Are you starting to educate yourself about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Optimization as it’s spelt in different regions and you’re not sure about what all the jargon and acronyms mean? Here is a sure-fire guide to the commonly used SEO terms and their meanings.
301 status code: The code 301 is interpreted as moved permanently. In SEO terms, a 301 redirect is the most Search Engine-friendly method for Web page redirection.
302 status code: A 302 code means that the file has been found, but is temporarily located at another URL. In the context of SEO, it is typically best to avoid using 302 redirects.
404 status code: A 404 code means that the file has not been found. This may occur when there is a dead link on your website, when a page has been moved on your website or someone has typed in the wrong URL to find the page.
Algorithm: The technology that a Search Engine uses to deliver results to a query. The search algorithms are frequently being updated to improve the integrity of search for users.
Alt tags: Stands for alternative text. This is displayed for the benefit of vision impaired users in a web browser and when images are not shown. In the context of SEO, Search Engines cannot read images so they look at the alt text when indexing the page. The alt text should not be a list of keywords but should briefly describe the image.
Anchor text: This is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined) and is used by Search Engines as a ranking factor. Effective use of anchor text involves linking targeted keyword phrases. For example, in this sentence ‘Search Engine Optimisation‘ is the anchor text, which in this case links to the homepage of this site.
Auto-generated pages: Using a script or software program to create thousands of keyword-stuffed pages with content of no value to human readers.
Backlinks (or Back Links): These are incoming links to a website or Web page. Two tools you can use to check backlinks are Google’s Webmaster Tools and Yahoo’s Site Explorer. Not all backlinks have equal weighting.
Bad link neighbourhood: This is a group of non-related sites all linked together in an attempt to strengthen a website’s link profile or build PageRank. The links usually include pharmacy, porn sites, casinos, and so on.
Bing: This is a Search Engine owned by Microsoft.
Black hat SEO: Search Engines have rules which you must abide by if you want your website indexed. Black hat SEO are strategies that do not comply with these rules and guidelines. Find out more about black hat SEO.
Blogs: A company blog is an important part of an SEO strategy. As well as being able to add fresh, updated copy to a website, you can create blog articles that target relevant keywords for your website. Read about the importance of company blogs for SEO.
Bounce rate: Google defines this as the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. This metric is used to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.
Cache: In SEO terms, this refers to the way Search Engines “memorise” or “take a picture” of Web pages, allowing you to quickly navigate to the cached version of a page. This is an indication of the last time a Search Engine spider visited your website.
Call to action: A call to action is copy within text or an image used to encourage a person to complete an action defined by the website such as making a sales enquiry, booking a hotel room or downloading an application form.
Citation: Citations are defined as “mentions” of your business name and address on other webpages. Even if there is no link to your website, the number of citations is a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major Search Engines. If you can complete this with a link and/or anchor text, you will also get some link value coming to your website.
Cloaking: A technique involving the presentation of different content to Search Engine spiders and human visitors. Cloaking is essentially a deceptive practice which will likely get your site banned or penalised by the Search Engines if detected. This is a Black hat SEO technique.
Content: This is also called body text or text. In the context of SEO, content is generally considered to be the readable text within the body of a page underneath the H1 heading as distinguished from subsequent headlines, subheadings, captions of illustrations and so forth.
Conversion: Conversion doesn’t just refer to a direct sale. Conversions are related to the goals you have set up for your website. This could be downloading a brochure, making a sales enquiry, signing up to a newsletter subscription and so forth. This is the rate at which visitors get converted to customers.
CMS: Stands for Content Management System. This is a system that is inbuilt into a website that allows people to create, edit and delete content without needing any knowledge of HTML. Read more about how to choose a SEO friendly CMS.
Crawl: When a Search Engine spider visits your site they are said to “crawl” your site. This is the process of collecting data and returning it to the Search Engine. The more frequently you update your site, the more spiders are encouraged to visit and index new pages.
DMOZ: Also known as The Open Directory Project. DMOZ is a free, human, edited directory run by volunteers. A listing is considered beneficial for SEO, but getting listed can be a real challenge.
Dofollow link: A standard link which hasn’t been Nofollowed. This type of link will pass PageRank or link equity or link juice to another website or page on a website.
Doorway page: A doorway page is a black hat SEO strategy whereby a page is created on a website that has no useful content and exists only to redirect visitors to another area of the site. This is not be confused with a targeted landing page which is a white hat SEO technique.
Duplicate content: This is content that is duplicated on other Web pages and/or other sites. If you have duplicate content on your website for a legitimate reason, you can use robot.txt to direct Search Engines not to index those Web pages.
External link: An inbound link to your site from another site on the Web.
Facebook: This is a popular social networking website. You can share photos, notes, groups, events and posted items with your network.
Feed: A common feature of blogs. This allows readers to subscribe to frequently updated content by adding the feed to their reader software or email client (e.g. Outlook). Feeds are typically created in a format called RSS.
Flash: Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to Web pages. Although Search Engines have gotten better at understanding the content of Flash files, most SEO companies would be reluctant to recommend creating a website that consisted entirely of one Flash file.
Footer: Footer navigation is displayed at the bottom of the page on every Web page. Typically, it appears as a block and be in a different colour to differentiate it from the rest of the site.
Google: Currently the Web’s largest and most influential Search Engine, accounting for the great majority of searches performed.
Google AdWords: This is one of Google’s flagship products and offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. It is located on the right hand side of the page in Google searches.
Google Analytics: A popular analytics tool created by Google to monitor your website statistics. Find out more about Google Analytics’ popular reports and tools.
Googlebot: Google’s Search Engine program which visits your site and returns data to Google. Also known as bots, internet bots, Web robots and Web crawlers.
Google Buzz: This is a social media website which integrates with your existing Gmail account. Find out more about Google Buzz.
Google keyword tool: A popular tool used to find keywords. Find out about other popular keyword research tools.
Google Local Business Listings: See Google Places.
Google Places: Formerly known as Google Local Business Listings, Google Places are different to organic or pay-per-click listings in a Google Search. These listings typically show in Google Searches when the when the user types a service oriented business followed by the city for their search eg ‘Hairdressers Parramatta’. Find out more about Google Places.
Google sitemap: A file placed on your Web server and submitted to Google indicating which pages on your site need to be indexed. See XML sitemap.
Google sitelinks: In some search results Google lists multiple deep links rather than one single link. See example below.
Google Social Search: When you are logged into your Gmail account, it combines Search Engines results with your social media networks such as Twitter, Digg and blogs. Find out more about Google Social Search.
Headings (heading tags): In the context of SEO, heading tags can be used to seamlessly insert keywords. Heading tags are constructed in HTML using a H1 to H6 tag. Styling can be modified using CSS. Headings are also important for readability on a Web page and breaking up text.
HTML: Stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is one of the most popular programming languages to develop websites.
Image SEO: Stands for image Search Engine Optimisation and is important for optimising your images. Search Engines cannot read images, they can only read text. Read more about image SEO.
Inbound links: An external link from another site to your site. The amount of quality inbound links to your site is one of the most important criteria used by Search Engines to rank Web pages.
Index: A Search Engine’s database in which it stores textual content from every web page that its spiders visit.
Internal links: Links from a page on your site to another internal page on your site. Internal link building is important in building a natural link profile. Search Engines also use internal text links to crawl pages within a website.
International SEO: International SEO, otherwise known as global SEO or multilingual SEO, is an important component to an effective global Internet marketing campaign. Find out more about international SEO strategies.
Internet Explorer (IE): This is one of the most widely used Web browsers.
Invisible text: This is putting keyword-stuffed text in the same colour as the background so it is invisible to human readers but not to Search Engines. This is a Black hat SEO technique.
JavaScripts: JavaScript is a client-side scripting language. It can be embedded into HTML documents to create and add dynamic features to static pages. Search Engines find it more difficult to read JavaScript than HTML.
Keywords: Sometimes called Search Engine keywords. These are the words or phrases (long tail keywords) that web surfers type into a Search Engine. Read more about how to find the right keywords for your SEO strategy.
Keyword density: This measures how many times a keyword or keyword phrase is used in the content of the page.
Keyword stuffing: This is when keywords are inserted too frequently, unnaturally and out of context on the Web page for the purpose of artificially boosting the page’s ranking in Search Engines. This can lead to penalties if a website is seen to be manipulating the Search Engines.
Keyword research: This is a process to find the right keywords and monitor your ongoing keyword strategy. Find out more about keyword research tools.
Keyword rich: This is the aim of SEO copywriting; to achieve a balance of using keywords in a natural, seamless way within the text.
KPI: Stands for key performance indicators. These are benchmarks set by a company to measure performance.
Landing page: In the context of SEO, this is a page created on a web site which targets a specific keyword(s). A landing page will typically include the keyword phrase in the title, description, headings, links and body content of the page. Read more about how to optimise landing pages.
Links: In SEO terms, this is generally considered to be inbound links to your site. In basic terms, a Search Engine considers a link as validation of your website and factors this into its ranking algorithm.
‘Authority’ gained by a webpage through quality incoming links. This is for instance expressed in the PageRank given by Google. Also referred to as link equity.
Link bait: Content which is informative, engaging and interesting and encourages other websites to link to it and increase your link profile.
Link building: This is the process of acquiring inbound links to your website to create a natural link profile. This is an essential part of your SEO strategy. Read more about link building.
LinkedIn: One of the biggest professional networking Social Media sites.
Link Equity: See link authority above.
Link juice: Not all links have equal value. This is the value a Search Engine places on a link to your site. Some links will have a significant effect on your rankings e.g. from a high authority, trustworthy and quality site, while other links will have no value at all.
Link farm: In SEO, a link farm is any group of web sites that all hyperlink to every other site in the group for the purposes of inflating link authority/equity. This is known as a black hat SEO strategy.
Long tail keywords: This is the strategy of targeting less competitive niche keywords rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords. An example of a short tail keyword is ‘gyms Bondi’ while a long tail keyword is ‘female only gyms Bondi’. Long tail keywords usually have a lower search volume but a higher conversion rate. Read more about how to optimise pages for long tail keywords.
Meta tags (Metatags): HTML code which Search Engines read and use in various ways such as meta descriptions and meta keywords. Some meta tags have become less relevant throughout the years e.g. the meta keywords tag carries little or no weight.
Meta description: This provides a summary of the page content. Search Engines often use the meta description to display in their search results just below the title tag.
Meta keywords: A list of keywords relevant to the page which Search Engines read and use in various ways. Google has openly said they do not use the ‘keywords meta tag’ in their Web search ranking.
Mozilla Firefox: This is a free and open source web browser that has steadily grown in popularity over the last few years.
Nofollowed link: A link which carries the rel=”nofollow” attribute – this is implemented within common platforms such as WordPress to avoid comment spam. A link with the rel=”nofollow” attribute, doesn’t carry any weight, and doesn’t count towards your overall PageRank.
Organic Search: These are unpaid search results delivered by Search Engines. This is a long term strategy to improve brand visibility and rankings in Search Engines. Find out more about organic search or organic SEO.
PageRank (PR): As defined by Google, PageRank reflects their view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that they believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.
PPC (Pay per click): Pay Per click is where an advertiser bids on keywords associated with an advertisement in order to achieve higher position on Search Engine results pages (sponsored links section) for searches on that keyword. Also known as Paid Search. Find out how PPC can work with SEO campaigns.
Penalty: A drop in your Search Engine ranking when you have broken the Search Engine’s guidelines with black hat SEO – trying to manipulate the Search Engines or artificially boost your ranking. Read more about what to do is your website is penalised or banned by Google.
Ranking: This is the rank given by a Search Engine on the basis of its relevance to the keyword search, authenticity and popularity.
Reciprocal linking: The process of exchanging links from your website to another website.
Robots.txt: A robots.txt is a permissions file that can be used to control which web pages of a website you want a Search Engine to index. The text file must be placed in a websites root directory.
ROI (return on investment): The benefit gained in return for the cost of investing budget into advertising or project expressed as a percentage or ratio. To calculate ROI, use the following formula: “Total Revenues (generated from campaign or project) minus cost of investment divided by cost of investment.”
RSS feed: This stands for Rich Site Summary or Rich Site Syndication. RSS feeds can be read using software called an RSS reader or feed reader which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based.
Search Engines: A Search Engine is a web portal to find information on the internet through using keyword searches. Major Search Engines include Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Search Engine banning: This is when your website has been removed from a Search Engine indexes. Do a site search in Google by typing in ‘site:yoursite.com’ and see if Google returns any results.
SEM: Stands for Search Engine Marketing. This is a form of Internet marketing which includes all aspects of building traffic through search, including natural (organic) Search Engine Optimisation and PPC (pay per click) Search Engine advertising.
SEO: Search Engine Optimisation (Optimization). This focuses on natural (organic) Search Engine ranking. See below.
SEO audit: An SEO Audit is like a health check for your website. It looks at the technical infrastructure of your website, the on-page elements and off-page essentials to maximise any Search Engine Optimisation activities.
Search Engine Optimisation (also spelled optimization): In basic terms, the process of optimising a page through it’s on-page content, structure and link profile to rank highly for specific search queries. In broader terms, SEO can increase revenues & profits for businesses marketing their products or services online.
SEO consultants: Act as a business consultant and partner with you to reach your Search Engine Optimisation goals. Also known as SEO experts. Read more about what really makes an SEO expert.
SEO copywriting: SEO copywriting is copy written for a website that is keyword rich and designed to attract Search Engines spiders but still be compelling and interesting for readers. Find out more about SEO copywriting.
SEO toolbars: Toolbars that can be downloaded and integrated seamlessly with your Web browser to give you important SEO resources at your fingertips to optimise your website and analyse your competitor’s websites. Read more about SEO Toolbars.
SERP: This stands for Search Engine Result Page. This is the list of links and descriptions listed by a Search Engine in response to a keyword query.
Social bookmarking: A sub-category to Social Media that allows you to share, organise and manage your bookmarks, or favourite websites, with other users that use the same social bookmarking tool, such as Delicious, Stumbleupon and Digg.
Social Media: This is sometimes described as Web 2.0 and used to describe user generated websites and blogs that encourage engagement and allow interaction. Popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.
Social networking: A sub-category to Social Media encompassing ‘networking’ activities and includes social networks such as Facebook.
Spider: Sometimes called Search Engine spiders. These are programs written to scour the web automatically for various reasons (to index web pages, for spam detection, etc.) aka web robots, web crawlers, bots, internet bots.
Technorati: Technorati is one of the biggest blog Search Engines.
Title Tag: This is also known as the meta title. It is shown at the top of a browser window and is considered to be very important in on-page SEO.
Traffic: This refers to the number of visitors to your website. A program like Google Analytics can help you monitor traffic on your website.
Twitter: Twitter is a popular social media networking site that lets you write and read messages of up to 140 characters.
URL: This stands for Uniform Resource Locator. This is the Web address of a document and an important on-page element for Search Engine Optimisation.
XML Sitemap: A list of pages you want the Search Engines to find. This is created in XML format and submitted to the Search Engines.
VSEO: This stands for Video Search Engine Optimisation and is the process of optimising videos to drive traffic to your website. Find out more about Video Search Engine Optimisation.
Web 2.0: This refers to social media websites which encourage user generated content and social interaction online. Popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.
White hat SEO: This is a process of boosting your Search Engine ranking by using methods approved by Search Engines. Read more about white hat SEO.
WordPress: WordPress is an excellent open source web publishing system or content management system. Find out more about how WordPress SEO can benefit your website.
Yahoo!: One of the oldest and established Search Engines.
YouTube: A video hosting website owned by Google. Find out more about how to optimise your YouTube videos.
Contact us if any SEO terms need clarification or you would like any SEO terms to be added to the list. Alternatively find out more about our SEO Packages and SEO Services and how our SEO experts can partner with you in your business to increase your Search Engine visibility and improve your bottom line.
