Glossary
SEO terms, explained simply
Clear definitions of the words you will hear from clients and agencies, with examples of how each one shows up in real work.
35 terms. Results filter as you type; search also matches definitions and explanations.
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- 301 redirect
- A permanent redirect from one URL to another. A 301 redirect is like a change-of-address card. Visitors and search engines going to the old address are sent to the new one automatically. Use 301s for permanent moves; they consolidate signals to the target URL. Redirect to the closest relevant page, update internal links to the final URL and avoid chains and loops. /old-menu/ redirecting to /menu/. Redirecting http:// to https:// sitewide.
- 404 error
- The response a server gives when a page cannot be found. A 404 is the "page not found" message. It happens when a page was deleted, moved without a redirect, or the link has a typo. 404s for truly removed content are normal. Problems arise when important pages 404, internal links point to 404s, or valuable backlinks land on them; redirect those to the closest relevant page. /sale/ returning 404 after a promotion ended. A typo in a navigation link.
A
- Alt text
- A written description of an image, added in the image’s HTML. Alt text describes an image for people who cannot see it, like screen reader users. Search engines read it too, to understand the picture. Write alt text for accessibility first: describe the image’s content and purpose concisely. Decorative images should have empty alt attributes. Keyword stuffing alt text helps no one. alt="Plumber replacing a kitchen sink trap". alt="" on a decorative divider image.
- Anchor text
- The clickable words in a link. Anchor text is the blue, underlined part of a link. It tells readers, and search engines, what they will find if they click. Descriptive anchors help search engines understand the linked page. Use varied, natural anchors for internal links; exact-match anchors in many external links can look manipulative. "Teeth whitening prices" linking to the pricing page. Avoid vague anchors like "click here" or "read more".
B
- Backlink
- A link from another website to yours. When another website links to yours, that link is a backlink. It works a bit like a recommendation: the more trusted sites recommend you, the more search engines trust you. Backlinks remain a major ranking signal. Relevance and the linking site’s quality matter far more than volume. Paid links and link schemes violate search engine guidelines. A local news site linking to a bakery’s opening story. A travel blog linking to a packing checklist.
C
- Canonical tag
- A tag that tells search engines which version of a page is the main one. Sometimes the same page can be reached at several addresses. The canonical tag points to the one you want to show up in search. rel="canonical" is a strong hint, not a directive. Use self-referencing canonicals on indexable pages and point parameter or duplicate URLs to the preferred version. Canonicals pointing to non-indexable or redirected URLs send mixed signals. /shop/mug?color=blue with a canonical to /shop/mug/. A syndicated article pointing back to the original.
- Citation
- Any online mention of a business’s name, address and phone number. A citation is a listing of your business details on another website, like Yelp or a local directory. Structured citations (directories) and unstructured ones (news, blogs) both help confirm a business exists where it says. Quality and accuracy matter more than quantity. A dentist’s listing on Healthgrades. A mention in a local newspaper article.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- The percentage of impressions that turn into clicks. If 100 people see your result and 5 click it, your click-through rate is 5%. CTR depends heavily on position and SERP features. Compare CTR for similar positions; improve it with clearer titles and meta descriptions that match intent. 60 clicks from 1,200 impressions is a 5% CTR.
- Core Web Vitals
- Google’s metrics for loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability. Core Web Vitals measure whether a page feels fast and smooth: does the main content load quickly, react quickly when tapped and stay still while loading? Currently LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), INP (Interaction to Next Paint) and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), measured from real Chrome users. They are part of page experience signals; relevance still matters more, but poor scores hurt users and conversions. A hero image that loads late, hurting LCP. Ads that push content down, hurting CLS.
- Crawl budget
- How many pages a search engine is willing and able to crawl on a site in a given time. Search engines will not read every page of a site every day. Crawl budget is how much attention your site gets, so you want that attention spent on important pages. Mostly a concern for large sites (tens of thousands of URLs or more). Waste comes from faceted navigation, parameters, redirect chains and soft 404s. Improve it with clean internal linking, accurate sitemaps and blocking low-value URL patterns. An online store generating thousands of filter URLs. Old redirect chains that crawlers keep following.
- Crawling
- The process of search engine bots discovering and fetching pages. Search engines send programs called bots that follow links from page to page, reading what they find. That reading is called crawling. Discovery happens through links and sitemaps. Crawling is limited by robots.txt, server responses and crawl capacity. A page must be crawled before it can be indexed, but crawling does not guarantee indexing. Googlebot following a new link from your homepage. A page blocked in robots.txt that cannot be crawled.
D
- Domain authority
- A third-party score that estimates a website’s overall link strength. Domain authority is a number some SEO tools use to guess how strong a website is, mostly based on its links. Metrics like Moz DA, Ahrefs DR or Semrush Authority Score are tool-specific estimates, not Google metrics. Use them to compare sites quickly, never as a goal or a guarantee of rankings. Comparing link prospects by their authority score. A DR of 45 meaning nothing to Google directly.
- Duplicate content
- The same or very similar content available at more than one URL. When the same text appears on several pages or addresses, search engines have to guess which one to show. Usually not a penalty, but it splits signals and wastes crawling. Fix with canonicals, redirects, consistent internal links and unique copy for templated pages. Product pages reachable with and without tracking parameters. Location pages with only the city name changed.
E
- E-E-A-T
- Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness: how Google’s raters judge content quality. E-E-A-T is a way of asking: does this content come from someone who knows what they are talking about, and can readers trust it? E-E-A-T comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines; it is a framework rather than a single ranking factor. Show it with real author bios, first-hand experience, accurate sourcing and clear business information, especially on health and money topics. A dentist reviewing dental care articles, with a bio. Case studies with real photos from the business.
F
- Featured snippet
- A highlighted answer shown at the top of some search results. Sometimes Google shows a short answer in a box above the normal results, taken from one website. That box is a featured snippet. Snippets usually come from pages already ranking on page one. Clear question-style headings followed by a concise 40–60 word answer, list or table improve eligibility. Snippets can raise or lower clicks depending on whether the answer fully satisfies the query. "How long to boil an egg" showing a short answer box. A numbered list snippet for "how to clean a cast iron pan".
G
- Google Business Profile
- A free listing that shows a business on Google Maps and in local results. Google Business Profile is the box with a business’s hours, phone, reviews and photos that appears when you search for it or for local services. The profile is the core of local visibility. Choose the most specific primary category, keep NAP and hours accurate, add services, photos and posts, and respond to reviews. Relevance, distance and prominence drive local rankings. A plumber’s profile with services, photos and 4.8-star reviews. Updating holiday hours before Thanksgiving.
H
- H1 heading
- The main heading of a page, usually its visible title. The H1 is the biggest headline on the page. It tells readers what the page is about at a glance. Use one clear H1 per page that matches the topic and complements the title tag. Structure the rest with H2s and H3s in order, without skipping levels, for readability and accessibility. H1: "Emergency Plumbing in Austin". Avoid using an H1 for the logo on every page.
I
- Impressions
- How many times a page appeared in search results. An impression is counted each time your page shows up in someone’s search results, even if they do not click. In Search Console, impressions count each time a URL is shown on a loaded results page. Rising impressions with flat clicks often point to lower positions or weak titles. 1,200 impressions and 60 clicks for a service page in a month.
- Indexing
- Adding a page to a search engine’s database so it can appear in results. After reading a page, a search engine decides whether to store it in its library. Only stored (indexed) pages can show up when people search. Pages can be crawled but not indexed because of noindex, canonicalization, duplication or low quality. Use Search Console’s page indexing report to see why URLs are excluded. A new blog post showing in Search Console as "Indexed". A thank-you page intentionally set to noindex.
- Internal link
- A link from one page to another page on the same website. Internal links connect your own pages, helping visitors find related content and helping search engines understand which pages matter. Internal links distribute link equity and context. Link from relevant, high-authority pages with descriptive anchors; make sure important pages are no more than a few clicks from the homepage and avoid orphan pages. A blog post linking to the related service page. A "related products" section on a product page.
K
- Keyword cannibalization
- When several pages on one site compete for the same search. If two of your own pages chase the same keyword, they can get in each other’s way, and neither ranks as well as one strong page would. Spot it when rankings flip between URLs for one query. Fix by merging content, differentiating intent, adjusting internal links or canonicalizing to the preferred page. Two blog posts both targeting "dog harness sizes". A service page and a blog post fighting for "teeth whitening cost".
- Keyword difficulty
- A tool’s estimate of how hard it is to rank for a keyword. Keyword difficulty is a score (often 0–100) that guesses how much competition you will face. Higher means harder. Each tool calculates difficulty differently, usually from the backlink profiles of ranking pages, so scores are not comparable across tools. Validate by reviewing the actual results: page quality, intent match and site strength. A score of 12 for "bakery open sunday [city]". A score of 78 for "best running shoes".
L
- Local pack
- The map and short list of businesses shown for local searches. When you search for something like "pizza near me", Google often shows a small map with three businesses. That is the local pack. Rankings in the pack are driven by relevance, distance and prominence (reviews, links, citations). Pack positions can take most clicks for local-intent queries. "emergency plumber" showing a map with three plumbers. "coffee shop open now" showing nearby cafes.
- Long-tail keyword
- A longer, more specific search phrase with fewer searches but clearer intent. Instead of "shoes", a long-tail search is "waterproof trail running shoes for women". Fewer people search it, but they know exactly what they want. Long-tail queries make up most searches. They are usually easier to rank for and convert well. Group related long-tail variations into one page instead of creating a page for each. "gluten free birthday cake delivery austin". "how to fix a leaking kitchen faucet".
M
- Meta description
- A short page summary that can appear under the title in search results. The meta description is the little paragraph you often see under a result’s blue title. It is your pitch for why someone should click. Not a direct ranking factor, but it influences click-through rate. Google may rewrite it to match the query. Aim for roughly 150–155 characters, match the page content and give a clear reason to click. "Professional teeth whitening in Denver. Brighter results in one visit. Book a free consultation online."
N
- NAP consistency
- Keeping a business’s Name, Address and Phone identical everywhere online. NAP stands for name, address and phone. If they are written differently on different websites, search engines (and customers) get confused about which is right. Consistent NAP across the website, Business Profile and major directories supports local trust. Match formatting as closely as possible and fix outdated listings after moves or rebrands. "12 Main St" on one site and "12 Main Street, Suite 2" on another. An old phone number still listed on a directory.
- Nofollow
- A link attribute that tells search engines not to pass credit through a link. Adding rel="nofollow" to a link is like saying "I am linking to this, but I am not vouching for it." Google treats nofollow, sponsored and ugc as hints. Use rel="sponsored" for paid links and rel="ugc" for user-generated content. Nofollow links can still send traffic and help discovery. Links in blog comments marked ugc or nofollow. An affiliate link marked sponsored.
O
- Organic traffic
- Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results. Organic traffic is people who found the website by searching and clicking a normal result, not an ad. Measured in analytics as the Organic Search channel. Evaluate it alongside conversions and compare like-for-like periods to account for seasonality. Sessions from Google search to a blog post. Not organic: clicks on a Google Ads result.
R
- robots.txt
- A file that tells search engine bots which parts of a site they may crawl. robots.txt is a small text file at the root of a website with rules for bots, like "please do not go into this folder". Disallow controls crawling, not indexing; a blocked URL can still be indexed if linked. Never block CSS or JS needed for rendering. To keep a page out of the index, allow crawling and use noindex. Disallow: /cart/ Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
S
- Schema markup
- Code that describes page content to search engines in a standard format. Schema markup is extra code that labels information on a page, like "this is a recipe" or "these are business hours", so search engines understand it exactly. Structured data (usually JSON-LD using schema.org) can make pages eligible for rich results. It must match visible content and follow search engine guidelines; it does not guarantee rich results. LocalBusiness markup with hours and address. FAQ or Product markup on eligible pages.
- Search intent
- The goal behind a search: what the person actually wants. Two people can type similar words but want different things. Search intent is figuring out whether they want to learn, compare, buy or find a specific site. Commonly grouped as informational, navigational, commercial and transactional. The current results page is the best evidence of intent. A page that does not match intent rarely ranks, however well optimized. "how to groom a dog" is informational. "dog groomer near me" is transactional.
- Search volume
- An estimate of how many times a keyword is searched per month. Search volume tells you roughly how popular a search is. Higher volume means more people are looking for it. Volumes are estimates, often rounded averages, and vary by tool. Use them to compare keywords, not to forecast traffic precisely, and consider seasonality and intent. "birthday cake" with a much higher volume than "vegan birthday cake delivery".
- SERP
- Search engine results page: the page you see after searching. SERP is short for search engine results page. It includes the blue links, plus extras like maps, images, videos and answer boxes. SERP features (local pack, featured snippets, People Also Ask, shopping) change how much traffic organic positions get. Always analyze the SERP before choosing a page format. A local pack with three businesses above the regular results. A People Also Ask box under the first result.
T
- Title tag
- The HTML title of a page, usually shown as the clickable headline in search results. The title tag is the page’s name for search engines. It is usually the blue headline people click in the results. One of the strongest on-page relevance signals. Keep it unique, lead with the primary topic, and aim for about 50–60 characters to avoid truncation. Google may rewrite titles that are vague, stuffed or mismatched. "Teeth Whitening in Denver | BrightSmile Dental". Avoid "Home" or "Services" as a whole title.
X
- XML sitemap
- A file that lists the pages you want search engines to find. An XML sitemap is a list of a website’s important pages, made for search engines rather than people. It helps them discover pages they might otherwise miss. List only canonical, indexable URLs that return 200. Submit it in Search Console and reference it in robots.txt. A sitemap aids discovery but does not guarantee indexing. /sitemap.xml listing all product and blog pages. Removing redirected URLs from the sitemap after a migration.
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