EO GLOSSAR seo glossary

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200 OK
Status code indicating that a web page has successfully been connected to & delivered.

301 Redirect
Status code indicating that a web page has been moved to another location permanently. Generally
considered to be the best redirect for passing along ranking factors.

302 Redirect
A type of redirect indicating that a web page has been moved temporarily, allowing search engines to
keep a version of an old webpage.

404 Error
Error code meaning that a web page no longer exists and is permanently taken down.

502 Error
An error code caused by an issue with the server that hosts a website.

a Alt Text
Description of an image through text (aka “alternative text”). Used by screen readers for accessibility
purposes and by search engines as a ranking factor.

Anchor Text
The clickable words within a link (example: “Stay up to date with digital marketing trends.”) Anchor
text is a ranking factor for the page being linked to.

b
Backlinks
When another site links to your site, this is considered a “vote of confidence” in Google’s eyes. The
more authoritative the site linking to yours, the more link equity (domain authority) is passed along to
you. Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors.

Black Hat SEO

Aggressive SEO strategies with the intention of manipulating search engines. Tactics against
webmaster guidelines that can cause a site to receive a penalty or be banned from search results.

Bot/Crawler/Spider
A program that crawls, or reads, on-page and off-page site content in order to gather information for
proper indexing on search engines.

Bounce Rate
Google defines a bounce as a “single-page session on your site.” Bounce rate is the percentage of site
visitors who leave without interacting with the site by clicking to another page, watching a video, etc.

c Canonical Tag
An HTML tag that helps reduce duplicate content. This tag indicates to search engines which page is
the “preferred version” of content that should be ranked.

CMS
Content Management System. A program that allows users to publish content to the web. Examples of
CMS’s include Wordpress, Shopify, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, etc.

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 Crawl Budget

EO GLOSSAR
d
Allocated amount of pages that the Googlebot can crawl & index in a certain timeframe. Can be
affected if site speed is slow or contains high number of pages.

Domain Authority
DA is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank. The
score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.

Domain Authority can also be a term used interchangeably with “link equity”, meaning the authority
earned by a site through backlinks.

Duplicate Content
Similar or nearly identical content found on multiple webpages. Duplicate content isn’t good for SEO
because it isn’t clear to search engines which page to rank.

Examples of duplicate content:

a) written content copied onto more than one page
b) exact replicas of a webpage that have a slightly different URL (usually autogenerated by filters or
a CMS)

e External Link
A link that directs users to a domain other than the source domain. These hyperlinks improve ranking
power by improving link equity based on trustworthiness, relevancy, popularity, and anchor text used.

f
Featured Snippet
A text summary or instant answer that appears in the top of organic search results.

Followed Link
Allows link equity to be passed from one page to another.

g Google RankBrain
An important part of the Google algorithm using machine learning to understand search intent and
provide users with the most relevant search results.

h
Heading Tags
HTML tags that help explain the content hierarchy on a webpage. H1 is the most important and H6 is
the least important. Best practice is to only have one H1 tag per page, but multiple H2-H6 tags are ok
if they make sense within the content hierarchy.

Hreflang Tags
HTML tags telling search engines there are international versions of your site, and which languages
and countries your sites are intended for.

Examples of Hreflang tags:

<link rel=”alternate” href=”https://www.domain.com/” hreflang=”en-us” />
<link rel=”alternate” href=”https://www.domain.com/mx” hreflang=”es-mx” />
<link rel=”alternate” href=”https://www.domain.com/it” hreflang=”it-it” />

HTTP
Stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. How data is sent to a web browser from a computer server.

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 HTTPS

EO GLOSSAR Stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. Includes SSL (Secure Sockets Layers), which encrypts
data being transferred between websites and web browsers. Google rewards secure sites with slightly
higher rankings.

i
Information Architecture
The site structure or hierarchy of webpages. Having a logical organization of folders & subfolders is very
important a) for users to navigate the site and b) for search engines to understand and rank content.

Internal Link
Link from one page to another, but on the same site. Reasons why internal linking is important:
a) for users to navigate a site
b) for search engines to find every page on your website
c) so search engines can understand the structure of a site
d) for dispersing link equity across a site

j JavaScript
A scripting language used to program dynamic elements to web pages.

k
Keyword Stuffing
Adding irrelevant or repeating keywords to manipulate search engine rankings. This is a violation of
Google Webmaster Guidelines.

KPI
Stands for Key Performance Indicators. Metrics used to measure the success of digital marketing
campaigns.

l
Landing Page
A stand alone webpage that is typically used to generate leads and conversions. Within Google
Analytics, a Landing Page is a dimension through which a user first entered the site.

Link Equity
The domain authority earned through backlinks. The more backlinks a site receives from relevant and
authoritative sites, the more link equity or domain authority the site will have.

Long-Tail Keyword
A search term typically having more than 2 or 3 words. These terms have a lower search volume, but
are specific and more likely to convert. (Example: “blue striped maxi dress” versus “dress”). Over 70% of
searches are using long-tail keywords.

m Meta Description
Appears in search results just below a webpage’s title, describing the page and encouraging searchers
to click. Generally 150-160 characters long.

Mobile-First Indexing
Since mobile traffic now surpasses desktop traffic, Google primarily crawls & indexes the mobile version
of websites. Google first began rolling out Mobile-First Indexing in March 2018. Beginning in July 2019, all
new websites will have the mobile version indexed by default.

n Nofollow Link
A signal to search engines to not pass link equity to another page. Written in HTML as
<a href=”www.example.com” rel=nofollow>
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 NoIndex

EO GLOSSAR
o
Signal to search engine crawlers to restrict a page from being indexed in search results. Commonly
used for paid landing pages, outdated pages, or pages that do not provide value through search.

Off-Page SEO
An aspect of SEO focused on building a site’s Domain Authority, mostly by earning backlinks (also
known as “link building”). Examples of Off-Page SEO tactics include:
a) creating valuable content that other sites would want to link to
b) outreach to relevant & authoritative sites to promote content
c) guest blogging

On-Page SEO
The aspect of SEO that includes optimizing page copy, title tags, meta descriptions, heading tags,
URLs, and image alt text, to incorporate target keywords.

Orphaned Page
A web page that is not linked to any other page on a website.

p Page Speed
The time it takes for a web page to load. Since page speed is such a big part of a user’s experience, it
is a search engine ranking factor.

q Query
Words, phrases or questions that are entered into a search engine.

r Rank
The position of a website on a SERP (search engine result page) for a specific keyword. Historically only 10
sites would rank on the 1st page of Google, known as the “ten blue links”. In the more recent age of Universal
Search, Google incorporates different SERP features depending on the search intent, such as Images, News,
Videos, Featured Snippets, Maps, People Also Ask, etc.

Robot.txt
A text file that tells web crawlers which pages on a site should be ignored. This file should live in the /
robots.txt folder of each domain.

s Schema Markup
A type of structured data vocabulary agreed upon by major search engines. Adding Schema Markup
to web pages helps search engines to better understand the content and structure of a site. It can
also enable site content to show up in different SERP features such as featured snippets, carousels,
knowledge graphs, etc.

SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving organic search engine traffic to a website
through a variety of strategies. The 3 major pillars of SEO are On-Page, Off-Page, and Technical SEO.

SERP
Stands for Search Engine Results Page.

Short-Tail Keywords
Search terms with one or two words. The terms are very broad with low search intent and high
competition, and are harder to rank for.

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 t
Target Keywords

EO GLOSSAR The words or phrases that a web page is intended to rank for. When performing On-Page SEO, it is
recommended to optimize a page around a handful of Target Keywords.

Technical SEO
An element of SEO ensuring that a site is technically optimized and can be crawled, indexed, and
rendered by Search Engines. Aspects of Technical SEO include fixing 404 errors, solving duplicate
content, ensuring modern JavaScript can be rendered, implementing Schema Markup, improving
Page Speed, etc.

Title Tag
An HTML tag on each webpage, telling users and search engines the title of the page. The Title Tag is
the blue link that shows up in SERPs. Optimizing title tags with target keywords is an important part
of On-Page SEO.

u URL
Stands for Uniform Resource Locator. Each webpage has a unique URL or “address” that can be
accessed in a browser.

User Experience (UX)

The overall experience a user has when interacting with a site. Factors impacting UX include
pagespeed, site navigations, mobile responsiveness, brand connection, engaging content, and easy-
to-access information.

v Visibility
A metric measuring how visible a site is to users based on prominence in SERPs.

w White Hat SEO

SEO strategies that comply with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

x XML sitemap
An index of all the pages on a website that are intended for search engines to rank. This file should live in the /
sitemap.xml folder of each domain. Site managers can submit their XML sitemaps in Google Search Console.

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