.
- - P - -
Page Title – The webpage title appears at the top of the browser window.
PageRank – Search engines assign a number between 0-10 for an indexed webpage to rate the authority of that webpage.
Panda – A series of updates to Google's algorithm which penalized websites with poor content and/or spammy link portfolios. It emphasizes the importance of having quality content on a website. This ranking algorithm allows smaller websites with quality content to rise in Google search results.
Pay-per-click – or PPC – Online advertising approach that determines the cost of an ad by the number of people who click on the ad.
- - R - -
Ranking Factor – One of many elements used in a search engine to calculate the final list of results provided to the user. Examples could include the number of inbound links, title tags, metadata and body content.
Referral Traffic – Website visitors that enter a website by clicking on links on other websites.
Referrer String – A recorded set of data that tracks the visitor’s movements between pages on a website. Webmasters use this string to determine where the user will depart from the site.
Really Simple Syndication – RSS Feed – New content is published to the subscribers of a website’s RSS feed.
- - S - -
Search Engine – Software code designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and display it according to relevancy of a search query. Popular search engines today include Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Baidu.
Search Engine Results Page – SERP – A webpage presented to the user with the results from a search.
SEM – Search Engine Marketing – A form of internet marketing that promotes websites by increasing their visibility in search engines. Encompasses both SEO and PPC marketing.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization – The process of positively affecting the way a website appears organically in search engine results, with the intent of drawing more website visitors for a particular set of keywords.
Site Map – List of pages on a website accessible to search engine crawlers and/or website visitors.
Spider (Web Crawler, Bot) – Program that gathers information from various websites across the World Wide Web.
- - T - -
Traffic – Collective statistics concerning the number of people who visit the website.
Traffic Rank – Comparison between websites that reveals the number of visitors a website receives in comparison to all other sites on the Internet.
- - U - -
Uniform Resource Locator – URL – The recognizable website address used to access a landing page.
Unique Visitors – Total number of unique users that have visited a webpage in a given period.
- - X - -
XML Sitemap – A file that can be submitted to search engines and other crawlers to notify them of URLs to crawl on the domain.
