A-Z SEO Terms
A comprehensive reference guide covering key concepts, techniques, and terminology in search engine optimization.
- A/B testing
- Testing two different versions of a webpage or campaign element against each other to determine which performs better.
- Above the fold
- Content visible on a webpage without scrolling.
- Absolute URL
- A complete link to a page (e.g. https://www.wavesandalgorithms.com/services/).
- Algorithm
- The complex program used by search engines to collect, store, and deliver results in response to queries.
- Alt text
- A description for images, useful if images fail to load or assist visually impaired users.
- Analytics
- Collecting and analyzing data to gain actionable insights for campaigns or strategy improvement.
- Anchor text
- Clickable words in a link, describing the linked page's topic.
- Artificial intelligence (AI)
- Simulation of human intelligence by machines, enabling decision-making without human intervention.
- Authority
- Perceived quality and relevance of a website, contributing to higher rankings.
- Backlink
- An incoming link to your page from another website.
- Backlink analysis
- Reviewing links to your website, identifying good and bad sources.
- Black-hat SEO
- Techniques violating search engine guidelines.
- Bounce rate
- Percentage of visitors who leave a webpage without interacting further.
- Breadcrumb navigation
- A path showing the relationship between web pages for easier navigation.
- Broken link
- A non-working link resulting in a 404 error.
- Cache
- Temporary storage of web content.
- Canonical URL
- The preferred URL for a page, reducing duplicate content issues.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Percentage of users who click on your site in the search results.
- Cloaking
- Showing different content to search engines and users, against Google's guidelines.
- Content management system (CMS)
- Backend software for managing website content (e.g. WordPress, Joomla).
- Core Web Vitals
- Metrics for user experience performance, confirmed as ranking factors by Google.
- Crawler
- A bot that discovers and indexes web pages for search engines.
- Crawling
- The gathering of data from webpages by search engine bots.
- De-index
- Removal of web pages from search results.
- Disavow
- Tool to remove association with spammy inbound links.
- Domain authority
- Measure of a domain's quality and relevance affecting SEO ranking.
- Duplicate content
- Content very similar or identical to another page.
- Dwell time
- Time spent by visitors on a site before returning to results.
- E-A-T
- Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness—three key signals for quality.
- E-E-A-T
- Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness—four quality signals.
- Featured snippet
- A summary answer box shown above organic results for some queries.
- Findability
- How easily content can be found by users and search engines.
- Freshness
- How new content is, important for certain queries.
- Google Analytics
- Free analytics platform for tracking site traffic and behavior.
- Googlebot
- The name of Google's web crawler.
- Google penalties
- Negative consequences for violating Google's practices, lowering rankings or removing results.
- Gray hat
- SEO tactics around the edge of guidelines.
- Guest blogging
- Writing for other websites to earn a backlink.
- Heading
- HTML tag to separate content by topic/importance.
- Homepage
- The main entry page for a website.
- JavaScript SEO
- Techniques for ensuring content rendered or modified by JavaScript is properly crawled and indexed by search engines.
- Keyword
- Targeted words/phrases for SEO.
- Keyword cannibalization
- Multiple pages on a site target the same keyword, confusing search engines.
- Keyword density
- Frequency of a keyword's appearance.
- Keyword stuffing
- Excessive keyword use, penalized by Google.
- Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
- Analysis method that identifies relationships between terms and concepts in content to improve relevance signals.
- Landing page
- The first page seen when clicking a link or ad.
- Link building
- Efforts to acquire inbound links.
- Log File Analysis
- Examination of server log files to understand how search engine bots crawl a site and identify crawl errors or inefficiencies.
- Machine learning
- AI subset allowing computers to learn without explicit programming.
- Meta description
- Brief summary of a webpage shown in search results.
- Mobile-First Indexing
- Google's practice of using the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking.
- Negative SEO
- Trying to lower competitor rankings via manipulative tactics.
- Negative Keywords
- In paid search campaigns, terms added to prevent ads from showing for irrelevant queries, improving ROI.
- On-page SEO
- SEO tactics performed on your website.
- Organic search
- Unpaid results in search engines.
- Page speed
- Time for a webpage to load.
- Pillar Content
- Comprehensive, authoritative pages on core topics that link to and from more specific cluster pages to signal topical depth.
- PPC (Pay-per-click)
- Paid ads where businesses pay when a user clicks.
- Quality content
- Content that is relevant, engaging, useful, and helps meet goals.
- Ranking factor
- Criteria affecting a site's ranking in search.
- Referral Traffic
- Visitors arriving via links on other websites rather than from search engines or direct entry.
- Robots.txt
- A text file at a site's root that instructs search engine crawlers which pages or directories can or cannot be accessed.
- Schema markup
- Code that helps search engines understand page content.
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Improving site visibility and ranking in search engines.
- SERP
- Search engine results page.
- SERP Features
- Specialized elements on search results pages—such as knowledge panels, image carousels, and local packs—that go beyond traditional organic listings.
- Sitemap
- List of pages on a website.
- Sitemap Index
- A file that lists multiple XML sitemaps, enabling larger sites to organize and submit sitemap files efficiently.
- Structured Data
- Standardized markup (e.g., schema.org) added to HTML to help search engines understand content context and enable rich results.
- Technical SEO
- Optimizing technical site elements for search engines.
- Thin content
- Content offering little user value, penalized by Google.
- Title tag
- HTML element naming a page.
- Topical Authority
- The degree to which a site or page demonstrates depth and breadth of expertise on a specific subject, influencing ranking potential.
- User experience (UX)
- Overall experience of website users.
- UTM Parameters
- Query string tags appended to URLs (e.g., utm_source, utm_medium) used to track campaign performance in analytics tools.
- Video SEO
- Optimization of video content for search—encompassing metadata, structured data, transcriptions, and hosting considerations—to improve visibility.
- Voice search
- Technology for conducting online searches by voice.
- White-hat SEO
- SEO practices within search engine guidelines.
- XML Sitemap
- An XML file that lists a site's URLs along with metadata (e.g., last modified date), guiding search engines through site structure.
- YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)
- Pages or topics that can impact a person's health, finances, safety, or well-being; held to higher quality standards by search engines.
- Zero-Click Searches
- Queries where the answer is provided directly on the results page (e.g., featured snippet), eliminating the need to click through to a website.