SEO Glossary

Jargon and acronyms, who loves them? No one. Literally no one. (Maybe Dennis Rader*). Which is why i’ve pulled together a quick glossary to hide in your bookmarks and use as a reference guide when you’re being bamboozled with SEO lingo. 

 

There is a cruel irony about having to Google words and phrases that are related to Googling itself. Pick a letter to find your definition.

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#  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z 

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#

 

404 Error - A 404 error is a Page Not Found server response. It means the website address does not exist. They often appear if you remove a page or type in a URL incorrectly. It’s important to make sure you fix any 404 errors on your website.

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A

 

Algorithm - An algorithm is a set of instructions or ‘rules’ used to solve a problem. In SEO these ‘rules’ are used to define what makes a good web page so that they can be put in order for a user. This is called Ranking.

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B

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Backlinks - These are links from one website to another. They can act like ‘votes’ for search engine providers. If Site A has a high domain authority, and links to Site B, then this is a signal that is a great website like Site A.

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Black Hat - This is the practice of SEO tactics that violates the Google’s Quality Guidelines. E.g link building schemes or keyword stuffing.

 

C

 

Canonical tag - A rel=canonical tag is used to tell search engines which page is the original and which are duplicates.

 

CMS - Content Management System. A CMS is the platform or software you use to build and edit your webpages. For example, this website was built using Wix.

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CTR - Click Through Rate. In the world of organic, the Click Through Rate refers to the percentage of clicks to your webpage from search results. It's worked out by clicks ÷ impressions.

 

Crawling - The process search engine providers use to ‘read’ and understand your pages and the contents. They find your page through indexing and backlinking.

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D

 

Domain Authority (DA) -  A score between 1 and 100 which is given a website to show how relevant and how likely it is to rank higher in search results -  the higher the score the more likely it is to rank highly. Domain Authority was developed by Moz.

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E

 

E.A.T - Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. This is a concept from Google’s Search Quality Rater guidelines for creating website content which will rank well.

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F

 

Featured snippets - Featured snippets are organic results at the very top of the search results page. They include a ‘snippet’ of content to answer the search query on the results page. This is called a zero click search.

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G

GSC - Google Search Console. This is the Google provided tool used to help you understand how your website is performing in Google Search.

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H

 

Heading tags - Heading tags are used on webpages to define which parts of the copy is a heading. This helps to structure your pages so they are easier to read, but also helps to explain to search engine providers what the content on your page is about and shows that you’ve displayed it properly. Remember: You can use H1-H6 tags but you must only use a single H1 tag per page - and all H1s on your site need to be different!

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Hreflang - Hreflang is a tag that you use on your page to let search engines understand what language your content is in. It helps make sure the correct language version of your website appears for people searching in that language.

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HTML - Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is the code that is used to structure content in your webpages. It can be used to add paragraphs, bullet points, images, video and more.

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HTML Sitemap - This is a content page that you build that lists all of your key pages to help users find the right content. It is also a great way to add extra internal links.

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I

 

Indexing - Indexing is making your pages visible in search results. By ‘indexing a page’, it means you are inviting search engines to crawl your page and display it in search results.

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Impressions - Impressions are how many times your website is seen in search results.

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Internal links - Internal links are the links you add into your content to help link from one page to another. They can be used to help your web pages get crawled by search engine bots.

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J

 

JSON-LD - JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data. JSON-LD is used as a simple way to structure data. For example, schema.org can be implemented using JSON-LD.

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K

 

Keyword stuffing - Keyword stuffing  is when you use too many keywords unnaturally in a webpage or your metadata. When writing content you need to be writing for the user and not for the search engine.

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L

 

Long-tail keywords - Long-tail keywords are search queries that are more specific and use 3 or more words.

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M

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Meta Data - Meta data is data about data. In SEO it is data that explains what your page is about, it includes your Meta Title and Meta Description… keep reading and you’ll see.

 

Meta Description - A description for your web page which shows in search results, it should be between 150-160 characters and describe the content of your webpage.

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Meta Title - The page title that appears in search results above your meta description, and in the tab on your web browser. It should be under 70 characters and eye-catching.

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N

 

Naver - Naver is a South Korean search engine provider. In 2021 is accounted 56% of the search market share in South Korea.1

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O

 

Organic Results - These are non-paid for search results. And hopefully this is the reason you are visiting this site today!

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P

 

People Also Ask - The People Also Asked box is a type of search result that features a list of questions related to the search query.

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Q

 

Query - A query are the words typed into the search bar.

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R

 

Rank - The position and order of your webpage on a search results page. If you are ranked in position 1 you are the first result, and you are winning at SEO!

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Rich snippet -  A rich snippet is an enhanced version of a normal search result. It might include an image, star rating, date or price. You can use schema.org to help promote rich snippets for your website.

 

Robots.txt - A robots.txt is a file that you host on your website to tell search engines which URLs you want and don’t want to be crawled. You should also link to your XML Sitemap in your robots.txt file.

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S

 

Schema - Schema.org is ‘structured data’. It’s added to webpages to help search engines understand your content. For example, you can add schema mark-up to a product page to help Google understand the product, price and reviews. This can then also be displayed in search results.

 

SEM - Search Engine Marketing. This is the practice of paying for your web pages or products to appear at the top of the search results page.

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SEO - Search Engine Optimisation. Still on the basics? You can read this starter guide on what is SEO.

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SEP - Search Engine Provider.This is the page you use to search the internet, the most commonly used is Google, but there’s lots including Yahoo, Bing and Naver.

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SERP - Search Engine Results Page. This is the page that your search results show on.

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Short-tail keywords - Short-tail keywords are search queries that use only 1 or 2 words.

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T

 

Thin content -  Thin content is webpage content that doesn’t add value to the visitor. It might be unhelpful, automatically generated or duplicated from another website.

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U

 

URL - Uniform Resource Locator. This is the name and location of a webpage. It includes a domain name, which is the first bit with the .com e.g tessamcmahon.com.au. And the location of the page, everything after the domain name, e.g /advice/seo-glossary

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V

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W

 

White hat - White hat SEO is the practice of SEO tactics that does not violate Google’s Quality Guidelines. It’s all the best practises that you should be utilising on your website!
 

X

 

XML Sitemap - Your XML Sitemap is another important file to host on your website. It is a list of the web pages that helps Google and other search engine providers to find your pages. It also gives them other useful information like when it was published and last updated. Remember to add your XML sitemap link to Google Search Console. 

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Y

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Z

 

Zero click search - Zero Click searches are results that provide the answer to your query at the top of the search results page in the style of a featured snippet, so the user didn’t need to click-through to the page.

 

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1 Statistia, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1219834/south-korea-leading-search-engines-by-mau/

2 Statistia, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-share-of-search-engines

* Dennis Rader is also known as the BTK Killer who literally gave himself his own awful acronym to describe is murder technqiue. He is a bad man and this website does not endorse his behaviour.

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