SEO
GLOSSARY.

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect status code indicating that a resource has moved to a new URL permanently. It passes full ranking power (link equity) to the new URL.

A 404 Not Found error is an HTTP status code indicating that the server could not find the requested webpage. This occurs when URLs are broken, pages are deleted, or links are incorrectly typed.

The 410 Gone status code tells search engines that the requested resource has been permanently deleted and will not be returning.

The 500 Internal Server Error is a generic HTTP status code that indicates something has gone wrong on the website's server, but the server cannot be more specific about what the exact problem is.

The 503 Service Unavailable status code indicates that the server is temporarily unable to handle the request, usually due to maintenance or overloading.

Alt text (alternative text) describes an image on a webpage. It appears if the image fails to load and helps screen-reading tools describe images to visually impaired readers.

The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. Search engines use anchor text to understand the context and topic of the destination page.

Links from one website to a page on another website. Also known as "inbound links" or "incoming links," they are one of the most important ranking factors for Google.

Breadcrumbs are a secondary navigation scheme that reveals the user's location in a website or web application (e.g., Home > Men > Shoes > Boots).

A broken link (dead link) is a hyperlink on a webpage that points to a non-existent destination, usually resulting in a 404 error.

A canonical tag (rel="canonical") is an HTML snippet that definitively tells search engines which version of a URL is the "master" copy to index, preventing duplicate content penalties.

Client-Side Rendering is a method where the browser downloads a minimal HTML file and uses JavaScript to fetch data and build the page content dynamically in the user's browser.

Content freshness is a ranking signal that prioritizes recently published or updated content for queries where timeliness matters.

Core Web Vitals are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage's overall user experience, specifically focusing on loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.

The most important, comprehensive articles on your website. They are the high-value pages you want to rank for your hardest keywords and serve as the foundation of your content strategy.

Crawl budget is the number of pages search engine bots (like Googlebot) are willing and able to crawl on your website within a specific timeframe.

A search engine ranking score (developed by Moz) that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). Scores range from 1 to 100.

Duplicate content refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is part of Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines used to evaluate the quality of search results.

A favicon (short for "favorite icon") is the small 16x16 pixel image shown in browser tabs, bookmark lists, and increasingly, in Google mobile search results.

A featured snippet (or "Position Zero") is a summary of an answer to a user's query, which is displayed on top of Google search results.

A free tool provided by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site's presence in Google Search results.

Heading tags (H1 to H6) are HTML elements used to define headings and subheadings on a webpage, providing structure and hierarchy to content.

The hreflang attribute (rel="alternate" hreflang="x") is the signal that tells Google which language or regional version of a page to serve to a user based on their location and browser settings.

Internal linking is the practice of hyperlinking one page on a domain to another page on the same domain. It helps distribute link equity, establish site hierarchy, and improve crawlability for search engines.

Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on your website compete for the same keyword ranking, confusing Google and diluting your site's authority.

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page.

The process of finding and analyzing search terms that people enter into search engines. The goal is to use this data for a specific purpose, often for SEO or general marketing.

Google's massive database of real-world entities (people, places, things) and the relationships between them. It powers the "Knowledge Panels" seen in search results.

Lazy loading is a technique that defers the loading of non-critical resources (like images or videos) until they are needed (i.e., when they scroll into view).

A slang term in SEO that refers to the value or equity passed from one page to another via hyperlinks. This value flows through your site and helps pages rank.

Highly specific search queries that tend to have lower search volumes but higher conversion rates. They are often 3+ words long.

A meta description is an HTML tag that summarizes a page's content. Search engines often use it as the snippet text displayed beneath the headline in search results.

Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. Sites must ensure their mobile pages contain all important content and structured data.

A nofollow link is a hyperlink with a rel="nofollow" tag. It tells search engines "Do not follow this link" and "Do not pass authority (PageRank) to this site."

Open Graph (OG) tags control how your URLs are displayed when shared on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

An orphan page is a webpage that has no internal links pointing to it. It is isolated from the rest of the site's structure, making it hard for users and bots to find.

Pagination is the process of dividing content across a series of pages (e.g., "Page 1 of 10"), often used for e-commerce categories or blog archives.

Readability refers to how easy it is for a visitor to read and understand your text. It is influenced by sentence length, vocabulary complexity, and formatting.

The robots.txt file is the gatekeeper of your website. It provides instructions to web crawlers (like Googlebot) on which pages they are allowed to access and which they must avoid.

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page, the page displayed by Google or other search engines in response to a user's query. It includes organic listings, ads, featured snippets, and knowledge panels.

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) uses SSL/TLS encryption to secure the data transferred between a user's browser and your website server.

Search intent is the "why" behind a search query, representing the user's primary goal when typing a phrase into Google. Understanding intent helps create content that matches what users actually want to find.

HTTP security headers are response headers sent by your server that strictly enforce security policies in the user's browser, preventing attacks like XSS, Clickjacking, and Code Injection.

Server-Side Rendering is a method where the server constructs the full HTML page with all content populated before sending it to the browser.

A Soft 404 occurs when a server returns a success code (200 OK) for a page that doesn't exist or has little to no content, confusing search engines.

Structured data is a standardized code format (Schema.org) added to a webpage to help search engines understand the specific type of content (e.g., "This is a Recipe," "This is a Review," "This is a Product").

Thin content refers to pages with very little or low-value content that offer minimal value to the user (e.g., automatically generated pages, scraped content, or empty pages).

Time to First Byte (TTFB) measures the time between the browser requesting a page and receiving the very first byte of information from the server.

The title tag is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. It is displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline.

An SEO strategy that focuses on owning a broad topic rather than just targeting individual keywords. It involves creating a main "pillar" page and multiple supporting "cluster" pages interlinked together.

A trailing slash is the forward slash "/" at the end of a URL (e.g., example.com/page/ vs example.com/page). Inconsistent use can create duplicate content issues, so pick one format and use 301 redirects.

Twitter Cards are meta tags that allow you to attach rich photos, videos, and media experiences to Tweets, driving more traffic to your website.

An XML Sitemap is a formatted file that lists every essential URL on your website, acting as a roadmap for search engine crawlers to discover and index your content efficiently.

YMYL stands for "Your Money or Your Life." It refers to web pages that could potentially impact a person's future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.