Glossary

A complete guide to SEO terms

Confused over key terms used in search engine world? Here is our comprehensive SEO glossary listing all the terms prevalent & trending in the field of SEO, SMM & Internet marketing. Bookmark this page to stay updated with the latest additions in Our SEO glossary.

301 redirect

Redirection for file that is moved permanently.

302 redirect

Redirection for file that is moved temporarily to another location.

404 error

Error displayed when a typed URL is either wrong or a web page is not found.

A/B testing

A test performed on target users to assess their behavior when same page is displayed to them in two different forms, namely A & B. For example, Title “A” & Title “B” are created for same copy of content & then displayed to user to analyze which is more effective on them & which entices them more to read complete copy.

Ad copy

Description text of advertisement.

AdCenter

Pay-per-click ad network of Microsoft.

Adwords

Pay-per-click ad network of Google.

Affiliate

Person who promotes a third party product/service in return of some commission for every successful sale.

Algorithm

Mathematical implementation to perform a particular procedure. Search engines use intelligent lingual algorithms to fetch results related to user's query.

Alt text

Text used in Image HTML tags to be displayed instead of image when an image cannot be loaded due to some reasons.

Anchor tag

An HTML tag used to create links inside a web page or document.

Anchor text

Text that is put into anchor tag to be used as hyperlink.

Authority of web page (Page authority- PA)

A measure used to define how much a given page is likely to rank in search engines in compare to other competing websites.

Backlink

An incoming hyperlink from one webpage to other site.

Bid

Amount of money an advertiser is willing to pay for each user-click on given ad.

Black hat SEO

Search engine optimization using techniques those are considered unethical by respected search engines.

Blog

A personal website or webpage which is used to record opinions of concerned people or to link to other websites.

Blog roll

A list of links to other blogs or websites

Bookmark

Record of a link to access quickly again in future.

Breadcrumb navigation

A structured element of user interface that is used to enable users to keep track of their location within a website or web document.

Business listing

Process of getting a business listed into business directory.

Campaign

A strategically planned process carried out to achieve some goals.

Canonicalization

Process of representing multiple similar entities in a standard/canonical form.

Citation

A quotation/excerpt from some reference.

Click fraud

Unethical clicks performed to increase host revenue or to drain advertisers' revenue in PPC campaign.

CMS

Content Management System- a system used to manage and organize content of a website. Typically CMS websites are database driven websites in which owner can add & remove required data by accessing it from back-end.

Competition analysis

Analysis done to identify strengths and weaknesses of competitor websites which can be strategically used later to over-rank them in search engines.

Contextual

Relevant to the given thing.

Contextual search

A search that analyzes web pages being viewed by user and returns a most likely list of related search results.

Conversion rate

Number of website user/visitor that turn into buyer of related service/product.

Copyscape

A free/paid online tool to identify whether a piece of content is copied or original. Content verified by this tool is also known as copyscape content.

CPA

Online advertising model where an advertiser pays each time for specific user action (for example, impression, click, signup etc.)

CPC

Online advertising model where advertisers are charged a certain price per click.

CPM

Online advertising model where advertisers are charged some cost per thousand impressions.

Crawler/bot/spider

Intelligent search engine program that indexes webpages and relate them against particular keywords.

CSS

Cascaded style sheet- is a technical document with .css extension included with website to define visual presentation of HTML markup in a web page.

CTR

Click through rate- proportion of visitors who actually follow the hypertext link to its web page on seeing it.

Deep link

The hyperlink that points to inner pages of website other than the homepage.

Do follow link

Link that passes link juice/ link equity to the pointed site.

Doorway pages

Spammy pages that display results for particular phrases for the purpose of sending the visitors to a different page.

Dynamic URL

A URL produced by running a script that may change with change of user, session or device.

External link

Link to a page outside of same domain.

Favicon

An icon associated with website. Typically displayed in address bar of browser or in bookmark bar along with website name.

Geo-targeting

Online marketing method that target users based on their location, pin code etc.

Google analytics

Google's free SEO tool used to analyze website traffic, search patterns, user engagement and things that can give insights to how the website is performing towards desired targets.

Google Instant

Suggestions displayed instantly on Google while you are typing your search term.

Google Panda/ Penguin

Names of search engine algorithms that Google has implemented to deliver most relevant and spam-free search results.

Googlebot

Google's search engine program that crawls online documents to index them for relevant keywords.

Gray hat SEO

Implementation of SEO by mixing white hat and black hat SEO techniques together.

Guest blogging

Posting articles on others' blogs.

HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language- Standardized structure to display texts, video, images and media as web page.

Hyperlink

A link from hypertext document to another document. Usually activated by user click upon it.

Iframe

An HTML tag used to embed 3rd party document within current HTML supported document.

Impressions

Number of times the piece of content is displayed by search engine to a user for particular query.

Inbound link

Incoming link from external website.

Indexability

Ability of webpage to get indexed in search engine.

Indexing

Procedure of recording webpages in an index.

Info graphic

Visual representation of information.

Interlinking

Process of linking other relevant webpages under same domain.

Internal link

The link that is coming from a webpage within same.

IP spoofing

Unethical method of faking IP address for purpose of concealing sender's identity or impersonating other's computer.

ISP

Internet Service Provider- The legal company that is provider of Internet service.

KEI

Keyword Efficiency Index- A metric used by search engine optimizers to measure efficiency of keyword to be ranked in search engines.

Keyword density

Ratio of number of total words to keyword on webpage.

Keyword stemming/stuffing

Using multiple variations of same keywords on a webpage to make it search engine optimized for that keyword.

Knowledge graph

Google's way to connect and relate semantic entities with each other. Knowledge graph is used by Google to enhance search results for higher relevancy.

Landing page

A web page that is used as entry to a website or specific section of website.

Link bait

Content on website created with intention to encourage visitors and niche authorities to link back from their websites to increase its ranking in search engines.

Link Farm

Set of web pages created with sole purpose of increasing backlinks to target page & improve its search engine ranking.

Link popularity

Amount of external websites linking to the given webpage.

Long tail keyword

Key phrase made with more than three words which is more specific than singular word.

LSI

Latent semantic indexing- mathematical method to identify patterns in the relationships between terms and concepts contained in an unstructured collection of text.

Markup

Use of HTML tags to define elements of webpage in such a way that it is recognizable my major search engines.

Meta description

Description of a webpage inserted from backend of website which is usually displayed as search engine result snippet for that webpage.

Metadata

Description of a webpage inserted from backend of website which is usually displayed as search engine result snippet for that webpage.

Niche

Group of similar businesses or businesses that reside in same area.

No follow link

A limited link from one webpage to another that doesn't pass any link juice and SEO benefits to the targeted webpage.

Off-page optimization

Area of SEO which concerns to building backlinks.

On-page optimization

Area of SEO that concerns to content and structure of a website.

One way link

Natural backlink achieved without mutual link exchange.

Organic results

Routine search results on search engine that are unpaid.

Outbound link

Link from a webpage to external webpage i.e. external link.

Page depth

Average number of pages viewed by users per session.

Page rank

Google's way of measuring importance of website.

Pen name

Assumed name, similar to nickname, used by authors when publishing their writings.

Penalization

Act of punishment by search engines to websites which are spamming or breaking standardized quality rules.

PFI

Pay For Inclusion- Service offered by search engine and directories to index a site in return of some fixed payment.

Pinging

Process to notify search engines when a website is updated.

Plagiarism

Process of copying somebody else's work and publish it as one's own.

PPC

Pay Per Click- Online advertising method in which advertisers are charged some fixed commission for every click.

PR

PageRank- Google's measure to evaluate webpage quality.

Profile link

Linkback to a website from profile page on a third site.

Qualified visitor

Visitor who has already showed interest in particular product/service/niche.

Reciprocal link

Backlink acquired through mutual link exchange program.

Referral

Act of referring a product or service of some third person/company.

Reputation management

Strategic implementation of social activities to build credibility of a website or company.

Robots.txt

A conventional document used to externally prevent search engines from indexing all webpages included within a website.

ROI

Return On Investment- A performance measure used to determine efficiency of an investment & compare it with other forms of investment.

RSS feed

Rich site summary- family of standard feed format to publish and syndicate web content.

Scum ware

Malware intended to steal other computer's information, disrupt its operation or gain illegal access to it.

SE

SE stands for search engine.

Search funnel

Steps leading from impression to conversions.

SEM

Search engine marketing- Process of making web pages more visible with online marketing and optimization efforts.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization- Implementation of search engine friendly website practices to rank a website higher in search results.

SEO audit

Checking strengths and weaknesses of website to design a strategy to improve its capability for search engine optimization.

SEO Copywriting

Process of writing search engine friendly publicity/advertisement copy.

SERP

Search engine result page- Listing of search results returned by search engines in response to a keyword query.

Sitemap

Structured list of web pages for user/ search engine.

SMM

Social Media Marketing- Online marketing through strategic social media activities.

Social media

Websites and applications used for social media networking.

Spam

Irrelevant or unsolicited messages sent over Internet for purpose of advertising, phishing, spreading malware etc.

Splog

Blog used for spamming.

Spyware

Software used to steal users' computer data covertly.

Stop words

Words filtered out after or before processing the data for natural language processing.

Structured data

Data that is organized in fixed blocks of a web page.

Syndication

Promotion of content to group of people interested in particular activity or field of interest.

The fold

Virtual line at bottom of page where the computer

Tier- 2 / 2nd tier search engines

Secondary search engines after Google, Bing & Yahoo that drives around 5% of total Internet traffic.

Tier-1 / 1st tier search engines

Major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

Track back

A link back method for website authors to get notification when somebody links to one of their documents.

UGC

User generated content- Website content that is created by users such as blogs, comments, forums etc.

Universal search

Google's SERP feature that aggregates multiple types of search results in single page such as video and images.

URL

Universal resource locater- Specially formatted string of text used by web browsers and other networks to locate online resources. For example, web address http://www.smartinfosys.net is a URL.

Usability

Level of ease of use the website offers to its users.

Usenet

Online networks to discuss over some topics and share files. For example, Yahoo answers.

USP

Unique selling proposition- Feature of product that is different from others and good enough to make that product choicest among competition.

Vertical search

Search performed only on specific segment of Internet to find results for a query.

Viral marketing

Marketing technique used to make people voluntarily share the targeted content to other people.

Web directory

Categorized and sorted list of websites over the Internet.

Web2.0

Popular term for advanced Internet technology and apps including blogs, Wikis, RSS and social bookmarking.

White hat SEO

Search engine optimization by implementing ethical SEO techniques only.