“If you cannot explain it in simple words, you don’t understand it enough”-.

Have you ever tired reading a doctor’s note? Like every industry with its own language, the SEO industry is not left behind. On numerous occasions, your SEO agency will throw some words at you that you would most likely throw up your hands in the air and say “What do you certainly mean by that”?

This blog post stands to demystify the terminologies you will come across as you related with SEO professionals. Listed below in alphabetical order are over a hundred (101 actually) real SEO GLOSSARY you will come across and what we mean when we use such SEO terms

 

SEO Glossary

 

O-9

 

200 Status Ok – The request succeeded.

 

301 Redirect – A status message by the web server that the page has moved permanently to a new address or URL.

 

302 Redirect –Also referred to as a “temporary redirect.” A status indicated by a web server that the web page has moved temporarily to a new address or URL.

 

400 Bad Request – The web server is unable to understand the request sent by a client you’re your web browser and therefore could not process it.

 

401 Unauthorized – The web server is able to process the required URL but access to the document required a password which has not be provided or in which the provided authentication has failed.

 

403 Forbidden – The web server is able to process the requested URL but you has the client browser do not have access to the directory on the server.

 

404 Not Found – a status indicated by a web server that the page you requested cannot be found.

 

500 Error – This usually means something has gone wrong with the website server but the server cannot be more specific on what the problem is.

 

504- This is often referred to as a Gate way time out error. It means the web server did not receive a response on time from the server and therefore unable to load the request on the browser.

 

 

 A

 

 

AdSense:  Adsense is a program run by Google that allows Google display advertisements that should be related to your website niche on your website and you get paid in return when people click on such adverts.

 

 AdWords:  Google’s online advertising agency. By using Google Adword, you have an opportunity to advertise your website products and service through Google. Google then can either place your website on their Search Engine Result Page or simply place such adverts on partner website based on your settings.

 

AdCopy: Adcopy is a combination of the images, text including Keywords that make up your advertisement copy online.

 

Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate Marketing is a form of advertisement in which one business rewards another business for each visitor, lead or customers sent to it through an advertisement placed on the partner website.

 

Analytic – Analytics are methods of measuring various metrics on a website to determine its performance. There are a lot of Analytic tools but the most common analytically tools for website is the Google Analytic.

 

Alexa Ranking – Alexa ranking is a mode of ranking which measures the amount of traffic your website is getting in relations to other websites. It is usually calculated with duration of 3 months. The higher your traffic,  the lower your Alexa ranking.

 

Anchor Text – Anchor Text are words on a web page that is used to link to other part of the webpage, website or outside the website.

 

 

B

 

 

B2B: Business2Business or B2B is a term which described a company that offers its services to another company.

 

B2C: Business2Customer or B2C is a term which describes a relationship in which a company sells its products directly to the customers.

 

Black Hat SEO: Black Hat SEO is a Search Engine Optimization method which involves the use of techniques and methods without following the guidelines specified by the Search Engine .

 

Blacklist: A list of register which contains the name of entities who for one reason or the other has been prevented from accessing a particular privilege.

 

Blog: A blog is a chronically sequence of personal opinion usually expressed in written form. Most time it is done to present information or to educate. As at 2013, there are over 150 million blogs on the internet Worldwide.

 

Blogger:  A blogger is a person who owns writes or operates a blog.

 

Blogroll: A blogroll is a list of blog links that a blogger likes and it is usually displayed at the side of the blog.

 

Bookmarks: Bookmarks are saved link to a webpage.

 

Bot : A bot is Google’s web crawling robot sometimes referred to as a Google spider.

 

Broken Link: A broken link is a link that points to a page that is no longer available at the destination the link is pointed to. Most broken link will return a status error 404.

 

Browser: A browser is software used to locate and display web pages.

 

 

C

 

 

Canonization: Canonization is the process of picking the right URL when there are many several choices available. It is used to prevent a duplicate content issue with Search Engines.

 

Canonical URL: Canonical URL or is the right authoritative source for an information when there are various version present.

 

Cloaking:  Cloaking is the process of hiding the real content of a webpage from the viewers. In cloaking, the information presented to the user is different from what is presented to the Search Engines.

 

Conversion: Conversion is the process of completing of an activity that is crucial to the success of a website or business. Conversion can be in various forms. It might be as simple as filling a lead form or making an actual purchase on an e-commerce store.

 

Cost per Action: Cost per Action (CPA) is method of paying for advertising that allows you to pay for each defined specific action taken.

 

Cost Per Impression: Cost per Impression(CPC) is a method of paying for advertising that allows you to pay for each time your ad is displayed irrespective of either the view clicked on the ad or not.

 

Cost per Click: Cost per Click (CPC) is the method of paying for advertising whenever your ad is clicked

 

Click through Rate: Click Through Rate (CTR) is a measure of the percentage of people who clicked on an advert.

 

Co-citation: Co-citation is used to establish subject similarities between two website or two pages on a website.

 

Contextual Advertising: Contextual advertising is the display of advertisement on a page based on the relevance of the content of the page to the advert.

 

Cross linking: Cross linking is the process of linking between two website when it belongs to the same person.

 

 

D

 

Dofollow : Dofollow is a term which used to denote a web link which passes authority from a website to another website.  Dofollow links are usually the most sought after link when Link Building is done.

 

Duplicate Content: Duplicate content is having the same information on two WebPages of your website.  Duplicate content doesn’t not have to the totally the same information. Sometimes having the same Title Tag on two different WebPages is seen by Search Engines as duplicate content.

 

De-Listing:  De-listing is the process of removing from a list.

 

Directory:  A directory is a website listing information’s in a particular order. Examples of online directories include Dmoz, Yahoo, Somuch.com, Vconnect.

 

Domain: A domain is the address of a website on the internet. In clear terms, it’s your website name online.

 

Doorway Pages: Doorway pages are web pages that are created for spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending visitors to a different page.

 

Dynamic Content: Dynamic content is content that changes based on user’s action.

 

Dynamic Website: A dynamic website is a website that changes based on a user’s action. It is often used to denote database driven website.

 

 

E

 

E-Commerce Site: E-commerce website is a website where the buying and selling of products or services is conducted over electronic systems such as the Internet.

 

Editorial Link: Editorial links is a term used to describe a link that is not paid for but freely given by the owner of the website

 

Entry Page: An entry page is the first page where a visitor to a website lands on when they first come in contact with the website.

 

Error page: Error pages are pages that are used to display warning messages when a web browser or visitors encounters problem while crawling or using your website.

 

Ethical SEO: Ethical SEO is a practice of Search Engine Optimization in which the method used is in accordance with the guidelines specified by search engines.

 

Exact Match Domain (EMD): An exact Match Domain is a domain name that matches a search query or phrase.

 

External Link: An external link is a link pointing to a website from another website.

 

 

 

F

 

Favicon: A favicion is a short cut icon that is associated with a website and is displayed in the address bar of a web browser.

Floating Ads: Floating ads are advertisements that ‘float’ above content of a web page.

 

Forum: Forums are online communities or board. The main aim of a forum is to encourage healthy discussion on a common topic amongst a set of people.

 

Fresh crawl: Fresh crawl is the process whereby search engines spider’s visits website more frequently but more shallowly.

 

 

G

 

 

Gateway page: Gateway pages are low quality webpage that are specially optimized for search engines.

 

Geo-Targeting: Geo-targeting is a form of advertisement that is based on geographical location of the target market.

 

Google: Google used to be a company that specialized in Internet- related services and products. With its entry into cars ,energy plants and etc, it is becoming increasing difficult to define Google as such but that is their definition on their website so we let it go as that.

 

Google Advertising Professional (GAP): Google Advertising Professional is a program which qualifies marketers as being proficient Adword marketers.

 

 

H

 

 

Hallway Page: Hallway page is a page that serves as an index to a group of pages that you want the search engines spider to find.

 

Headings: Header element of a website is the tag that describes the main content of a web page. We have different category for heading content in a webpage ranging from the H1-H6 Header tag.

 

Hidden Text:  Hidden text are text that human visitors to a web page do not see but only the search engines spiders can see it.

 

Hijacking: Hijacking is a process of making search engines believe that a website resides at a particular URL or address.

 

Hits: The number of visitors a website gets. Google analytical tools show this result as views of a webpage.

 

Home Page: The main page or Index page of a website is often referred to as its Home Page.

 

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language is scripting language for creating web pages that can be displayed to the user through a browser.

 

HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol is the communication means by which data is transferred from its residing location on a server to an active browser.

 

HTTPS: HTTPS is a communication tool between a server and a web browser over a Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

 

Hypertext Link: HyperText link is a word or phrase or image that takes you to another section of the same or new document.

 

 

I

 

Inbound Link: Inbound links are links pointing to your website from an external website.

 

Index:  A collection of data arranged alphabetically.

 

Indexed Pages:  indexed pages are the total number of web pages of your website that the search engine has taken record of.

 

Infographic: Infographic is a visual or graphical representation of information or data e.g charts, diagram etc.

 

Inlink: Inlinks are incoming links pointing to a website from another website.

 

Internal Link: Internal links are links that points from one section of a webpage on your website to another section of the same page or different website.

 

Internet Marketing: Internet marketing is a means of internet advertisement. It is used to denote advertisement which can be both paid and unpaid marketing means.

 

Invisible Web: Invisible web are portion of a website that is not accessible to search engine crawlers due to restriction. It is normally used to protect webpage of a website.

 

Impression: An impression is the number of times an advert is displayed once on a webpage or viewed by visitors.

 

 

J

 

Java Applet: A Java applet is an application written in java.

 

JavaScript: A client side scripting language that is used to add dynamic content to a web page.

 

Junk Pages: Junk pages are meaningless keyword stuffed pages that is created only for Adsense revenue.

 

 

K

 

Keyword Density: Is the number of time a keyword appears on a web page in relation to the total number of words on the web page.

 

Keyword phrase: Keyword phrases are terms or words that people use when researching information on the internet using search engines.

 

Keyword prominence: Keyword prominence is the importance of a keyword phrase in relations to other phrase other words on the webpage.

 

Keyword Research: Keyword research is the process of researching search terms that people enter into search engines.

 

Keyword Research Tools: Keyword Tools are tools that aide people when conducting a keyword research. Example is the Google Keyword Planner.

 

Keyword Stuffing: Keyword stuffing occurs when a webpage is unnecessarily loaded with keyword phrases in the content of a webpage.

 

Keyword Targeting: Keyword targeting is the advertisement targeted at a customer based on preference.

 

Keyword density: The percentage of times a keyword appears on a webpage compared to the total number of words on the web page.

 

L

 

Landing Page:  Landing page is the page a web visitor arrives at after clicking advertisement. It is most often use to collect information called “leads” which are later used for marketing purposed.

 

Lead Generation: Lead generation is the use of a webpage to obtain information for the purpose of marketing.

 

Link Acquisition: Link acquisition is the process of getting web links. Sometimes it can be interchanged with link building.

 

Link Baiting: The process of producing content designed specially to encourage webmasters to link to.

 

Link Building: Link building is the process of acquiring links to a website. There are various strategies that can be employed when building links. Some link building methods includes Broken Link building, guest posting and community participation.

 

Link Exchange: A program in which links are interchanged amongst a group of website. In Link exchange, Website A links to B and B in turn links to A.

 

Link Farm: A group of website runs by the same person with the purpose of linking to each other. Normally Link farms are often created to make link acquisition easier. Search Engines frown on this practice.

 

Link Popularity: Link Popularity refers to the total number of links pointing to a website.

 

Link Removal: The process of removing links pointing to a website due to any reason.

 

Link Reputation: The measure of the strength of your website’s links.

 

Link Wheel: A procedure used to get links from a group of relevant website.

 

Linking Profile:  An overall makeup of all the links that are pointing to your website.

 

Long Tail Keyword: Long tail keyword is a keyword phrase that contains more than two words.

 

M

 

Manual Penalty: Google’s way of slamming a website for violating its guidelines.

 

Meta Description: A summary of a web page’s content. In Google, it is recommended to be not more than 159 characters.

 

Meta Keywords: Meta keyword are words used to highlight the keyword target of a website. The Meta Keyword tag has been discontinued and it no longer holds the same weight in Search Engine Optimization.

 

Metrics: A measurement of parameter on your website. Most metrics are measured by using analytical tools on your website.

 

Microblogging: A miniature or mini blog. Examples of micro blogging website include twitter and Facebook.

 

Mirror Site:  The exact replica of a website.

 

Money Keyword:  This is the exact keyword you want to website to rank for. It usually denote a product keyword eg iphone 4s.

 
MozRank: The Moz Rank represents a link popularity score.

 

 

N

 

Naked Links: A naked link is a link for which the anchor text is the website URL or address.

 

Natural Search Results: Natural search results are results that are returned based on the index of the search engine and not in reference to query entered into its search bar.

 

Navigation: Are web pages text used to direct users to a new page or section of a page.

 

Negative Keyword: Negative keywords are keyword that advertisers do not want to rank for.

 

Niche: A term denoting your industry.

 

Nofollow : No follow links are links that tells search engine not to pass page authority to the website when they encounter such anchor links.

 

 

O

 

One-Way Link: One way links are links from a website pointing out to another website. This is the best type of links.

 

Organic Link: An organic link is a inks between two website.

 

Organic Search: Organic search is a search conducted on Google.

 

Organic Search Results: Are listing on search engine result pages that appear as a result of relevance to a term called keyword as opposed to advertisement.

 

Organic SEO: Organic SEO is the process of optimizing a website to appear on the organic search result of search engines.

 

Outbound links:  The number of links going out of a website.

 

 

 P

 

 

Page rank: Page Rank is one of the Google’s numerous factors used for calculating the quality of a web page. It is based on the number and quality of link a web page has.

 

Page Title: The Page Title is the most important on-page factor in Search Engine Optimization. The page title seeks to explain to people and search engines what they page is all about. The Page Title is defined in the browser toolbar of a web browser.

 

Page Views: The number of impressions a webpage gets.

 

Paid links: Links are website anchor text that points to another website. A Paid Link is a link that is often not given freely.

 

Panda: Google name for an update which seeks to rid the web of low quality content.

 

Penalty: Google’s punishment for website that contravenes its guidelines.

 

Penguin Algorithm: Penguin is Google’s update in its algorithm which seeks to penalized website that manipulates link building progress.

 

PPC (Pay per Click): Pay per Click is an advertising method where web masters pay to have their advert displayed on other website.

 

PPC Management: The management of your PPC campaign.

 

 

Q

 

Quality Link: Quality links are relevant links from high authority website.

 

Quality Score: Quality score is an estimate of how relevant your ad copy is. It takes into consideration all component of your ad copy like the images, keyword etc.

 

Query: A phrase (keyword) entered into Google search engine query bar.

 

 

R

 

Ranking Factor: Ranking factors are things that Search engines consider before allocating a place to a website on its Search Engine Result Page. In all, almost 200 Factors exists. Not all of them carry the same weight.

 

Reciprocal Links: Reciprocal links are links given to a website because the website is linked to your site. Sometimes, it is not based on merit.

 

Redirect: A redirect page is a page that usually contains little content but sends the reader to another article or page where the information may be found.

 

Referrer String: Referrer string is a header field that identifies the address of another webpage that is lined to the resource requested.

 

Re-Inclusion : A re-inclusion request is a request to Google asking them to remove any potential spam penalty.

 

 

Robots.txt: A robots file is a text file that tells search engines how to crawl your website. It usually tells the search spider which files or directory to include, exclude etc.

 

ROI: Return on Investment for your online marketing effort.

 

RSS: Really Simple Syndication is a way to easily distribute content to a wide range of people.

 

 

 

S

 

Sandbox: A sandbox is a testing environment. Google’s sandbox is a filter that Google applies to new website ranking for specific phrases.

 

 Search Engine: A Search Engine is a software program that is designed to search for information on the web. Examples are Google, Yahoo, Bing, Duckduckgo.

 

Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites online.

 

Search Engine Optimization: Search Engine Optimization is a way of enhancing the visibility of a website brand on the internet.

 

Search Engine Results Page (SERP): Search Engine Result Page is a listing of website based on a search conducted by a query based on the search engine internal working mechanism.

 

SEO Copywriting: SEO Copywriting is a form of writing web content for search engine optimization. It can be wrongly done.

 

 Site Map: A site map is a list of the pages of a website. It can be an HTML or XML version. Most HTML version resides on the website while the XML version is submitted to the search engine.

 

Social Media:  Social media is a list of interaction among people in which they share information in a virtual community. Social media sites include Facebook, twitter.

 

Spam: Spams are unsolicited messages or contents.

 

SSL: Secure Socket Layer is a security technology that encrypts communication between a server and a client.

Static Website: A Static website is a website in which the content does not change.

 

 

T

 

Text Link Ads: Text Link ads are links that exist on your blog or website which are paid for

 

Time-On-Page: The amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage.

 

TLD: Top Level Domains is a domain at the highest level in the Domain name system of the internet. Examples are .com, .org and .net

 

Trackback: A trackback enables a webmaster to get a notification when somebody links to their documents or website.

 

Traffic: The traffic to a website is the number of visitors the website gets

 

Trust Rank: Trust rank is a link analysis technique for separating useful webpage from spasm.

 

 

U

 

 

Unethical SEO: Unethical SEO is search engine optimization that is not done according to the guidelines specified.

 

Unique Visitor: The number of distinct visitors that visits a website.

 

URL: Uniform Resource Locator is a specific character that references a resource.

 

 

V

 

 

Viral Marketing: Viral Marketing is a marketing technique that induces web uses to pass on marketing messages to other uses.

 

W

 

 

Web 2.0:  web 2.0 is a term given to describe a second generation World Wide Web that is focus on people being able to share information online. Loosely, it refers to blogs that are hosted by third party like Blogger.com or WordPress.com

 

Web Crawler: Web crawler is an internet bots that browse the internet with the aim of indexing website and web pages.

 

White Hat SEO: Search Engine Optimization that is done following specified guidelines.

 

 

Y

 

Youtube SEO: Youtube SEO is the process of optimizing your web videos to get higher visibility. Remember Youtube has the largest collection of video online.

 

Z

 

Zero SEO: A Zero SEO is a website that has no optimization done whatsoever on it.

 

 

If you have read this piece to this end, then you sure must have a very good reason to. So i’m inviting you to give us your own definition of some of these terms or simply tell us what terms you think we should include and its definition.

 

Don’t forget to share this post with your clients.