SEO, SERPs, PR…what do all these things MEAN!? Welcome to the SEO Terms page.  Here you can find all the abbreviations and other SEO related terms that you have been meaning to look up   The SEO Glossary will help you expand your seo knowledge and better understand search engine optimization.

SEO Glossary of Terms

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301 Redirect – Redirects visitors automatically to a different page.  It means your page is moved “permanently” is an SEO friendly method of redirection.

302 (Found) – This is a “temporary” redirect and is not as SEO friendly as a 301 redirect.

404 (Not found) – This the error code displayed when a page is not found.  404 Error pages can be customized.

A

Algorithm – An algorithm is a complex mathematical formula with a finite number of steps.  For our purposes, we need try to understand Google’s search results algorithm as best we can in order to rank higher for our keywords.

ALT Tag – An alt tag is an alternate description for an image in case the image does not show for various reasons.  Example for an image of a man fishing might be <img alt=”man fishing in stream” />.

Anchor Text – Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink

B

Backlinks – Backlinks are external links that point to another page

The Big “G” – Google

C

Canonicalization – deals with multiple URLs that lead to the same page.  Example: http://www.mysite.com Vs. http://mysite.com.

Cloaking – a technique used to cover up the nature of an affiliate link so that it appears to be a normal link taking visitors to a non-affiliate page.

D

Deep Linking – Linking to a page within the root domain.  Example: www.mysite.com/coolpost.hmtl.

Description Tag – A Meta Description Tag is used to provide the short description of a site that appears in the Search Engine Results Pages.

E

External Link – An external link is link on your domain that points to a page that isn’t on your site.

H

Headings – Headings are like titles within titles.  Example: <h1>Your Heading Here</h>

I

Inbound Link – links that point to your site.

Internal Link – links within your site that point to other pages in your site.

K

Keyword – A keyword is a word or phrase used in search engines to find results.

Keyword Density – The words in your content and the frequency of them

Keyword Research – The process of finding a keyword that is worthy of optimizing your site for.

Keyword Stuffing – Abusing keywords in meta tags or other places.

L

Link Farming – A group of websites created to link to each other.  An artificial means of creating PR and boosting ranks in the SERPs.

Long-tailed Keywords– Keyword phrases of 3 or more words that typically have less competition and search volume.

LSI Keyword- Latent Semantic Keywords are your related keywords.

M

Meta Tags – Meta tags are used to describe your site, provide keywords, or instruct search engine bots.

N

No Follow – Tag that asserts a link should not be followed by bots.

O

On-page Optimization – The SEO optimization that takes place on your site such as meta keyword tags and title tags.

Off-page Optimization – The SEO optimization that takes place off your site such as backlinks pointing to your site.

Organic Search Rankings– The results in the Search Engine Results Pages excluding the paid ad spaces/sponsored listings.

Outbound Link – A link on your site pointing to another site.

P

PageRank (PR) – Used by Google to determine the overall authority of your site.

R

RSS – Really Simple Syndication, used to help people stay updated on blogs and also to syndicate content.

Reciprocal Link – A 2-way link ie a link that points to another site and back to yours.

Robots.txt – File used to instruct bots whether to follow/index a page

S

SEM – Search Engine Marketing

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

SERPs – Search Engine Results Pages

SE – Search Engine

Site Map – Tells bots the layout of your site and where to find the pages.

Spamming – Excessive and improper use of content, keywords, etc.

Spider – Another name for a search engine bot that crawls sites

T

Title Tag – An important tag that says what the title of a page is.

TLD – Top Level Domain.  Ex. .com, .net,  .org, .info

Trackbacks – A link that shows up in the comments section of a blog pointing back to a post on a similar topic on another blog.  They are often “nofollow”