SEO is full of terms that sound familiar until you actually need to explain them. From crawl budget and canonical tags to search intent, structured data, and topical authority, the language of SEO can get technical quickly.
This glossary brings those terms together in one place, with straightforward definitions written in plain English. Whether you are a business owner, marketer, content writer, or just brushing up on the basics, it is designed to help you understand the language behind search and use it with more confidence.
Browse by letter using the links on the left, or work your way through the full glossary to build a clearer understanding of how SEO fits together.
A
A/B Testing
A controlled experiment where you change one thing (the “variant”) and compare its performance against the original (the “control”) to measure the impact on organic search outcomes. Typically click-through rate (CTR), rankings, organic sessions, or conversions from organic traffic.
AI Overview
An AI Overview is an AI-generated summary that can appear at the top of Google Search results for some queries, alongside links to supporting sources. It is shown when Googles systems decide it will help users understand a topic more quickly.
Alt text
Alt text is a short description that tells users what an image communicates. It’s essential for accessibility and is read aloud by screen readers.
Whenever you add an image, icon, or graphic, include alt text that:
- describes the image clearly, and
- explains its purpose or relevance to the page.
AJAX
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a technique that lets a webpage load or update content in the background using JavaScript, without refreshing the whole page.
For SEO, it matters because if key content or links only load via AJAX, search engines may not find or index them properly.
Algorithm
An algorithm in SEO is the system a search engine uses to decide which pages to show, and in what order, when someone searches.
It looks at lots of signals (like relevance to the query, content quality, page experience, and links) to rank results. Because search engines update these systems regularly, what performs well can change over time, so SEO needs ongoing monitoring and improvements.
Anchor text
Anchor text (also called link text) is the clickable words in a link.
Good anchor text:
- tells readers what they’ll get when they click, and
- helps search engines understand what the linked page is about.
Clear, relevant anchor text makes your site easier to navigate and strengthens internal linking, which can support SEO.
Attribution
Attribution is the way analytics platforms assign credit for a conversion to the marketing channels, campaigns, or touchpoints that influenced it, such as organic search, paid search, email, or direct traffic.
B
B2B SEO
B2B SEO is search engine optimisation for businesses that sell to other businesses. It focuses on attracting the right decision makers through informational and commercial searches, and supporting longer buying journeys that often involve multiple stakeholders.
B2C SEO
Search engine optimisation for businesses that sell directly to consumers. It focuses on reaching people searching for products or services to buy for themselves, often with shorter buying journeys and higher search volume.
Backlink
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Backlinks can help search engines understand that your content is being referenced by other sites, which may support visibility and rankings when those links are relevant and trustworthy.
Backlink profile
Backlink profile is the overall set of websites and pages that link to your site, including the number of links, where they come from, and their quality and relevance.
Black hat SEO
The use of tactics that try to manipulate search rankings by breaking (or deliberately exploiting) search engine guidelines, often prioritising quick wins over long-term results. These tactics can lead to ranking drops, penalties, or removal from search results.
Bing
Microsoft’s search engine, used to find web pages, images, videos, and local results,similar to Google. For SEO, it matters because it can drive additional organic traffic, and it also powers search results in some other Microsoft products and partner platforms.
Bing Places
Bing Places (Bing Places for Business) is Microsoft’s platform for claiming and managing your business listing so it appears in Bing Search and Bing Maps.
It can help your business show up for local searches (map results and local panels), and ensures your name, address, phone number, hours, and categories are accurate and consistent.
Blocked resources
Blocked resources are website files, such as CSS, JavaScript, or images, that search engine crawlers cannot access because of restrictions like robots.txt rules or server settings.
Blog
A blog is a section of a website where articles, guides, insights, and updates are published. In SEO, blogs are often used to target informational searches, answer common questions, and build topical relevance around a subject.
Bot
A bot is any automated program that visits websites. Some bots are useful, like search engine crawlers such as Googlebot or Bingbot. Others can be unwanted, like scrapers or spam bots that copy content or create load on your site.
Broken link
Broken link is a hyperlink that no longer works because the page it points to has been moved, deleted, or the URL is incorrect, typically resulting in a 404 (Page Not Found) error.
Breadcrumb
A breadcrumb is a navigation trail that shows where a page sits within the site structure, for example: Home > Services > SEO. Breadcrumbs help users understand where they are and can also help search engines interpret site hierarchy.
Bounce rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions where someone visits your site but does not meaningfully engage, such as leaving quickly without viewing another page or triggering a key event.
In GA4, bounce rate is defined as the percentage of sessions that were not engaged, so it is the opposite of engagement rate.
Branded query
A search that includes a brand name or a close variation of it, such as Reach Digital SEO or Nike trainers.
C
Cache
A cache is a saved copy of a web page stored by a browser, server, or search engine so it can be loaded faster or shown later.
Canonical Tag
A canonical tag is an HTML tag added to the head of a page that tells search engines which URL should be treated as the main version when the same or very similar content exists on multiple URLs.
Cannibalisation
Cannibalisation happens when two or more pages on the same website target the same topic or search intent, causing them to compete with each other in search results. This can make it harder for one clear page to rank strongly.
Click-through rate
Click-through rate, often shortened to CTR, is the percentage of people who click your search result after seeing it in search. It is calculated by dividing clicks by impressions.
Consent Mode v2
Consent Mode v2 is Google’s consent framework for tags such as Google Analytics and Google Ads. It passes a user’s consent choices to Google so tags can adjust how they behave based on permission for signals like ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data, and ad_personalization.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files stored in a user’s browser that help websites remember information such as preferences, login sessions, and how someone interacts with the site.
Content management system
A content management system, also known as a CMS, is software that lets you create, edit, and publish website pages and content through an admin area, without needing to write code.
Common examples include WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Squarespace, and Shopify.
Content strategy
Content strategy is the plan for what content you will create, who it is for, where it will live, and how it will support business goals, including how it will be produced, maintained, and measured.
Conversion
A conversion is a completed action that matters to your business, such as a purchase, form submission, phone call, or newsletter signup.
Conversion rate optimisation
Conversion rate optimisation, also known as CRO, is the process of improving a website or landing page so a higher percentage of visitors take a desired action, such as buying, enquiring, or signing up.
Core web vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of Google metrics used to measure real world page experience, focusing on loading performance, responsiveness, and visual stability. The current Core Web Vitals metrics are Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift.
Crawl
Crawl is when a search engine bot visits a website to discover pages, read content, and follow links so those pages can be added to the search index.
Crawl depth
Crawl depth is how many clicks it takes to reach a page from the homepage, which can affect how easily search engines and users find it.
Crawl budget
Crawl budget is the amount of crawling a search engine allocates to your website, meaning how many URLs it will try to discover and recrawl over a period of time..
D
Data layer
A data layer is a structured set of information on a website that passes details about pages and user actions to tools like Google Tag Manager and analytics platforms.
Deindex
Deindex means a page has been removed from a search engine’s index, so it can no longer appear in organic search results.
Demographics
Demographics are the measurable characteristics of an audience, such as age range, location, language, gender, and household income, used to understand who your users or customers are.
Direct traffic
Direct traffic is visits that arrive without a clear referral source, such as someone typing a URL, using a bookmark, or clicking an untracked link.
Disallow
Disallow is a robots.txt rule that tells crawlers not to crawl specific pages or folders.
Disavow
Disavow is the process of asking Google to ignore specific backlinks to your site, usually when you believe they are manipulative or harmful.
Discovery
Discovery is the process of search engines finding your pages, typically through links, sitemaps, redirects, and crawlable navigation.
Directory
A directory is a folder within a website’s URL structure, such as example.com/services/seo/. Directories help organise related pages and can make site structure easier for users and search engines to understand.
Dofollow / Follow link
A follow link is a standard hyperlink that search engines can use for discovery and ranking signals. This is the default behaviour for links unless attributes such as nofollow, sponsored, or ugc are added.
Domain
A domain is the main web address for a website, such as reachdigital.media, or google.com.
Domain Authority
Domain Authority, often shortened to DA, is a third-party metric developed by Moz that estimates the relative strength of a domain based largely on its backlink profile. It is not a Google metric.
Domain Migration
A domain migration is moving a website from one domain to another, usually involving redirects and updates to preserve traffic and rankings.
DNS
DNS, short for Domain Name System, is the system that translates a domain name into the server address needed to load a website.
Duplicate content
Duplicate content is content that is identical or very similar across multiple URLs, which can make it harder for search engines to choose which version to rank.
Dwell time
Dwell time is the time between someone clicking a search result and returning to the search results. It is often discussed as a rough indicator of whether a page satisfied the search, although Google does not report it as a direct ranking metric.
E
EEAT
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust. It is used to describe the qualities that help search engines and users assess whether content is credible, reliable, and created by a trustworthy source.
E-commerce
Ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods or services online, usually through an online store where customers can browse, order, and pay digitally.
E-commerce SEO
E-commerce SEO is the process of improving an online shop’s visibility in organic search results, typically across category pages, product pages, and supporting content.
Earned link
An earned link is a backlink gained naturally because another website chose to reference your content, brand, or page. It is typically the result of useful content, digital PR, expertise, or brand visibility rather than direct manipulation.
Engagement rate
Engagement rate is the percentage of visits where someone actively engages with your website, for example by spending time on the page, viewing more than one page, or completing a tracked action.
Engaged session
In GA4, an engaged session is a session that lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a conversion event, or includes 2 or more page or screen views.
Entity
An entity is something search engines can clearly identify and understand, such as a person, company, place, or concept, and its relationship to other entities.
Evergreen content
Evergreen content is content that stays relevant and useful over a long period, rather than being tied to news, seasons, or short term trends.
External link
An external link is a link from your site to a page on another website.
Exit rate
Exit rate is the percentage of visits that end on a specific page, meaning it was the last page viewed in the session.
Event tracking
Event tracking is the setup used to measure specific actions on a site, such as button clicks, form submissions, video plays, downloads, or scroll depth.
Error 404
A 404 error means a page cannot be found at that URL.
Error 500
A 500 level error means the server failed to load a page due to a server side issue.
F
Faceted navigation
Faceted navigation is a way of filtering and sorting a list of items, such as products or articles, using multiple attributes at the same time. For example, filtering a category page by size, colour, brand, and price.
FAQ
FAQ is a page or section that answers common questions about a topic, product, or service.
FAQ Schema
FAQ schema is structured data that identifies a set of questions and answers on a page, helping search engines understand the content as an FAQ. It can help your answers be eligible for enhanced search displays, depending on the query and the search results layout. For example, AI overviews, and ‘people also ask’.
Favicon
A favicon is the small icon that represents a website in browser tabs and sometimes in search results.
Featured Snippet
A featured snippet is a search result that shows a short answer directly on the results page, usually above the standard listings. The content is pulled from a web page and can appear as a paragraph, list, table, or video clip.
First-party data
First party data is information a business collects directly from its own audience, such as website behaviour, form submissions, purchases, email signups, or customer records.
Focus keyword
A focus keyword is the main search query a page is built around, shaping the pages topic, headings, content, and on page optimisation.
Funnel
In SEO, a funnel is the stages a searcher moves through from discovering a topic to choosing a solution, and the content you use to support each stage, such as informational guides, comparison pages, and service or product pages.
G
GA4
GA4, short for Google Analytics 4, is Google’s analytics platform for tracking how users find and interact with your website or app. It measures activity through events rather than the older session-based model used in Universal Analytics.
Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is Google’s listing platform for local businesses. It helps your business appear in local search results and Google Maps, showing details such as your name, address, phone number, opening hours, reviews, and services.
Googlebot
Googlebot is Google’s web crawler. It visits pages, follows links, and helps Google discover content that may be added to the search index.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free Google tool that helps you monitor how your website performs in Google Search. It shows data such as clicks, impressions, average position, indexing status, and technical issues that may affect visibility.
Grey hat SEO
Grey hat SEO refers to tactics that sit somewhere between recommended best practice and clear guideline violations. These methods are often used to push rankings more aggressively, but they can carry risk if search engines decide they are manipulative.
H
H1 tag
An H1 tag is the main heading on a page. It helps users and search engines understand the primary topic of the page.
H2 tag
An H2 tag is a subheading used to break content into clear sections beneath the main page heading. It helps structure content so it is easier to scan, understand, and navigate.
Head term
A head term is a broad, usually high-volume keyword phrase, often made up of one or two words. Head terms can be valuable, but they are often more competitive and less specific than long-tail keywords.
Hreflang
Hreflang is an HTML attribute used to tell search engines which language or regional version of a page should be shown to different users. It is commonly used on international websites with multiple language or country variations.
HTML
HTML, short for HyperText Markup Language, is the standard code used to structure content on a web page. Titles, headings, links, images, and other page elements are all defined in HTML.
HTML sitemap
An HTML sitemap is a page on a website that lists important pages in a structured, user-friendly format. It can help visitors navigate the site and can also support discovery of deeper pages.
HTTP status code
An HTTP status code is a server response that tells browsers and search engines what happened when a page was requested. Common examples include 200 for a successful page load, 301 for a redirect, 404 for a missing page, and 500 for a server error.
HTTPS
HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP. It encrypts data sent between a user’s browser and a website, helping protect information and improve trust.
I
Impression
An impression is counted when your page appears in search results and is seen as eligible to be viewed by a user. In SEO reporting, impressions help show how often your site is appearing for relevant searches, even if no one clicks.
Index
The index is the database of pages a search engine has discovered, processed, and stored so they can appear in search results. If a page is not in the index, it cannot rank organically.
Indexability
Indexability refers to whether a page can be added to a search engine’s index. A page may fail to be indexable because of issues such as a noindex directive, canonical conflicts, blocked resources, duplication, or technical errors.
Indexed pages
Indexed pages are the URLs from your website that a search engine has included in its index and may be eligible to appear in search results. Monitoring indexed pages helps you understand what content search engines are actually storing and surfacing.
Internal link
An internal link is a link from one page on your website to another page on the same website. Internal links help users navigate, support site structure, and help search engines discover and understand the relationship between pages.
Information architecture
Information architecture is the way a website’s content is organised, grouped, and structured so users and search engines can navigate it clearly. It includes areas such as menus, page hierarchy, categories, internal linking, and site structure.
Intent matching
Intent matching is the process of making sure a page aligns with what the searcher actually wants when they type a query into Google. This means the content, format, depth, and purpose of the page should reflect whether the user is trying to learn, compare, find, or buy.
Interaction to Next Paint
Interaction to Next Paint, often shortened to INP, is a Core Web Vitals metric that measures how quickly a page responds after a user interacts with it, such as clicking, tapping, or typing. A lower INP usually means the page feels more responsive and easier to use.
J
JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language used to add interactivity and dynamic behaviour to web pages. In SEO, it matters because important content, links, or page elements loaded with JavaScript may be harder for search engines to discover, render, or index if not implemented carefully.
JavaScript SEO
JavaScript SEO is the practice of making sure websites that rely on JavaScript can still be crawled, rendered, and indexed properly by search engines. It often involves checking whether important content, links, metadata, and structured data are available when the page is rendered.
JSON-LD
JSON-LD is a format used to add structured data to a page. It helps search engines understand specific details about the content, such as products, articles, FAQs, organisations, or reviews.
K
Keyword
A keyword is a word or phrase people type into a search engine when looking for information, products, or services. In SEO, keywords help shape the topics, structure, and intent of a page.
Keyword difficulty
Keyword difficulty is an estimate of how hard it may be to rank for a specific search term. Different SEO tools calculate it in different ways, often using signals such as backlink strength and competition.
Keyword intent
Keyword intent is the purpose behind a search query, such as learning something, comparing options, finding a specific website, or making a purchase. Understanding intent helps you create pages that match what the searcher actually wants.
Keyword mapping
Keyword mapping is the process of assigning target keywords or themes to specific pages on your website. It helps prevent overlap, supports site structure, and makes it clearer which page should rank for which topic.
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the excessive or unnatural repetition of keywords on a page in an attempt to influence rankings. It creates a poor user experience and is considered a spammy SEO tactic.
Knowledge Panel
A Knowledge Panel is an information box that can appear in search results for recognised entities such as businesses, people, places, or brands. It pulls together key details from sources Google trusts, such as business listings, structured data, and other web references.
L
Landing page
A landing page is a page designed to help visitors take a specific action, such as making an enquiry, downloading a resource, or buying a product. In SEO, it can also refer to the page a user first arrives on from organic search.
Largest Contentful Paint
Largest Contentful Paint, often shortened to LCP, is a Core Web Vitals metric that measures how quickly the main visible content of a page loads. A faster LCP usually means the page feels quicker and more usable to visitors.
Lead
A lead is a potential customer who has shown interest in your business, usually by taking an action such as submitting a form, calling your business, or requesting a quote.
Link building
Link building is the process of increasing the number of relevant links from other websites to your own. It is used to improve authority, discovery, and visibility in search results.
Link equity
Link equity is the value or authority that one page can pass to another through a link. It is often discussed when looking at internal linking, backlinks, and how authority flows through a website.
Local SEO
Local SEO is the process of improving a business’s visibility in location-based search results, such as map listings and searches with local intent. It is especially important for businesses that serve a specific area or have physical locations.
Log file
A log file is a server record of requests made to a website, including visits from users and search engine bots. In SEO, log files can help you understand how crawlers access your site and which pages are being requested most often.
Long-tail keyword
A long-tail keyword is a more specific search phrase, usually made up of several words. These keywords often have lower search volume than broader terms, but they can be less competitive and more closely matched to user intent.
M
Manual action
A manual action is a penalty applied by Google when a reviewer decides that part or all of a website does not follow Google’s spam policies. It can lead to reduced visibility or pages being removed from search results until the issue is fixed.
Meta description
A meta description is a short summary of a page that is added in the HTML. It can appear in search results beneath the page title and is used to help users understand what the page is about.
Meta keywords
Meta keywords are an outdated meta tag once used to list target keywords for a page. Modern search engines like Google do not use them as a ranking signal.
Meta title
A meta title is the title set for a page in the HTML, usually through the title tag. It often appears as the clickable headline in search results and helps search engines and users understand the page topic.
Migration
A migration is a significant change to a website that can affect SEO, such as changing domain, platform, URL structure, design, or site architecture. Migrations need careful planning to protect rankings, traffic, and tracking.
Mobile-first indexing
Mobile-first indexing means Google mainly uses the mobile version of a page for crawling, indexing, and understanding content. This makes mobile usability and content parity especially important for SEO.
Moderation
Moderation is the process of reviewing user-generated content such as comments, reviews, or forum posts before or after it appears on a website. Good moderation helps prevent spam, low-quality content, and reputational risk.
N
NAP
NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. In local SEO, keeping this information accurate and consistent across your website, business listings, and directories helps search engines trust your business details.
Natural link
A natural link is a backlink given by another website without being paid for, exchanged, or artificially placed. It is usually earned because the content is useful, relevant, or worth referencing.
Noarchive
Noarchive is a robots meta tag that tells search engines not to show a cached copy of a page in search results. It does not stop the page from being crawled or indexed.
Nofollow
Nofollow is a link attribute that tells search engines that the link should not be treated in the same way as a standard follow link for ranking purposes. It is often used for links that are paid, user-generated, or not fully vouched for.
Noindex
Noindex is a directive that tells search engines not to include a page in their search index. A noindexed page can still be crawled unless crawling is blocked separately.
Nosnippet
Nosnippet is a robots meta tag that tells search engines not to show a text snippet or preview from the page in search results. This can affect how much information users see before they click.
O
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to activity that happens away from your website but can still influence search visibility, such as backlinks, brand mentions, digital PR, and online reputation signals.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is the process of improving elements on a page itself, such as headings, content, internal links, title tags, and metadata, to help search engines and users better understand the page.
Open Graph
Open Graph is a set of meta tags that control how a page appears when it is shared on social platforms and messaging apps. It helps define details such as the title, description, and preview image.
Organic traffic
Organic traffic is visits that come to your website from unpaid search results. It does not include traffic from paid ads.
Orphan page
An orphan page is a page with no internal links pointing to it from elsewhere on the website. This can make it harder for users and search engines to discover.
Outbound link
An outbound link is a link from your website to a page on another website. It is another term for an external link.
P
Page speed
Page speed is how quickly a web page loads and becomes usable for visitors. It can affect user experience, engagement, and search performance, especially on slower connections or mobile devices.
Pagination
Pagination is the process of splitting content across multiple pages, such as blog archives, product listings, or category pages. It helps organise large sets of content, but it needs to be handled carefully so search engines can still crawl and understand the sequence.
People Also Ask
People Also Ask is a Google search feature that shows related questions users commonly search for around a topic. It can be useful for content planning because it highlights follow-up questions and supporting subtopics.
Pillar page
A pillar page is a main page that covers a broad topic and links to more detailed supporting pages on related subtopics. It is often used in content clusters to build stronger structure and topical relevance.
Programmatic SEO
Programmatic SEO is the process of creating many pages at scale using templates and structured data. It is often used for websites targeting large sets of similar searches, such as locations, products, comparisons, or indexed databases.
Page experience
Page experience describes how usable and user-friendly a page feels when someone visits it. It includes factors such as mobile usability, visual stability, loading performance, and general ease of interaction.
Q
Query
A query is the word or phrase someone types into a search engine. In SEO, query data helps you understand what people are actually searching for and how your pages match that intent.
Query Deserves Freshness
Query Deserves Freshness, often shortened to QDF, is the idea that some searches deserve newer or recently updated results because the topic has changed quickly. This is more common for news, trends, events, and time-sensitive topics.
Quality content
Quality content is content that is useful, accurate, relevant, and genuinely helpful to the intended audience. In SEO, quality content is more likely to satisfy search intent, earn links, and perform well over time.
Qualified lead
A qualified lead is a potential customer who is more likely to become a genuine sales opportunity because they match the right criteria, such as need, budget, authority, or intent. In SEO, strong organic traffic should help generate not just more leads, but better qualified ones.
Quality Score
Quality Score is a Google Ads metric that estimates how relevant your keywords, ads, and landing pages are to the user. It is not an SEO metric, but it sometimes comes up in wider search marketing discussions.
R
Ranking
Ranking is the position a page appears in search results for a specific query. Rankings can change over time based on relevance, competition, search intent, and updates to the search results.
Referral traffic
Referral traffic is visits that arrive on your website by clicking a link from another website, rather than from search engines, paid ads, or direct visits.
Rendering
Rendering is the process of loading and displaying a page’s code, layout, and content so it can be seen and interpreted properly. In SEO, rendering matters because search engines may need to process JavaScript and other resources before they can fully understand the page.
Redirect
A redirect sends users and search engines from one URL to another. Redirects are commonly used when a page has moved, been replaced, or no longer exists, helping preserve usability and search value.
Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a file placed at the root of a website that gives crawlers instructions about which areas of the site they can or cannot crawl. It helps manage crawler access, but it does not itself remove pages from the search index.
Return on investment
Return on investment, often shortened to ROI, is a way of measuring how much value or profit you generate compared with what you spent. In SEO, ROI is used to assess whether the traffic, leads, or sales gained from organic search justify the investment made.
S
Schema markup
Schema markup is structured data added to a page to help search engines understand the content more clearly. It can describe things like articles, products, FAQs, organisations, events, and reviews.
Search intent
Search intent is the reason behind a search query, such as learning something, comparing options, finding a specific brand, or making a purchase. Matching search intent is a core part of creating pages that perform well in organic search.
Search volume
Search volume is the estimated number of times a keyword or query is searched over a given period, usually each month. It is used to help judge demand, though figures can vary between tools.
SERP
SERP stands for search engine results page. It is the page shown after someone performs a search and can include organic listings, ads, maps, snippets, images, videos, and other search features.
Sitemap
A sitemap is a file or page that lists the URLs on a website to help users or search engines discover content. In SEO, this usually refers to an XML sitemap submitted to search engines.
Structured data
Structured data is a standardised format used to label and organise information on a page so search engines can interpret it more accurately. Schema markup is one of the most common ways structured data is added to a website.
Subdomain
A subdomain is a separate section of a main domain, such as blog.example.com or shop.example.com. Subdomains can be used to organise content, but they may be treated differently from folders in site structure and SEO strategy.
T
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the way content is organised and grouped on a website, such as categories, tags, topics, or sections. A clear taxonomy helps users navigate the site and helps search engines understand how content is structured.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the work involved in making a website easier for search engines to crawl, render, index, and understand. It includes areas such as site speed, internal linking, structured data, redirects, sitemaps, and crawl control.
Title tag
A title tag is the HTML element that defines the title of a page. It often appears as the clickable headline in search results and helps both users and search engines understand what the page is about.
Topic cluster
A topic cluster is a group of related pages built around one broader subject. It usually includes a main pillar page and several supporting pages that explore specific subtopics and link back to the main page.
Traffic
Traffic is the number of visits or users arriving on a website. In SEO, it usually refers to visits from organic search, though traffic can also come from paid ads, social media, email, referrals, or direct visits.
Top of funnel
Top of funnel refers to the early stage of the customer journey where people are researching, learning, or exploring a topic. SEO content at this stage is often informational and designed to build awareness and attract relevant visitors.
U
URL
A URL is the web address of a page, file, or resource on the internet. In SEO, clear and descriptive URLs can help users and search engines understand what a page is about.
URL parameter
A URL parameter is extra information added to the end of a URL, often after a question mark, to control things like filtering, sorting, tracking, or pagination. Parameters can create SEO challenges if they generate multiple URLs with very similar content.
User-generated content
User-generated content is content created by users rather than the website owner, such as reviews, comments, forum posts, or community discussions. It can add useful content and trust signals, but it often needs moderation to prevent spam or low-quality pages.
UGC attribute
The UGC attribute is a link attribute used to show that a link appears within user-generated content, such as comments or forum posts. It helps search engines understand the context of the link.
Unique visitor
A unique visitor is an individual user counted once within a given time period, even if they visit a website more than once. The exact definition can vary depending on the analytics platform being used.
User experience
User experience, often shortened to UX, is how easy, clear, and satisfying a website is to use. Good user experience can support SEO by helping visitors find what they need, stay engaged, and complete actions more easily.
V
Validation
Validation is the process of checking whether something has been implemented correctly, such as structured data, redirects, canonicals, tags, or analytics tracking. In SEO, validation helps confirm that technical changes work as intended.
Vertical search
Vertical search refers to search results focused on a specific type of content, such as images, videos, news, shopping, or local listings, rather than standard web results. These search surfaces can create additional SEO opportunities beyond traditional rankings.
Video SEO
Video SEO is the process of improving the visibility of video content in search results and video platforms. It can include video titles, descriptions, transcripts, schema markup, thumbnails, and page context.
Visibility
Visibility is how prominently a website or page appears in search results across a set of keywords. It is often used as a general measure of SEO performance rather than focusing on a single ranking.
Visit
A visit is a single session on a website during which a user views one or more pages or takes actions before leaving. In many modern analytics platforms, this is more commonly referred to as a session.
W
Web crawler
A web crawler is an automated bot used by search engines to discover pages, follow links, and collect information from websites. Googlebot and Bingbot are examples of web crawlers.
Webmaster Guidelines
Webmaster Guidelines are the published best practices and rules search engines provide to help website owners create crawlable, useful, and policy-compliant sites. Following them helps reduce the risk of spam issues, penalties, or indexing problems.
White hat SEO
White hat SEO refers to optimisation methods that follow search engine guidelines and focus on improving content, usability, and technical quality for long-term results. It is generally the opposite of manipulative tactics such as black hat SEO.
Word count
Word count is the total number of words on a page or in a piece of content. In SEO, word count on its own is not a ranking factor, but it is sometimes used as a rough guide when judging whether a topic has been covered in enough depth.
WordPress
WordPress is a content management system used to build and manage websites. It is widely used for SEO because it supports editable page elements, plugins, blogging, and flexible site structures.
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XML sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the important URLs on a website to help search engines discover and crawl content more efficiently. It is especially useful for large sites, new sites, or websites with pages that are not easily found through internal linking alone.
x-default
x-default is a hreflang value used to tell search engines which page should be shown when no other language or regional version is a better match for the user. It is commonly used on international websites with multiple country or language variations.
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Yahoo
Yahoo is a web platform that includes search, news, email, and other online services. In SEO, it is still relevant in some contexts because Yahoo Search has historically relied on other search technologies rather than running a completely separate search engine ecosystem.
Yandex
Yandex is a search engine and wider technology platform most strongly associated with Russia and nearby markets. In SEO, it may matter if a business targets regions where Yandex has search market share alongside or instead of Google.
Yoast
Yoast is a popular WordPress SEO plugin that helps users manage page titles, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, schema settings, and other on-page SEO elements. It is widely used to make common SEO tasks easier within WordPress.
YMYL
YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life. It refers to topics that could affect a person’s health, finances, safety, or wellbeing, which means search engines tend to apply a higher standard of trust, accuracy, and credibility to this kind of content.
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Zero-click search
A zero-click search is a search where the user gets the answer directly on the results page without clicking through to a website. This can happen when Google shows features such as featured snippets, knowledge panels, AI-generated summaries, calculators, maps, or other instant answers.
Zombie pages
Zombie pages are low-value pages that attract little or no traffic, have weak engagement, and do not meaningfully support the website’s goals. In SEO, they are often reviewed for improvement, consolidation, redirection, or removal.