SEO

SSL Certificate

A "Secure Sockets Layer" is used to encrypt data passed between the web server and browser of the searcher.

KPI

A "key performance indicator" is a measurable value that indicates how well an activity is achieving a goal.

Panda

A Google algorithm update that targeted low-quality content.

People Also Ask Boxes

A box in some SERPs featuring a list of questions related to the query and their answers.

2xx Status Codes

A class of status codes that indicate the request for a page has succeeded.

4xx Status Codes

A class of status codes that indicate the request for a page resulted in error.

5xx Status Codes

A class of status codes that indicate the server's inability to perform the request.

PageRank

A component of Google's core algorithm. It is a link analysis program that estimates the importance of a web page by measuring the quality and quantity of links pointing to it.

Google My Business Listing

A free listing available to local businesses.

Google Search Console

A free program provided by Google that allows site owners to monitor how their site is doing in search.

Index

A huge database of all the content search engine crawlers have discovered and deem good enough to serve up to searchers.

Sitemap

A list of URLs on your site that crawlers can use to discover and index your content.

Navigation

A list of links that help visitors navigate to other pages on your site. Often, these appear in a list at the top of your website ("top navigation"), on the side column of your website ("side navigation"), or at the bottom of your website ("footer navigation").

NoIndex Tag

A meta tag that instructions a search engine not to index the page it's on.

Local Pack

A pack of typically three local business listings that appear for local-intent searches such as "oil change near me."

Algorithms

A process or formula by which stored information is retrieved and ordered in meaningful ways.

JavaScript

A programming language that adds dynamic elements to static web pages.

Informational Queries

A query in which the searcher is looking for information, such as the answer to a question.

Local Queries

A query in which the searcher is looking for something in a specific location, such as "coffee shops near me" or "gyms in Brooklyn."

Navigational Queries

A query in which the searcher is trying to get to a certain location, such as the Moz blog (query = "Moz blog").

Commercial Investigation Queries

A query in which the searcher wants to compare products to find the one that best suits them.

Index Coverage Report

A report in Google Search Console that shows you the indexation status of your site's pages.

Caching

A saved version of your web page

Image Sitemap

A sitemap containing only the image URLs on a website.

Keyword Stuffing

A spammy tactic involving the overuse of important keywords and their variants in your content and links.

Rel=canonical

A tag that allows site owners to tell Google which version of a web page is the original and which are the duplicates.

Bots

Also known as "crawlers" or "spiders," these are what scour the Internet to find content.

Citations

Also known as a "business listing," a citation is a web-based reference to a local business' name, address, and phone number (NAP).

Alt Text

Alternative text is the text in HTML code that describes the images on web pages.

Title Tag

An HTML element that specifies the title of a web page.

Header Tags

An HTML element used to designate headings on your page.

Search Engine

An information retrieval program that searches for items in a database that match the request input by the user. Examples: Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Keyword Difficulty

At Moz, Keyword Difficulty is an estimate, in the form of a numerical score, of how difficult it is for a site to outrank their competitors.

Thin Content

Content that adds little-to-no value to the visitor.

Auto-Generated Content

Content that is created programmatically, not written by humans.

Duplicate Content

Content that is shared between domains or between multiple pages of a single domain.

Engagement

Data that represents how searchers interact with your site from search results.

Organic

Earned placement in search results, as opposed to paid advertisements.

Robots.txt

Files that suggest which parts of your site search engines should and shouldn't crawl.

Caffeine

Google's web indexing system. Caffeine is the index, or collection of web content, whereas Googlebot is the crawler that goes out and finds the content.

Search Quality Rater Guidelines

Guidelines for human raters that work for Google to determine the quality of real web pages.

Webmaster Guidelines

Guidelines published by search engines like Google and Bing for the purpose of helping site owners create content that will be found, indexed, and perform well in search results.

Meta Descriptions

HTML elements that describe the contents of the page that they're on. Google sometimes uses these as the description line in search result snippets.

HTML

Hypertext markup language is the language used to create web pages.

Image Carousels

Image results in some SERPs that are scrollable from left to right.

Thumbnails

Image thumbnails are a smaller version of a larger image.

Intent

In the context of SEO, intent refers to what users really want from the words they typed into the search bar.

Distance

In the context of the local pack, distance refers to proximity, or the location of the searcher and/or the location specified in the query.

Prominence

In the context of the local pack, prominence refers to businesses that are well-known and well-liked in the real world.

Relevance

In the context of the local pack, relevance is how well a local business matches what the searcher is looking for

URL Parameters

Information following a question mark that is appended to a URL to change the page's content (active parameter) or track information (passive parameter).

Crawler Directives

Instructions to the crawler regarding what you want it to crawl and index on your site.

X-robots-tag

Like meta robots tags, this tag provides crawlers instructions for how to crawl or index web page content.

Internal Links

Links on your own site that point to your other pages on the same site

Long-Tail Keywords

Longer queries, typically those containing more than three words. Indicative of their length, they are often more specific than short-tail queries.

Backlinks

Or "inbound links" are links from other websites that point to your website.

Ranking

Ordering search results by relevance to the query.

Featured Snippets

Organic answer boxes that appear at the top of SERPs for certain queries.

Meta Robots Tag

Pieces of code that provide crawlers instructions for how to crawl or index web page content.

Google Quality Guidelines

Published guidelines from Google detailing tactics that are forbidden because they are malicious and/or intended to manipulate search results.

Manual Penalty

Refers to a Google "Manual Action" where a human reviewer has determined certain pages on your site violate Google's quality guidelines.

De-Indexed

Refers to a page or group of pages being removed from Google's index.

Ambiguous Intent

Refers to a search phrase where the goal of the searcher is unclear and requires further specification.

Regional Keywords

Refers to keywords unique to a specific locale. Use Google Trends, for example, to see whether "pop" or "soda" is the more popular term in Kansas.

Login Forms

Refers to pages that require login authentication before a visitor can access the content.

Search Forms

Refers to search functions or search bars on a website that help users find pages on that website.

Seasonal Trends

Refers to the popularity of keywords over time, such as "Halloween costumes" being most popular the week before October 31.

Personalization

Refers to the way a search engine will modify a person's results on factors unique to them, such as their location and search history.

SERP Features

Results displayed in a non-standard format.

White Hat

Search engine optimization practices that comply with Google's quality guidelines.

Black Hat

Search engine optimization practices that violate Google's quality guidelines.

URL Folders

Sections of a website occurring after the TLD (".com"), separated by slashes ("/"). For example, in "moz.com/blog" we could say "/blog" is a folder.

Cloaking

Showing different content to search engines than you show to human visitors.

Advanced Search Operators

Special characters and commands you can type into the search bar to further specify your query.

SERP

Stands for "search engine results page" — the page you see after conducting a search.

Local Business Schema

Structured data markup placed on a web page that helps search engines understand information about a business.

Scraped Content

Taking content from websites that you do not own and republishing it without permission on your own site.

Geographic Modifiers

Terms that describe a physical location or service area. For example, "pizza" is not geo-modified, but "pizza in Seattle" is.

Protocol

The "http" or "https" preceding your domain name. This governs how data is relayed between the server and browser.

Image Compression

The act of speeding up web pages by making image file sizes smaller without degrading the image's quality.

Crawl Budget

The average number of pages a search engine bot will crawl on your site

Link Accessibility

The ease with which a link can be found by human visitors or crawlers.

10 Blue Links

The format search engines used to display search results; ten organic results all appearing in the same format.

RankBrain

The machine learning component of Google's core algorithm that adjusts ranking by promoting the most relevant, helpful results.

Search Volume

The number of times a keyword was searched. Many keyword research tools show an estimated monthly search volume.

Crawling

The process by which search engines discover your web pages.

Link Volume

The quantity of links on a page.

Transacional Queries

The searcher wants to take an action, such as buy something. If keyword types sat in the marketing funnel, transactional queries would be at the bottom.

Indexing

The storing and organizing of content found during crawling

Seed Keywords

The term we use to describe the primary words that describe the product or service you provide.

Anchor Text

The text with which you link to pages.

Link Equity

The value or authority a link can pass to its destination.

URL

Uniform Resource Locators are the locations or addresses for individual pieces of content on the web.

Traffic

Visits to a website

Redirection

When a URL is moved from one location to another. Most often, redirection is permanent (301 redirect).

Query

Words typed into the search bar.