
What SEO Terms Do You Need to Know?
Numbers
2xx status codes– A code sent by the server to indicate that the request was successful.
HTML301 Redirect – Permanently redirecting a webpage to another URL.
302 – Temporarily redirecting a webpage to another URL.
4xx status codes– A code sent by the server to inform the user that the request was rejected and that the information was not available.
5xx status code – A code sent by the server to indicate a problem with the server.
A
Accelerated mobile pages (AMP) – A Google open source project that helps publishers create optimized web pages for all devices.
Alt Text/Alt Attribute describes an image on your website’s HTML. Search engines, unlike humans, only read the ALT text and not the images. If possible, add ALT text to images.
Anchor text – This is the actual text of a hyperlink to a webpage. This text will be underlined and dark blue on most websites. If you have visited the site before, it may also be purple. Search engines use anchor text to help them understand the destination page. It describes what you will find if you click through.
Authority – search engine’s algorithm determines how reliable a website is.
B
Backlink – A link that points to an external website.
Black Hat – Practices that are against Google’s webmaster guidelines.
A website that contains blog posts about specific topics or industries.
Bookmark– A link to a website that you have saved to your computer or web browser for future reference.
Bot – A software program that can be programmed to perform specific tasks.
Bounce rate – The number of people who leave a page after viewing only one page.
Branded keyword – A search query (keyword) that refers specifically to a brand. E.g., “Nike shoes.”
Breadcrumb – A link that shows you where you are located on a website and how far away you are from it.
Broken Link – A link that takes you to a page with a 404 error. This happens if a website is removed without a redirect.
Browser – Software that allows access to information and data over the internet. Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox are the most popular browsers.
C
Cache – This storage area stores temporary data to speed up the loading of websites, apps and browsers.
Canonical URL The canonical URL is the best address where a user can access a piece of information. Sometimes the same page content may be accessible at multiple addresses. Search engines can identify the best address to access a piece of content by specifying the canonical URL.
ccTLD – This stands for country-code top-level domain and is used for delineating the domain for a particular country or region. E.g., www.mysite.co.uk
Cloaking is a black hat technique that displays different information on a website than expected.
Conversion form – This is a form that collects information about site visitors. Conversion forms turn traffic into leads. You can follow up on these leads by collecting contact information.
Crawler – Search engines use this program to collect information about websites and index them accurately.
CSS (Cascading Stil Sheets) This part of your code determines how different elements on your site will look (examples are headers and links).
D
Deep Link refers to either a link to the content in a mobile app or a link to a page other than a homepage.
Deindex – A search engine that removes a webpage or website from its search results.
Disavow – You tell Google to ignore low-quality, artificial, spammy, or otherwise inappropriate links.
Dofollow A hyperlink that instructs search engines not to use the “nofollow” attribute but the Link.
Domain The primary web address for your site (example: http://www.yoursite.com).
E
External Link – A hyperlink that points to a page on another domain. This is also called a backlink.
F
Highlighted Snippet These are highlighted excerpts that appear at the top of Google search results. They are also known as position 0.
The Fold — The “fold” on your website is where the page becomes cut by the bottom or browser window of the user’s monitor. You can scroll to anything below the fold, but it is not visible right away. Because new visitors will see it immediately, search engines prioritize content above the fold.