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Reference

SEO Glossary

35 essential SEO terms explained in plain English.

3

301 Redirect

A permanent redirect that tells search engines a page has moved to a new URL and to transfer all ranking signals to the new location.

A

Alt Text (Alternative Text)

A text description added to images in HTML that helps search engines understand image content and improves accessibility.

Anchor Text

The visible, clickable text of a hyperlink that tells search engines and users what the linked page is about.

B

Backlink

A link from another website pointing to your site — one of the strongest ranking signals in Google's algorithm.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page without taking any further action.

C

Core Web Vitals

Three Google metrics — LCP, CLS, and INP — that measure loading speed, visual stability, and interactivity.

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)

A Core Web Vital measuring visual stability — how much page content shifts unexpectedly during loading. Good: under 0.1.

Crawlability

A measure of how easily search engine bots can access and navigate your website's pages.

Canonical URL

An HTML element that tells search engines which version of a page is the 'master' copy when duplicate or similar content exists.

Crawl Budget

The number of pages a search engine will crawl on your site within a given timeframe, determined by crawl capacity and demand.

D

Domain Authority (DA/DR)

A third-party metric (by Moz/Ahrefs) predicting how likely a domain is to rank in search results, scored 1-100.

E

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

Google's quality criteria for evaluating content creators and websites — especially important for YMYL topics.

F

Featured Snippet

A highlighted search result at the top of Google (position zero) that directly answers a user's query with extracted content.

G

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

The practice of optimizing content to be cited and recommended by AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

H

HTTPS (SSL/TLS)

A secure protocol that encrypts data between a user's browser and your website — a confirmed Google ranking signal since 2014.

I

INP (Interaction to Next Paint)

A Core Web Vital measuring responsiveness — the delay between user interaction and visual response. Good: under 200ms.

Internal Linking

Links between pages on the same website that distribute ranking power and help users and search engines navigate your content.

J

JSON-LD

Google's recommended format for implementing structured data using JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data.

K

Keyword Density

The percentage of times a keyword appears in content relative to the total word count.

Keyword Stuffing

The practice of overloading a page with keywords in an attempt to manipulate rankings — a violation of Google's spam policies.

L

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

A Core Web Vital that measures how long it takes for the largest visible content element to render. Good: under 2.5s.

M

Meta Description

An HTML tag that provides a brief summary of a page's content, displayed in search engine results below the title.

Mobile-First Indexing

Google's practice of using the mobile version of your website's content for indexing and ranking, not the desktop version.

N

Noindex

A meta robots directive that tells search engines not to include a page in their index, preventing it from appearing in search results.

O

On-Page SEO

Optimizing individual web pages — content, HTML tags, headings, and internal links — to rank higher in search results.

R

Rich Snippets (Rich Results)

Enhanced search results that display additional information like ratings, images, prices, or FAQs beyond the standard title and description.

Robots.txt

A text file at your site's root that tells search engine crawlers which pages they can and cannot access.

Redirect Chain

A series of multiple redirects between an initial URL and the final destination, causing SEO and performance issues.

S

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The practice of optimizing websites to rank higher in search engine results and drive organic traffic.

Schema Markup (Structured Data)

Code added to your HTML that helps search engines understand your content and display rich results.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

The page displayed by a search engine in response to a query, containing organic results, ads, featured snippets, and more.

Search Intent (User Intent)

The underlying purpose behind a search query — whether the user wants to learn, find a specific site, compare options, or buy something.

T

Technical SEO

The practice of optimizing a website's infrastructure so search engines can crawl, index, and render it effectively.

Title Tag

An HTML element that specifies the title of a web page, shown as the clickable headline in search results.

X

XML Sitemap

A file that lists all important URLs on your website, helping search engines discover and crawl your pages efficiently.