A glossary of key terms that are used in today’s search engine optimization (SEO) profession.
SEO Terms – A to Z Order
301 Redirect
A permanent redirection from one URL to another, telling search engines that the original page or post has moved (or been replaced), and that all of the original page’s or post’s “link equity” or ranking power should be passed to the new URL.
Preserving link equity from already established pages or posts on a website is one of the best SEO reasons to incorporate 301 redirects. Reputable SEO plugins such as Yoast and Rank Math have features built in which allow you to set up this type of redirect.
404 Error
An HTTP status code that indicates a “Not Found” page, meaning the requested URL does not exist on the server. These can oftentimes be customized through your website theme (e.g., Astra Pro) or its compatible page builder (e.g., Spectra), which will allow you to enter a specific message, make it more visually appealing, and direct a visitor to a viable resource on your website and/or blog.
Algorithm
A set of rules or a formula used by search engines to determine which web pages to display for a given search query and in what order. Google’s algorithm, for example, is constantly updated to provide the most relevant and high-quality results.
Aside from traditional search engines, algorithms are also found in every type of online platform from Amazon to LinkedIn to Twitter/X. YouTube, for instance, is considered the second-largest search engine in the entire world – its algorithm is only outdone by Google, its parent company.
Alternative Text (Alt Text)
Commonly referred to as Alt Text, this is a written description of an image on a webpage. This text is crucial for accessibility (when screen readers are utilized for the visually impaired) and helps search engines understand the content and context of the image.
Alt Text should be limited to no more than 125 characters (including spaces) and should “paint a clear picture” of the image through its words. Ideally, you should add this language when you first upload a new image into your content management system’s (CMS) media library, such as can be found in the WordPress CMS.
Anchor Text
The visible, clickable text of a hyperlink on a webpage. Search engines use anchor text to understand the content of the linked-to page or section of a website.
Anchor text should be descriptive (e.g., “2025 report on the future of AI in marketing”), and more generic terms like “click here” and “learn more” should be avoided. This is an important factor in determining the effectiveness of both internal and external links – which impact traditional search engine rankings.
Backlink
Also referred to as an “inbound link” in the SEO industry, this is a hyperlink from an external website (the linking domain) that points back to your website (the linked domain). Backlinks from reputable sites are a strong signal to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy – Google views these types of links as “votes of confidence” that the linked to website or webpage contains valuable information on a certain topic.
The key is to obtain quality links from other sites that are considered relevant in your business sector, and highly authoritative. The exception to this last part would be when you are able to acquire backlinks from “super authority” sites such as Forbes, ESPN, or NY Times – the overall site itself doesn’t have to be deemed highly relevant to your specific industry, but the article or section within the website that links back to your website, should have relevance to your industry.
Black Hat SEO
SEO tactics that violate search engine guidelines for the primary purpose of manipulating rankings. Examples would include keyword stuffing, cloaking, exchanging backlinks, and using private blog networks (PBNs).
These practices can result in penalties which cause a site to lose its ranking position, or worse, be de-indexed from Google or Bing altogether. Recovering from these types of penalties can be a major ordeal in and of itself.
Bounce Rate
This measures the percentage of visitors who land on a page of your website (e.g., home page, landing page, sign-in page) and leave without interacting with it further (e.g., clicking on another page or a link). A high bounce rate may indicate that the content is not relevant or engaging to the user – and would also send signals to Google and the AI models that content is not worthwhile enough to be cited.
Canonical Tag
An HTML tag used to communicate to search engines that a specific URL is the “main” or “master” version of a webpage, and that the content on that particular page should be indexed and displayed in search results. In other words, whenever the same or very similar content appears at more than one URL, you’ll want to specify which URL on your website represents the best available webpage version addressing a particular topic or subject matter.
This helps prevent duplicate content issues, prevents search engine confusion, and allows you to control the narrative – you do not want Google or Bing deciding which version of a webpage best represents your content.
Most reputable SEO plugins will automatically add self-referencing canonical tags to pages and posts on your website – meaning the canonical URL will point back to the page or post itself! A canonical tag can be modified by entering data into fields specified by SEO plugins such as Yoast or Rank Math.
Click Through Rate (CTR)
This measures the percentage of users who click on a particular search result or advertisement after seeing it (viewing an impression of) come across their search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s calculated as follows:
Total number of clicks / total number of impressions = CTR. For example, if the total clicks on a search result are 50, and the total number of impressions is 1,000, then the calculation be 50 / 1,000 = 5% CTR. This is automatically calculated for you when you add and confirm your property (domain) through the Google Search Console.
Content Management System (CMS)
A software application that allows users to create, manage, and publish digital content on a website and or blog, without needing to know, write or execute code such as HTML, CSS or JavaScript. Some of the most popular CMS platforms are WordPress, Shopify, and Wix.
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world powering around 43% of all websites as of 2025. It uses Gutenberg as its native block-based editor offering users an intuitive and versatile experience.
Conversion
A desired action that a user or visitor takes on a website, such as making a purchase, filling out a lead generation form, signing up for a weekly newsletter, or registering for a conference or webinar.
This is usually measured through a conversion rate formula as follows:
Number of Conversions / Number of Interactions x 100 = Conversion Rate. For example, if you had 17,500 website visitors last month, and 900 of them signed up for your weekly newsletter, then the calculation would be 900 / 17,500 x 100 = 5.1% Conversion Rate.
Crawl (or Crawling)
The process by which search engine bots (also called crawlers or spiders) discover and follow links on the internet to find new and updated webpages. Google’s version is called Googlebot, and Bing’s version is called Bingbot. This is the very first step in discovering web content, which is then followed by an indexing stage, and finally a ranking stage.
Crawl Budget
This is an SEO concept which refers to the amount of time and processing resources that search engines are allotted to crawl and index any given website, within a specific timeframe. Search engines have billions of webpages to crawl and can only dedicate so much time to any one website or blog.
That is why it is so important for your site’s UX/UI (user experience/user interface) design, technical aspects (e.g., site loading speed), and content quality, to be optimized for both users and search engines. Sites with high user engagement are more inclined to receive a larger crawl budget, as search engines will consider them to be more authoritative.
Domain Authority (DA)
A metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s measured on a scale from 1 to 100, with a higher score indicating a greater likelihood of ranking closer to the top of SERPs.
Ahrefs uses the term Domain Rating (DR) and is scored on a scale from 0 to 100. Semrush uses the term Authority Score (AS) and is measured on a scale from 0 to 100. Generally speaking, the scores are all based upon similar criteria such as a domain’s backlink profile, organic traffic volume, and reputation of the linking domains.
Indexing
The process of storing and organizing the content discovered during the crawling process by Googlebot or Bingbot into a massive database. This database or index is what search engines use to efficiently retrieve information in response to search queries. AI models such as ChatGPT and Gemini scrape these indices to train themselves as to the most appropriate answer to present when someone initiates a chat or conversation with them.
Keyword (or Keyword Phrase)
A word or phrase that a user types into a search engine to find information. In SEO, keywords are the terms a website and blog owner want their pages to rank for. There are various types of keywords, such as:
- Branded
- Short-Tail
- Long-Tail
- Geo-Targeted
Platforms such as Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz allow you to perform keyword research to hone in on words and phrases in your industry which have received a reasonable volume of search queries across the internet, as well as measuring how easy or difficult it would be to rank well on Google or Bing those particular words and phrases.
Keyword difficulty (KD) is the metric used to determine just how competitive it would be to rank high on the SERPs (search engine results pages) for a given word or phrase.
Keyword Cannibalization
This occurs when your website has more than one page devoted to or targeting the same keyword(s) or very similar keyword(s). This has the potential to confuse search engines as to which page best represents the searchers intent for those keywords. The result – lower search rankings, reduced traffic, decreased click through rates (CTRs), and squandering your website’s crawl budget.
This can be remedied by consolidating and optimizing content into one page, specifying the preferred version through canonical tags, or setting up a 301 redirect from the inferior page(s) to the one superior page. Unlike keyword stuffing, cannibalization alone is unlikely to lead to a penalty from search engines.
Keyword Research
The process of identifying and analyzing the words and phrases people use in search engines (and now AI driven search models) to find products, services, individuals, companies, governments or ideologies related to a specific topic.
Regardless of whether you’re using a traditional search engine such as Google, or an AI model such as ChatGPT, they all have the same objective – to present the user with the most relevant information available.
Focusing on branded keywords and long-tail keywords will result in higher conversion rates due to the nature of the searches themselves – their intent is more commercial and transactional, which tend to lead to more immediate and higher volume of purchase decisions.
Keyword Stuffing
A black hat SEO tactic that involves overusing (“stuffing”) a keyword in a webpage’s content, meta tags, or anchor text in an attempt to manipulate rankings. This can lead to serious penalties from search engines.
You avoid keyword stuffing by incorporating targeted keywords into your content in a natural, flowing manner – making sure the keyword does not overwhelm the reader (and search engines) with an abnormally high rate of occurrences.
Local SEO
This is the process of optimizing your digital content so that individuals and businesses located in specific geographic regions will be more likely to find your products or services.
Some key features to pay attention to for local SEO involve setting up and optimizing a Google Business Profile, managing customer reviews, establishing listings in local directories, maintaining consistent NAP (name, address, phone) across all platforms, creating location-specific pages, and engaging in local link building.
Long-Tail Keyword
A longer, more specific search phrase (typically more than three words) that has a lower search volume, but often higher conversion potential. For example, “comfortable running shoes for seniors” is a long-tail keyword.
These types of keywords are easier for search marketers to rank higher for on Google or Bing, since there is less competition. The specific nature of these keywords also makes them easier to convert searchers, since they carry more inherent commercial and transactional search intent – they are considered to be at the lower end of the marketing funnel where purchase decisions are typically made.
Meta Description
A brief, HTML-encoded summary of a webpage’s content that appears below the title on a search engine results pages (SERPs). While not considered a direct ranking factor, a compelling meta description can improve a page’s click-through rate and provide more information to searchers about a product or service as they are scrolling through the SERPs.
Google has been known to dynamically modify meta descriptions in about 75% of the cases, by pulling other content found in the body of a specific webpage (i.e., home page, about page, product page). Regardless, our practice is to still provide a detailed meta description for all pages on a website – this should be limited to no more than 155 characters (including spaces).
SEO plugins such as Yoast or Rank Math will have designated fields you can use to add your own meta description onto each page of your site – you do not need to know HTML code to get this accomplished.
Off-Page SEO
This type of SEO is also referred to as off-site SEO. It is the process of promoting your website or blog content through external linking tactics such as link building, social media and public relations.
Link building, sometimes referred to as backlinking, involves the process of establishing hyperlinks on other relevant websites or blogs, for example, that have contextual links on them which point back to your web content.
Backlinks have historically improved site rankings, increased credibility, and signaled trustworthiness to search engines.
On-Page SEO
This type of SEO is also referred to as on-site SEO. You have the most control with this type of SEO and can heavily influence the way your content is perceived by search engines. Keyword research and internal linking are two of the most important components with this type of SEO.
The key considerations when conducting keyword research are search volume, how much competition exists between sites trying to rank for a keyword(s), and whether or not the terms are relevant to the content your promoting on your website.
With respect to internal linking, you will want to choose a variety of anchor text (e.g., branded, generic, exact match) and be sure that the page that is being linked to has content that relates to the linking page itself.
Other considerations include clean URL structures, keyword-centric title tags, logical heading flows (H1-H6), descriptive alt text for images, mobile-friendliness, and schema markup (structured data), to name a few.
Organic Search
The unpaid search results displayed on the search engine results pages (SERPs). The practice of SEO, and now GEO, focuses on improving a website’s ranking in these organic results.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the practice of optimizing a brand’s content – based upon keyword search volume and the intent of the searcher (e.g., informational vs. transactional), with the primary aim of ranking as high as possible on the search engine results pages of traditional search engines like Google and Bing.
Google’s new AI Overviews and AI Mode have added a new dynamic. The focus has started shifting from strictly ranking for keywords, to establishing your brand’s product or service as an authoritative source of information to be cited by artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
The pages displayed by a search engine in response to a user’s query.
SERPs can include paid advertisements, organic results, “people also ask” section, video snippets, “people also search for” section, a “local pack” featuring area businesses, and AI Overviews (usually always at the very top of the page).
If you expand the AI Overviews section, you will be prompted at the bottom of that section to dive even deeper into your subject matter by choosing Google’s new AI Mode.
Search Volume
The average number of times a particular keyword is searched for in a given period, usually a month. This metric is essential for keyword research.
It is also a strong indicator as to how easy or difficult it will be to rank your website or blog high on Google or Bing search results, for a given keyword or keyword phrase.
Short-Tail Keyword
Like it sounds, it is the opposite of a long-tail keyword, on the keyword research spectrum.
These are usually comprised of no more than one or two words. Going back to our long-tail keyword example above, a short-tail version would simply be “running shoes.” These types of keywords have far more search volume (comparing keywords to keywords), are far more difficult to rank well for on SERPs and have a much lower conversion rate compared to long-tail keywords.
They are considered at the top of the marketing funnel – where most searchers are still performing informational or navigational queries and are typically not ready to make a purchase decision at this stage.
Structured Data (aka Schema Markup)
A type of code added to a website to help search engines better understand the content on a page. This can lead to rich snippets, or enhanced search results, that display more detailed information.
Schema markup can be used to highlight a variety of information on a webpage or blog – here are some examples:
- FAQs
- Google Star ratings
- About, profiles and contacts
- Thumbnail images of products
- Brands, pricing, and availability
- Recipes and overall cooking times
- Address, hours of operation, and cuisine type
SEO plugins such as Yoast or Rank Math will have designated fields you can use to add your own schema markup onto each page or post of your site – you do not need to know HTML code.
Technical SEO
There is some overlap between technical and on-page SEO.
Key features to keep in mind for technical SEO include site speed, security protocol (i.e., https), marking canonical URLs, indexability, UX/UI (user experience/user interface) design, sound overall site architecture, website accessibility, and submitting viable XML sitemaps to Google Search Console (GSC).
Topical Authority
Measures expertise and depth of content on a specific topic, like “family boating.” It reflects a website’s authority on a particular subject matter.
This is oftentimes demonstrated by creating pages that are formatted as a “pillar and cluster” model – sometimes referred to as a “hub and spoke” model.
For example:
The pillar page (main topic) might be…
- Recreational boating
This is then supported by cluster pages (subtopics) such as…
- Best boats for navigating shallow water
- How to clean and care for a saltwater boat
- The 10 most popular skiing boats for families
- How to choose a boat for recreational bass fishing
- Boating safety: what every boat owner should know
These cluster pages are typically linked back and forth between the main pillar page.