SEO Glossary: 195+ SEO Terms and Definition You Should Not Miss Out

In the dynamic realm of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), understanding its terminology is like having a map to navigate the digital landscape. 

In that case, whether you're familiar with the basics, or new to the field, our SEO Glossary can be your trusted guide for unraveling the ins and outs of online visibility and ranking. It might be your everyday terms or more technical concepts, but this glossary empowers you with the knowledge you need to make informed decisions, optimize your content, and enhance your digital presence. 

Let's dive in and unlock the language of SEO success!

Get the Collection of Every Essential SEO Glossary 

It is important to understand the SEO terminologies to master the use of Search Engine Optimization. Therefore, I have compiled more than 195 necessary SEO glossaries for today's journey.

From the list below, you will also familiarize yourself with the latest SEO terms like Generative Search and many more. 
So, let's begin our journey. 

Numbers

10x Content: 10x Content refers to exceptionally high-quality and valuable content that is ten times better than existing resources on a particular topic.

301 Redirect: A permanent redirection status code used in web development signifies that a webpage or resource has been permanently moved to a new location.

302 Redirect: Bringing temporary changes or working on website maintenance? 302 will take care of that. It's a temporary redirection status code that informs search engines and even browsers that a webpage has been temporarily moved to a different location. It's often used when a page is undergoing maintenance or temporary changes.

304 Not Modified: The 304 Not Modified status code means that it is returned by a server as response to a conditional GET request. It indicates that the requested resource has remained the same since the last request, allowing the browser to use its cached version.

404 Error: It is a "Not Found" status code. It appears when a server cannot find the requested webpage or resource.

410 Gone: When any resource is intentionally removed, 410 reveals that it was once available and will not return. It's a stronger form of 404 error.

A

AI (Artificial Intelligence): Artificial Intelligence is the digital machines or computer systems that learn, adapt, and conjure insights from data to optimize online experiences. AI SEO tools are something you should know about too.

Analytics: The art of deciphering digital data to understand website performance and user behavior.

ALT Text: Descriptive text accompanying images to make them accessible for visually impaired users and search engines.

Authority: Online credibility and expertise in a specific domain, acknowledged by search engines to assess websites.

Anchor Text: Text within a hyperlink that guides users to another web page. It is the enchanting magic that entices users to step through.

Affiliate Link: A unique URL is used by affiliates to promote their services or products and earn commissions on sales. It's the digital secret handshake of partnerships.

Affiliate Marketing: A strategy where affiliates earn commissions by promoting other people's products or services.

A/B Testing: Comparing web page versions (A and B) to determine which performs better. Consider it a digital duel of ideas. A and B enter the arena, each trying to charm your audience. In the end, only one prevails. It's the scientific art of making your website a grand ball where only the best moves win.

AdSense: Google's advertising platform that allows website owners to earn revenue by displaying ads. It is a standing ovation for passive income!

Absolute Link: A hyperlink that includes the complete URL, directing users to an exact web page location.

Algorithm: The master of search engines, concocting rankings from webpage ingredients for web searchers.

Above the Fold: The captivating headline of your website that draws visitors in like an appealing window display.

Article Spinning: Article spinning morphs words and phrases into new forms, like an artist remixing a masterpiece. Sometimes, creating new masterpieces and sometimes, well, missing the mark.

Auto-generated Content: Automatically generating content with the use of code or programs. Imagine a digital wordsmith working at the speed of light but occasionally lacking the human touch.

B

B2B (Business-to-Business): Refers to the type of commerce or transactions that occur between two businesses rather than between a business and individual consumers.

B2C (Business-to-Consumer): B2C stands for Business-to-Consumer. It refers to the type of commerce or transactions that occur between a business and individual consumers.

B2B SEO: Refers to the term of optimizing a business website's visuals and ranking in search engine results relevant to business services.

Backlink: Digital currency of trust, where one website vouches for another, pleasing search engines.

Banner: A prominent graphic or image you can use for advertising or conveying information on your website.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your webpage without making further interaction.

Browser: Software that you can use for accessing and viewing websites on the internet.

Broken Link: Refers to a hyperlink that no longer leads to a valid web page.   

Black Hat: The digital outlaw who uses forbidden SEO guidelines to trick search engines and risk obscurity.

Blog: A digital journal reflecting thoughts and writings across the web pages of the internet.

Branded Keyword: The key search query of a particular brand. E.g., M&Ms, Nike.

Behavioral Targeting: Behavioral targeting is when websites or ads pay attention to what you do online to show you things that match your interests.

Bing: A web search engine operated by Microsoft.

Bot: A digital assistant built with programming and code that can answer queries and fulfill commands faster. 

Breadcrumb: A clickable website element that stays on top of a page and guides users through your entire website.

Bait and Switch: A digital game of hide and seek, promising one thing but delivering another. For example, someone is building an informative website but showing too many ads to make money. 

Bridge Page: A web page intermediates between an advertisement or promotional content and the final destination page.

C

Cache: The virtual location where data are stored for quick access, helping apps, websites, and browsers to load faster.

Canonical Tag: The snippet HTML code that declares the original version to search engines of duplicate contents.

Canonical URL: When multiple pages have similar duplicate content, this URL guides search engines through the original or best copy.

Click-through Rate (CTR): The ratio representing how often visitors see your ads, enter your website or click your content. 

 Citation: Citations are like digital footprints that validate your online existence. It provides you credibility and helps search engines verify your information.

Click bait: The practice of using misleading or overemphasized headlines to drive clicks on content. 

Click depth: This represents the number of clicks it takes for users to move from the homepage to the other pages of a website. 

Cookie: The digital files and data like passwords or usernames that websites store in a user’s web browser. 

Cost per Action: The measurement of how much an advertiser is charged to get an action from their audience.

Cost per Click: Refers to the term that how much an advertiser pays every time an audience clicks their advertisement. 

Conversion Rate: It represents the percentage of guests who take a desired action on your website.

Content Distribution Network (CDN): A system that speeds up web content delivery using multiple servers. 

ccTLD (Country Code Top-Level Domain): A country-specific website address extension (like .uk or .jp).

Content Marketing: The strategy of creating valuable content to engage and attract your audiences.

CMS (Content Management System): A software for easy website content creation and management. For example, Dorik is a powerful and helpful white-label CMS platform.

Cornerstone Content: Essential, comprehensive articles forming a website's foundation.

Crawler: Program that scans and indexes web pages for search engines.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): A programming language for web page design and layout.

Cloaking: Unethical or a Black Hat SEO strategy of indicating search engines different content than what your users actually see.

Crawl Budget: Number of pages search engines will crawl on a site.

Correlation: Statistical connection between two variables in SEO analysis.

Customer Journey: It is the path your customer takes from discovering your product to making a purchase. You can improve your website’s user experience with customer journey mapping.

D

Domain: A domain name is a primary web address that identifies a website.

Domain Rating: A metric for measuring your website's backlink profile strength. The higher your domain rating is, the better. 

Dropdown Menu: A menu that displays options on your online presence when someone clicks it or hovers over it.

Deep Link: A hyperlink leading to a specific internal page of your website.

De-index: Removing a webpage from the search engine index.

Do-follow: A link that passes SEO value to the linked page you use.

Duplicate Content: Identical or substantially similar content appearing in multiple places.

Dead Link: A hyperlink that leads your visitors to a non-existent or inaccessible page.

Demographics: Characteristics of your audiences, like age, gender, and location.

Display Advertising: Online ads, like the banners or videos you display on your website.

Dynamic Content: Your content that changes based on your users’ behavior or preferences.

E

Editorial Link: A link added naturally within the valuable content of your website or apps.

Entry Page: The first page your user visits on your website. It is also known as a Landing page. 

External Link: A hyperlink pointing to a different domain than your domain.

Earnings Per Click (EPC): Affiliate marketing metric indicating earnings per click of your web content.

Exit Rate: Represents the percentage of visitors leaving your site after viewing a page.

E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness – is a part of Google's algorithm from Google's content quality guidelines. 

E-E-A-T: An algorithm of Google’s Search Quality Rter Guidelines stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness of your website.

F

Favicon: A small icon displayed just next to your website's browser tab.

Featured Snippet: Concise, highlighted search results providing direct answers.

Focus Keywords: Specific terms that you target and optimize your content on that specific topic for search engines.

Faceted Navigation: It is a filtering system on a website for refining search results to provide you with the exact information you are looking for.

G

Gated Content: Valuable online content that can only be accessible after you provide information through filling out a form.

Gateway Page: A page intended only for search engines to manipulate rankings.

Generative AI: AI model that generates new content, images, etc.

Generative Search: Generative AI-powered search enhancing experiment (SGE) to provide you personalized and AI-powered results with context.

Google My Business: A Google platform to manage your business presence on maps and search.

Google Search Console: Tool for monitoring and optimizing website visibility. It can help you measure your website traffic, fix issues, and improve performance.

Guest Blogging: When you write content for another website to build links and authority, it is known as guest blogging. 

Geo-Targeting: Delivering content based on your geographical location.

Google Penalties: Penalties imposed by Google for violating its guidelines.

Gray Hat SEO: SEO practices that maintain white hat (Google’s webmaster guideline) and even go against them, like black hat strategies.

H

Headings: Hierarchical titles in content, from H1 to H6.

Homepage: The primary page of a website, typically the first users see.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): Markup language consists of an elements series used to create web pages.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): Protocol used for transferring data over the web.

I

Image Compressing: Reducing image file size without sacrificing quality, like compressing a .png into a .webp file.

Inbound Link: A link referring to your website from another site.

Indexing: Process of search engines cataloging and storing web pages.

Infographic: Visual representation of information or data to increase backlinks and engagement to a website.

Internal Link: A hyperlink connecting one page to another within the same website.

Internet Protocol (IP) Address: Numerical identifier assigned to devices on a particular network.

J

Javascript: Programming language for dynamic and interactive web content.

K

Key Performance Indicator (KPI): Measurable metric used to assess performance.

Keyword: Specific word or phrase used in search queries and content optimization.

Keyword Density: Proportion of keywords in relation to total content.

Keyword Difficulty: Measurement of how challenging it is to rank for a keyword in search engine alternatives, including Google.

Keyword Research: Process of finding relevant and valuable search terms.

Keyword Stuffing: Overusing keywords unnaturally in content to manipulate rankings.

L

Link Bait: Link bait is web content that is specially structured to attract backlinks used to grow a website’s search engine results.

Link Exchange: Mutual linking between websites for SEO benefit.

Landing Page: Web page designed for a specific marketing campaign.

Link Building: Process of acquiring quality backlinks to improve SEO.

Link Juice: SEO value passed through a link from one page to another.

Link Rot: The tendency of hyperlinks to become broken or outdated over time.

Link Popularity: Measurement of the number and quality of backlinks pointing to a website.

Link Scheme: Manipulative practice to artificially build links in Google search results.

Local Search: Searching for businesses or information in a specific location.

Long Tail Keyword: Specific and longer search phrases with less competition.

LSI Keywords: Latent Semantic Indexing keywords are related keywords enhancing content context. E.g., for the keyword ‘Local SEO Guide,’ ‘Search Engine Optimization’ is an LSI keyword. 

M

Meta Data: Information in HTML code that describes webpage content.

Meta Descriptions: Brief summaries shown in search results for a webpage or content.

Mobile-First Indexing: Google's method of ranking based on mobile site content.

Multilingual Site: Websites that are available in multiple languages. For example- Dorik is a multilingual website builder that also allows its users to create multilingual sites within clicks.

Manual Penalty: Action taken by search engines against sites violating Google Webmaster’s guidelines.

Meta Tags: HTML tags providing metadata about a webpage.

N

Niche: Specific, focused area of interest or expertise that you concentrate on constructing and promoting your website around a specific segment of the market or target audience.

Native SEO: Native SEO, or local SEO, is about tailoring website optimization to improve visibility in local searches, connecting businesses with nearby customers through tactics like Google My Business optimization, localized keywords, and local citations.  Check the 17 reasons Dorik website builder is the best for Native SEO.

Negative SEO: Illegitimate strategy to harm a competitor's search rankings.

No-Follow: HTML attribute instructing search engines not to follow a link.

No Archive: Directs search engines not to store cached versions of a page.

No Image Index: Prevents search engines from indexing images of your website, app, or content.

No Index: A directive to search engines not to index a page or a website. It is used to exclude these from appearing in search results. 

O

Organic Traffic: Visitors who reach a website through search engine results naturally. It reflects the effectiveness of SEO strategies for the specific service or product.

Orphan Page: Webpage with no internal or external links.

Outbound Links: The use of links from your website to other website's web content. It is used to add more context to them.

Off-Page SEO: Tactics outside your website to improve search rankings.

Opt-in: User's agreement to receive communications, like emails.

P

Page Speed: The measure of how quickly a webpage loads.

Pagination: Breaking content into pages, often seen in lists.

Page Title: HTML element displaying the title of a webpage.

Permalink: Permanent URL of a specific blog post or page.

Pay-Per-Click: Advertising model where advertisers pay for clicks.

Penalty: Negative impact on rankings due to search engine violations.

Permission Marketing: Obtaining consent before sending marketing messages.

Piracy Update: Algorithm change targeting copyright-infringing sites.

Pop-Under: Ad that opens in a new browser window under the current page.

Q

Query: A SEO Glossary that represents user's search term in a search engine.

Quality Content: Valuable, relevant, and well-constructed information.

R

Ranking Factor: Element influencing search engine position.

Redirection: Method of sending users and search engines from one URL to another.

Referral String: Information passed to a website about the source of traffic.

Relevancy: How closely content matches user intent.

Responsive Design: Web design adapting to different devices and screens.

Repeat Visit: When a user returns to a website, it is called a repeat visit.

Return on Investment (ROI): Measure of profitability from an investment.

Robots.txt: File that instructs search engines on what to crawl.

RSS Feed: A Format or file containing all the information of your website making it easier for search engines to crawl.

Related Keyphrases:  Phrase that are closely associated with a main keyword.

Relative URL: Web address defined in relation to a current page.

S

Scraping: The process of extracting data from websites, often for unauthorized use.

Search Console: Google's tool to monitor and optimize site visibility.

Search Engine: Online tool that finds and displays web content online.

Search Engine Optimization: Techniques to improve search result rankings on search engines.

Search Engine Result Page (SERP):  A page displaying search results after entering a search query on a search engine.

Schema.org: A semantic vocabulary of tags that you can input to your HTML for improving the way search engines read and represent your page in SERPs.

Search Intent: Purpose behind a user's search query.

Search Volume: It indicates the number of times a keyword is searched.

Sitemap: List of webpages for search engines to crawl.

Social Media: Platforms for sharing content and interacting online (e.g., Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn).

SSL Certificate: Certificate that ensures secure data transfer between user and server. You can easily secure your data from hackers for free through SSL Certification if you build a website with Dorik.

Subdomain: Part of your domain before the primary domain name. For example, 'www' is a subdomain for a domain name 'www.dorik.com' 

Structured Data: A Markup or code one uses to their pages for richer search results (e.g., reviews). It helps search engines understand the pages better. 

Server: A computer or computer program that hosts a website's files and delivers content.

Sentence Length: Measuring the number of words in your web content's sentences. It is used as a readability factor.

Sidebar: The content section of a webpage that is usually placed to the side of the main content.

Slug: URL-friendly version of a web page's title.

Spider: Software that automatically crawls web pages for search engines to index them.

T

Tags: Labels identifying websites, content topics, or attributes.

Testimonials: User feedback from past customers endorsing a product or service.

Typeface: Design of characters, numbers, and symbols in written content.

Topic Clustering: The process of grouping related content that covers a broad content area for SEO advantage.

Title Separator: Symbol used to separate the parts of a title tag.

Traffic: The number of visitors to a website or the data they generate.

Top-Level Domain (TLD): It is the last part of a domain for example .com, and .org.

Title Tag: HTML element displaying a page's title. It is the title of a website page written inside the <tite> tag. 

Traffic Rank: Position of a website based on its traffic compared to all other websites on the internet.

U

User Interface (UI): User Interface represents design and layout that enables user interaction.

User Experience (UX): User Experience represents your website's overall satisfaction and usability.

W

Webinar: An individual or company broadcasted an online seminar or presentation to educate the audience on a specific topic.

White Hat SEO: Ethical and legitimate SEO practices that comply with Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Whitespace: Whitespace is the use of empty space around website elements to enhance readability.

Website Navigation: Elements or components of a webpage enabling users to access the site.

X

XML: An extensible Markup Language search engine used for structuring data.

XML Sitemap: XML file listing URLs on a website for search engines.

How to Use SEO Glossary 

Understanding SEO Glossary is an impactful resource to improve your knowledge about SEO. It allows you to implement the magical strategies more effectively in your work and achieve success.

However, it is important that you understand the use of these terms to leverage their benefits.
Here I am introducing the easiest ways you can use these right-

Make the Most of SEO Glossary through This Empowering Journey

I hope you've found it a valuable resource in our journey through this SEO Glossary. Here, the language of SEO may be broad, but I ensure you can achieve your goals if you can use them effectively on the right track.

Remember, SEO is more than just keywords and rankings. It's about delivering meaningful experiences to your audience, enhancing your website's performance, and building a robust online presence. 

Leverage these SEO terms and have a blast with your SEO journey.