SEO Glossary Terms Pages 31-45

Paid search engine result

A Google feature where you pay for a position at the top or bottom of the SERP's sponsored ad section by using Ads or Google shopping.

Long tail keyword

A highly specific phrase (usually three or more words) that matches what you are selling/offering. They are usually used by people close to the point-of-purchase and thus have a much higher conversion rate than one-word, high search volume keywords.

Keyword funnel

Based on customer intent and what stage of the buying process they are currently in, the customer's search terms change. We can categorize our keywords by these buying stages and optimize the specific landing pages to increase conversion.

Page Authority (PA)

Domain authority measures how well the website will perform in SERPs and how competitive it is compared to other sites in its niche and page authority does the same but for an individual page. This is where your internal link strategy comes into play, as a page closer to the top of the hierarchy with multiple pages linking to it, will be given more importance and a higher PA than those further down.

Link equity (Link authority, Backlink authority, Link juice, Link value)

Link equity refers to the notion of a link influencing the rank of a website. It is a term describing the process of one-page passing authority or value to another through the use of hyperlinks.

Outbound link (Outgoing link, External link)

Links that lead away from your website. They affect your SEO as they help the search engine understand your niche and improve the trustworthiness and quality of your content.

Off-page SEO

Refers to all the actions that improve your websites ranking in the SERPs that were not done on the webpage itself. Included here is link-building and marketing for the sake of exposure in the form of guest posting or social media marketing.

Keyword Proximity

Refers to how close the keywords are on the page. As an example, if the search term contains multiple words like "SEO tool for bloggers", then the distance between the 3 relevant words is checked in the content and the closer they are together the more relevance the web page gets.

keyword prominence

Refers to how important or noticeable the keyword is. Prominent placement is at the start (or near the start) of the title, headings, meta description, and the opening paragraph.

Link popularity

Refers to the total number of backlinks a website has. Every backlink is counted separately, even if it comes from the same website.

Keyword frequency (Term frequency)

Similar to keyword density, but this time we measure the total number the keyword was used on a web page. The amount of content on the web page is of no importance in this case.

Keyword cannibalization

Using the same keyword for multiple web pages. This damages your SEO as you basically compete for rank positions and traffic with yourself.

Linkbait

Valuable content that other websites will naturally link to. It is unique, high in quality and informative, with a tendency to go viral. Hard to achieve, but exceptionally beneficial for SEO.

Link burst

A Link burst is when you gather a big number of backlinks in a short amount of time. It can be a cause for a red flag for the search engine because it could indicate that you are using a link farm or SEO services that are creating link spam. Alternatively, it is ok to have high link velocity on a web page with content that went viral.

Lost link

A backlink that stopped passing link equity to your website. This happens due to removal by the owner of the other website or moving of the page where the link was or where it was pointing to.

Manual action (Google manual action penalty)

A big Google penalty where a human reviewer concluded that your website did not follow Google's webmaster quality guidelines. A site that receives a manual action either gets their rank greatly reduced or they get removed from the SERPs completely. You should then try to repair the issues and apply for reconsideration when everything is fixed. You can check if your site has a manual action (and which pages are affected) here: https://search.google.com/search-console/manual-actions

Keyword stuffing (Keyword spam)

A black hat SEO tactic where a certain keyword is repeated over and over again on the same page in order to deceive the search engine spiders that the content is relevant for this keyword. What is most characteristic about it is that the keyword is placed into the content unnaturally creating a spammy text that will not bring value to anyone reading it.

Page cloaking (Website cloaking, IP cloaking)

A black hat SEO technique where the search engine is presented with a version of content that is different from that which the visitor sees. This is done by delivering content based on the user's IP address.

Opt-out

A clear statement by the user wanting to be removed from a mailing list. Usually done via an unsubscribe button in the mail itself or adjusting settings in a profile. Most countries have legislation set in place that obligates the sender to give a clear chance for the user to stop

Link profile (Backlink profile)

A common term for all the links that point to your website. Whether a link profile is good or bad will depend on the value of incoming links, proper use of alt tags and anchor text and link diversity.

Mirror site

A complete replica of a website, placed on a different URL. They are used when the original website generates too much traffic for the server to support. Mirror sites serve the population in different locations (different continents) and ensure a good user experience and fast page load.

Local search

A geographically constrained search that displays businesses that meet with their customers directly (usually physical stores or service providers) based on their and the user's location.

Link diversity

A link building strategy where you try to collect an array of links from different types of websites (blogs, news, directories, social media) and different domains (.com, .edu) with various anchor text, as well as having both "nofollow" and "dofollow" links. Not all SEO experts agree that this is important, but it does give a signal of a natural link profile where a certain type of link isn't being represented more than the other.

Relative URL (Relative link, Relative path)

A link used for internal linking. It is a short path to a file, HTML page, image or something else we link to. This link is used as a part of the anchor tag but doesn't contain a protocol or domain name. Example of an anchor tag using a relative path: <a href="/images/logo.png">Our logo</a> There are two types of paths used in internal linking - one being the relative and the other absolute. There is, however, no indication that one is more beneficial than the other in terms of SEO.

Pull marketing

A marketing approach that tries to draw customers in using unobtrusive methods. The potential customer is in the decision part of the buying process and is actively searching for a product or service. We just need to make sure that our product is displayed before them at that time and this we do by optimizing for the same keywords the potential customer is typing into the search bar when trying to find the wanted product or service. This strategy has a higher conversion rate than the traditional (push) marketing and often creates loyal customers or followers.

Meta refresh (Meta refresh tag, Meta redirect)

A meta tag that instructs the browser to refresh a page after a certain amount of time. Usually used to refresh dynamic content on a web page (like the number in "Only 10 left!"). They were also used as a method of redirecting but this method is slow and not recommended for the sake of your SEO. You should use 301 redirect instead.

Meta keywords

A metadata element that was used to inform search engine spiders about the relevant keywords of a webpage. It was widely abused with websites trying to manipulate the search engines and naming keywords that were not relevant to the content. This is only one of the reasons why the meta keywords are no longer used as a ranking signal. Nowadays, you should avoid using meta keywords as the effect they have on your SEO is most likely negative.

Link spam (Blog spam, Comment spam)

A method where many links are posted in blog comments, forums, guestbooks or other similar places online, for the sole purpose of increasing your rank and without actually leaving anything of value in the post itself. The links posted in this way are mostly nofollow, so there is no actual benefit to your rank and you do risk a penalty for using this method of link building.

Morningscore (Morningscore metric)

A metric used by the Morningscore SEO tool that shows the value of your SEO. It is based on 4 metrics: traffic volume, CTR, organic traffic and CPC. If we try and simplify the calculation it looks something like this: Monthly clicks from Google to your website x the price you would pay for the clicks in Google Ads = your Morningscore

Orphan page

A page on a website that has no links pointing to it. They cannot be found by a search bot, so they are useless for SEO.

Page title (Title tag)

A page title is a clickable headline that appears in the SERPs for a specific page on your website. It is the most visible part of the SERP snippet and has a big impact on your CTR, SEO and social sharing. To set it yourself you need to use the title tags in your HTML source code. If your title is too long, Google's algorithm will try and find an appropriate one itself. So, it is a good idea to stay under 487px for the mobile and 568px for the desktop.

Keyword categorization

A process of classifying and grouping keywords based on user intent and context at the time of the query. Keyword categorization can help with determining the keywords that users query at different stages of the buying process, so we can use them on specific landing pages that were meant for the purpose of conversion.

Link building (Link acquisition)

A process of increasing the quality and number of backlinks to your website. Link building is considered a major tactic in SEO and there are three approaches you can use: • have great content and gather editorial links • reach out to bloggers and influencers, write guest posts or submit your website to niche directories • leave links in blog and forum comments (use this approach with caution, because overuse could be penalized)

Reputation management (Rep management, Online reputation management, ORM)

A process where we attempt to shape how a person, brand, product, or organization are perceived online. SEO practices are used in this process to... • increase the rank of pages that portrait the brand, person, or organization in a positive light • take ownership of branded keywords and make sure the results in the SERPs reinforce your brand • pushing down a negative Search engine result (a labor-intense and difficult process if we do not own that website)

Pageview (Page impression)

A request to load a page of a website. More plainly, it is each time a visitor loads a specific page. This is tracked by Google Analytics' tracking code and if the visitor reloads the same page it will be counted as an additional page view.

Landing page

A specific page that appears after the visitor clicks on a link. These pages are optimized for promotion and conversion and are usually connected to a marketing campaign. In SEO each landing page can have different keywords and are optimized accordingly.

Link hoarding

A tactic employed by some websites where they try and gather as many inbound links as possible while having as few outbound links as possible. This is done to increase traffic and link popularity towards these few websites the outbound links are pointing to or to keep from passing traffic and link equity to anyone else (by marking the outgoing links as nofollow). It is considered a disreputable tactic and it can hurt just as much as having too many outgoing links.

Outreach marketing

A type of marketing where we find individuals, companies, or organizations that share our industry niche and could find what we have to offer valuable (this could be products and services or content). This type of approach is very targeted and personalized. We need to make a human to human connection or we risk our email just being classified as spam. Outreach marketing techniques that are used for the sake of SEO include e-mail or blogger outreach for link building purposes.

Metric

A unit of measurement meant to track the performance of a website. The most important SEO metrics are organic traffic, bounce rate, keyword rank, backlink count, CTR, page load speed etc.

Link condom

A very crude way of describing the use of a nofollow attribute value in a link, as it prevents the passing of link juice (*cringe*).

Mobile-friendly website

A website optimized for viewing on a mobile device. This can be done in one of two ways, either by having a mobile version of your website or making the website responsive (the website scales down or changes its layout based on device screen size).

Referral traffic

All traffic coming into your website outside of the search engine. Here we include all the backlinks you have gathered and links from other platforms like social media.

Reciprocal linking

An agreement between two websites to provide backlinks to each other. It should be done with caution, as exchanging backlinks with a company that doesn't share a topic with you might hurt your site's backlink profile and make it harder for the search engine spiders to classify your site's topic.

Mobile first indexing

An approach to indexing where the mobile version of a website is crawled and indexed first. The desktop version will still be indexed and ranked, but if there is no mobile version or the site is not entirely mobile optimized, it will have a negative impact on the rank.

Meta description tag

An important tag describing the content of the website used by the search engine in the search result snippet. If left empty the search engine will pick a paragraph from your content to display in the snippet. Google will also ignore your description if it is too long, so it is a good idea to stay under 757px for the mobile and 940px for the desktop version. It does not necessarily influence your SEO but taking control of what is displayed in the search result snippet can greatly improve your click-through rate.

Paid traffic

Any incoming traffic to your website that resulted from a visitor clicking or tapping on an ad you are paying for. It is a very popular strategy as the results are almost instantaneous. Two well-known paid traffic platforms are Google Ads and Facebook.

Local citation

Any mention of the company name, website address, physical address or phone number for a local business. They can impact local search engine rankings and make it easier for the users to find and discover businesses.

Push channel

Channels use to display your product in front of the potential customer no matter if he requested the information or not. These include ads on social media, YouTube and Google Display Network.

Pull channel

Channels used to draw the customers towards your product or service. These usually include search engines and databases like Google, Bing or YouTube.

Opt-in

Clear permission by a user/customer that the marketer may send direct messages (usually emails). Many countries have clear legislation concerning sending direct messages and sending unsolicited commercial messages can earn you a hefty fine. This is why you should ask your customers for permission to send them a newsletter, promotional material, or any other email before you add them to a mailing list. You are then allowed to send emails until the user opts-out.

Link relevancy (Relevant link)

Describes if the two websites that are involved in the linking process are topically connected and in what degree and how relevant the website that is giving the backlink is in its own field.

Link rot

Eventually, your web pages become old. Also, the web pages you are linking to get old and very often they get moved or deleted. The effect this process has on your web page is then called link rot. It refers to having many broken links (external or internal) and it happens when you do not do regular site audits and check your link profile.

PageRank (PR)

Google's algorithm that measures the relevance and importance of a website in order to rank them in the SERPs. It assigns a PR number to the website based on all the other websites that link to it and their PR.

Mobile optimization

Improving a website so it is well suited for viewing and interaction via a mobile device. Optimizing for a mobile device usually means that the layout will need to be readjusted, the text will need to be readjusted for easy reading, any navigation or CTA buttons enlarged, and image size optimized.

Push marketing

In this marketing approach, you try to push a message by displaying an ad to a potential customer without them showing interest first. These are ads before the video on YouTube, banners, and pop-ups on websites or any other unwanted display of your product or service. It is a very traditional way of marketing and often used because it is cheaper than the pull alternative. On the other hand, it is considered interruptive so many internet users develop something called "banner blindness" where they intentionally ignore anything that looks like an add.

Keyword density

Keyword density is the percentage of the keyword being used on a page compared to the total number of words. It is used to determine the relevance of a web page, but there is no clear information on what the optimal percentage is. In fact, it is easier to overdo it, than it is to hit the sweet spot.

Latent semantic indexing keyword (LSI keyword)

LSI keywords are words and phrases that are semantically related to your primary keyword. These words share the same context and are frequently used or found together. As an example, the LSI keywords of "SEO" are SEO tool, SEO agency, SEO audit etc.

Local SEO

Local SEO is a process of optimizing customer traffic based on a geographical location.

Knowledge graph

Meant to enhance the result of a Google search, a knowledge graph pulls information from several sources. The best example of it is the knowledge panel, a box placed to the right of the regular search results containing images, various detailed information, and suggestions for further search.

Metadata

Metadata is used to give descriptive information on a website. It is set up by use of meta tags in the website's code and put to use by the browser and search engine crawler. The most important tags are the title, meta description, and robots, but they are just a drop in the meta sea.

Link farm (FFA, Free for all)

Mostly run by automated programs and services, a link farm is a group of websites that all link either to each of the websites in the group or to a website that is paying for this service. This practice can get you a hefty manual penalty and is best avoided.

Negative SEO (Negative SEO attack)

Negative SEO refers to using black hat SEO methods to lower the rank of a competitor. These include backing the site to change the content and some off-page tactics like building spammy, unnatural links and creating duplicate content.

Keyword competition (Keyword difficulty, Keyword SEO difficulty)

Next to the search volume, keyword competition is an important metric that shows how easy or difficult it is to compete for rank on this word or phrase in the SERPs. It is a sign of the popularity of this keyword in your particular niche.

Nofollow link

Nofollow is an attribute value of a link. By using it we inform the search engine crawler that we do not wish to pass link equity to the website it is pointing to.

On-page SEO (Onsite SEO)

On-page SEO is optimization of all the individual pages on your website. It is both optimizing the content and the HTML source code in order to improve visibility and search engine rankings.

Query Deserves Diversity (QDD)

One of Google's ranking algorithms. It tries to match user intent by displaying broader match results. Google monitors user behavior and identifies search patterns where the user did not find the results relevant (the user either gives up the search, tries a different query without clicking on the result or bounces from site to site).

Query Deserves Freshness (QDF)

One of Google's ranking algorithms. Its focus is on delivering the freshest content for certain queries. These include the latest trends and news, hot topics and recurring events and they are determined based on search volume spikes.

Organic rank

Organic rank is the position of a website in the traditional organic SERP listings.

Organic search results (Natural search results)

Organic search results are listings in the SERPs that get displayed because the website listed employed good SEO practices instead of paying for it.

Organic traffic

Organic traffic is the "free traffic" you get when a visitor finds your website through Google searches. It is the opposite of paid traffic you get through advertising and what you are trying to influence by SEO. You can calculate the amount of organic traffic to your website by using this simple equation: Traffic volume x Click through rate = Organic traffic

Page speed (Page load speed, Page load time, Page response time)

Page load speed is a measurement of how much time it takes for your entire web page content to be displayed in the browser window. The loading speed affects both your rank and user experience. Visitor bounce rate tends to be higher on slower web pages and it even affects the dwell time and engagement.

Precision

Probably the number one reason why Google is the most popular search engine in the world. Google search engine's high precision allows it to list accurate and relevant results that satisfy the query. Search spam and the complexity of the human language negatively impact this ability.

Primary keyword (Main keyword, Head keyword)

The most used keyword on a web page, with the most potential to drive traffic. Since your content can be optimized for a number of keywords, it is a good idea to choose the one primary and then use it in your page title, content headline and in the first paragraph. That said, keep in mind to always write your content as naturally as possible and don't try to shove in a keyword unless it makes absolute sense.

Over-optimization

The practice of optimizing to please (or even trick) the search engine instead of delivering user-friendly and relevant content to the visitor. Examples of these practices include writing content to the keyword, where the keyword is unnaturally repeated in the content or gathering backlinks at a suspiciously fast rate. Doing this might get your website penalized or downgraded in terms of SERP ranking.

Keyword research (Keyword optimization)

The process of discovering new keywords that are relevant to your business and suitable in terms of search volume and competition. Effective keyword research is crucial in the process of determining profitable niches, driving traffic and promoting your business.

Keyword analysis

The process of evaluating all the keywords that you are currently using and those that you discovered during your keyword research. The important metrics for you are search volume, CPC, competition, and current SERP position. You can add a desired SERP position to the mix and group the keywords by user intent, meaning are they using these keywords when they are looking to buy a product, when they are just browsing or something else important for your website.

Link reclamation

The process of getting lost links back. It is a tactic with a high ROI because of the high likelihood of success.

Paid links (Link buying)

The process of purchasing backlinks that pass link equity. This includes any type of payment like exchanging products or services in exchange for links or giving free products to reviewers or influencers, not to mention some of the black hat techniques. It is a risky method that could earn you a penalty.

Link velocity

The speed at which a website is creating new backlinks. How fast or slow you grow your backlink profile matters for your SEO. The more natural the link velocity seems, the better. Think logically, a new site with next to no content shouldn't be getting a huge number of backlinks in a short time (also known as a link burst).

Noopener and Noreferrer

These are values set for the rel attribute of a href tag (link). They specify the relationship between the web page the link was on and the web page the link is pointing to. There is no effect on SEO, they are used for security and performance reasons.

Keyword rank

This is your position in the SERP listings for a specific keyword.

Keyword Stemming

To the root, prefixes or suffixes are added creating stemmings. By using keyword stemmings we can create whole lists of different keyword variations. Example: luck, unlucky, lucky, luckless, luckiest etc.

Reinclusion (Reconsideration request, Google re-inclusion)

When your website receives a manual action, you will have to request a review after fixing the issues to be reincluded to the SERPs or start climbing the ranks again. You can select Request review in the Manual actions report https://search.google.com/search-console/manual-actions

Poison words (Forbidden words, Filter words)

Words that degrade the quality of the page for search engines who classify it as being of low quality. These are usually words and phrases that trigger mistrust or loss of respect. There is no exact list of poison words, but it is suspected that phrases like "buy PageRank" or "buy backlink", terms related to gambling, politically incorrect terms and vulgar language can get your page buried in the SERPs, especially when used in the web page URL, title and description.