SEO

A 301 Redirect is a way to permanently reroute the URL of a webpage or website. It is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection.

A “302 Redirect” is used in website development and online marketing to temporarily redirect visitors from one webpage or website to another. It is a type of “server-side redirect” that can be used for various purposes and is a key tool in digital marketing campaigns, being one of the most frequently used redirect codes in online marketing.

An Algorithm is a set of step-by-step instructions for a computer program (or other computing device) to carry out a task. It is essentially a high-level explanation of how to solve a problem.

An Algorithm Update is changes to algorithms (mathematical processes) used by search engines, such as Google, to create relevant search results for users. Algorithm updates are often secret and are rolled out gradually over time to ensure any changes have the desired impact before they're announced publicly.

ALT tags, also known as alt attributes, or alt descriptions, provide search engines and web users with additional information about an image or visual element on a website. ALT tags are attached to HTML elements which be used to describe the content of the image and also provide search engines like Google with image-related information for indexing and ranking.

Alt Text (alternative text), also known as “alt attributes”, “alt descriptions”, or visually “hidden” text, is a word or phrase that can be added to an image’s HTML tag in a website’s code. It is there to describe the appearance and function of images on a page for visitors who are using assistive technologies such as screen readers.

Anchor text (also known as “link label”, “link text”, “hyperlink text” or “hyperlink title”) is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. It is usually a few words that describe the linked content, giving readers an idea of where the link will take them.

A Backlink, also known as an ‘inbound link’ or ‘incoming link’, is a link from one web page to another. This link acts as a type of ‘vote’ for the page it points to, indicating to search engines that the page is considered important or relevant.

Bad neighbourhoods are areas of the internet that contain inappropriate or malicious content that can harm users, their businesses, and their online reputation. Poor online security practices, malicious intent, and inappropriate content lead to bad neighbourhoods.

Bing SEO, also known as Bing search engine optimisation, is the process of customizing webpages and websites to improve their visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) generated by the Microsoft-owned Bing search engine. It’s important for businesses to understand Bing SEO if they are looking to reach new customers and increase their online presence.

Black Hat marketing is a type of marketing approach that is employed by businesses that aim to increase their web traffic, visibility, and sales with aggressive tactics that may be considered unethical. It is also referred to as ‘spamdexing’, as this type of marketing is known for using techniques such as creating automated programs and scripts to artificially boost search engine rankings and visibility.

Canonicalisation is an important concept to understand when it comes to optimising webpages for better search engine rankings. It has become increasingly important due to the proliferation of web technologies, like smart phones and tablets, that require webpages to be rendered differently for different devices.

Cloaking is a process in digital marketing that uses a variety of methods to distort the way a web page appears to search engine crawlers while hiding the original content from them. This is done in an effort to increase rankings in search engine results.

Search engine Crawlers – commonly referred to as ‘spiders’ – are used by search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to discover new webpages and websites, and to assess the existing content of the existing webpages within a given website. They operate by using automated programmes (also known as ‘web crawlers’) that are designed specifically to ‘crawl’ the web, indexing websites, pages, content and several other related assets as they visit and revisit pages.

A Dead link is an inaccessible website link - the link exists, but when clicked on, the website fails to load or it gives an error message. In other words, it is a broken link or a link that no longer works.

Deep linking is a technique used in digital marketing that provides web users with a direct link to a specific and more relevant page within a website. It gives customers a more tailored and convenient online experience as they don’t need to search through the whole website to find the information they need.

The Disavow tool is a powerful tool that can help in repairing the reputation of a website if it has been damaged by link building tactics deemed less than optimal by search engines such as Google. It can be used to indicate to search engines that links coming from certain websites to your own website should not influence your overall rankings.

A Dofollow link is a type of link that links two web pages together, typically from one website to another, and passes along link equity in the process. Dofollow links are essential for SEO because they provide a “vote” of confidence for a website, which helps boost overall site visibility, as well as building trust with visitors.

Domain authority is a term used within the digital marketing industry. It is a measure of a domain’s authority and is based on a search engine’s ranking algorithm.

A Doorway page is a type of website or web page that is specifically designed to increase search engine visibility or ranking. It is a tactic used by web designers and marketers to boost the search engine rankings of a certain website.

External linking is an SEO term used to refer to the process of linking to other websites from your own website. By linking to external websites, you are creating a connection between the two sites that can be beneficial in helping to improve your site’s search engine rankings.

A Featured Snippet (sometimes called a “position 0 snippet”) is a special type of snippet that appears in the search engine results when a user searches for something specific. This type of snippet is most often made up of a few lines of text, but might also include images, videos and other types of media.

Google Freshness algorithm refers to the process by which Google search results are ordered by how relevant they are in relation to the search query. This process takes into account content that is recent and timely, allowing users to find the most up-to-date information on the web.

Google Fred update is a major algorithm update released by Google in 2017. It's not a radical change, but is considered significant as it has changed the way that some websites are ranked in Google search results.

Google Hummingbird is a search engine algorithm update that was introduced by Google in 2013. It is designed to get better search results when users are searching for certain phrases or concepts – as opposed to short keywords – and is intended to make searches more targeted.

Google Index is a services that allows Google to crawl, store, and categorise webpages on the internet. It is an important step of the process for gaining organic search engine visibility, which can directly lead to an increase in traffic for your website.

Google Panda is an algorithm update from Google that was first released in 2011. Its primary purpose is to reward high-quality content and penalize low-quality content in the search results.

Google Penguin is a major algorithm change launched by Google in April 2012. It was designed to penalise webpages that had a large number of low quality backlinks—links coming from untrustworthy websites, or websites with a low trustworthiness score.

Google Pigeon is the informal name given to a major update that Google rolled out to its local search algorithm in July 2014. It has had a significant impact on local search visibility and rankings for businesses and other local entities, making it an important concept for marketers to understand.

Google's search algorithm is the core technology behind how Google sorts through the billions of websites on the internet to find the answer to any query. The algorithm works to give the searcher the most relevant, up-to-date, and trustworthy answer.

Google search console is a powerful tool for website owners, SEO professionals and web developers to monitor and maintain the presence of their website in Google search results. The console provides valuable insight into your website’s visibility, the keywords you rank for, the types of impressions and clicks your website receives, backlinks and much more.

Googlebot is the name used for Google’s web crawling bot, which is an automated program used by the search engine to find, index, and rank websites. It is an integral part of the process used to produce Google search results, and the better optimised your website is for Googlebot, the higher your site appears in those results.

Grey hat SEO is a term given to SEO techniques that are neither seen as white hat SEO (search engine optimisation techniques that adhere to the general guidelines of search engine guidelines) nor black hat SEO techniques (which are techniques used to purposely manipulate search engine results). Grey hat SEO techniques are somewhere in the middle and often rely on some slightly risky techniques to help websites move up in search engine rankings.

Heading tags are HTML tags used to structure webpages and identify the main topics and other key pieces of content. The heading tags range from H1 to H6 and usually appear in the form of a line of text.

Hidden text is text that website visitors can't see but can be read by search engines, thus allowing it to influence the content of a website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). It is normally hidden by making the text color the same as the background, cropping the text with the same color as the background, or setting the font size to 0.

An HTML sitemap is a type of website navigation tool which allows users to easily find specific pages within a larger website. It is a map of a website which lists the different pages of a website, as well as any subpages, so users can quickly and easily find the page they are looking for.

A Hyperlink is a simple, yet powerful tool used on the internet which allows users to click through to other webpages or documents. Hyperlinks appear as text or images which allow users to click through or tap on them in order to navigate to a particular webpage or document.

An Inbound link (also known as a backlink) is an incoming URL from one website page to another. They allow users to easily navigate from one page to the next, helping them find the content they are looking for, as well as strengthening the page authority and search engine rankings.

An Internal link is a hyperlink on a website or online application that points to another page or section within the same website or online application. It is used to provide website navigation and improve the website user experience, as it helps the user navigate from one page to another quickly and easily.

Internal site search is a tool for websites that allows users to find specific information quickly and easily. It uses keywords to pull relevant results from the website’s database, making navigation and navigation easier for customers.

KeyWirky is a marketing technique that is used to evaluate the effectiveness of a digital content strategy. It is a way for marketers to engage their audience, measure their content performance, and make improvements where necessary.

Keyword density is an important consideration in any SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy and refers to the number of times a keyword or phrase appears within the content of a website or web page. The number of times a keyword is used in a web page or article can have an effect on how a website is indexed by search engines, and therefore can affect the website’s search engine ranking.

Keyword frequency is an important concept to understand in the world of search engine optimisation (SEO). It refers to the number of times a certain keyword or phrase is used in the content of a web page - the higher the frequency of a keyword, the more relevance and importance it has for search engine algorithms.

A Keyword phrase is a phrase or series of words which is used to determine the relevancy of a web page or document to a search query. It is a way of targeting users who may be interested in the page/document’s content, and is a major factor in the algorithms that search engines use to rank webpages.

Keyword ranking is a measure of the visibility and relevance of a website or page on a search engine’s results page (SERP). It refers to how close a website appears to the top of the SERP when a query is entered into a search engine, and is determined by search engine algorithms and the keywords and phrases used in that query.

Keyword research is an essential part of any successful digital marketing strategy. It helps marketers understand what their target customers are searching for so that they can create content that meets their needs.

Keyword stemming is a search engine optimisation (SEO) technique that involves using variations of the same root keyword in order to draw in more organic search traffic. The idea behind keyword stemming is that if you use related terms when writing blog posts and articles, you’ll increase the chances of your content appearing in search engine results, driving more visitors and customers to your website.

Keyword stuffing refers to an unethical SEO practice of ‘over-stuffing’ webpages with unnecessary keywords, or variations of a target keyword, in an effort to manipulate search engine rankings. The practice is also referred to as ‘keyword spamming’.

Keywords in marketing refer to words or phrases that are used to describe a particular product, service, or business. These words are important to marketing efforts as they are what customers use to search for the services or products they need.

Link, when used in the context of marketing, is a term used to refer to the physical and or logical connection between two entities. For example, a link can exist between a website and social media post, between two types of content, or between two text points in a website or article.

Link building is the process of establishing relevant links (or links back) from external websites to your own website for the purpose of increasing the visibility of your website in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The main aim of link building is to increase the website’s ranking on SERPs so more potential customers can find it.

A Link exchange, also known as link trading, is a popular form of internet marketing used to increase website traffic and boost a website’s search engine rankings. It involves exchanging links with another webmaster to establish a mutually beneficial relationship.

Link farms are an outdated technique used by some website owners to artificially increase the number and quality of their website's inbound links. They are generally considered to be poor practice by the search engines and may result in penalties or a drastic decrease in organic traffic.

Link Networks are a type of link building that have been around since the advent of SEO – Search Engine Optimisation. They involve complex networks of websites that are connected via a linking structure that is intended to increase the visbility of websites on the internet.

Link popularity is a way of measuring how many other sites link into a particular site or web page. It is important because it helps search engines decide how to rank a website on search engine result pages (SERPs).

A Link profile is a collection of incoming and outgoing links that are part of a website's overall online presence and link structure. The profile includes all the links on the website itself and all of the external links that point to it from other websites.

Link reclamation is an essential search engine optimization (SEO) technique that should form an integral part of any content and link building strategy. It is the practice of hunting down and removing broken, outdated, or incorrect URLs from a website and replacing them with current, authoritative links to relevant and useful content.

Link rot is a term used in the marketing industry to describe the process of web page links becoming broken or outdated overtime. This is a common problem that businesses face and it can damage search engine rankings, impair user experience, and lead to the loss of important web traffic.

Local search is concerned with the marketing of a business to local customers through the use of online platforms. It is about making sure businesses are found online for searches for local products and services.

A ‘Long Tail Keyword’ is an incredibly powerful tool for marketers and businesses looking to increase their search-engine visibility and website traffic. Put simply, long tail keywords are a combination of words or phrases that someone is likely to type into a search engine like Google when looking for something specific.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a method of indexing used by search engines to understand the relationship between words, phrases and topics. It’s based on the idea that words and phrases which are semantically related have a similar context.

Meta Description is an HTML tag used by search engines to accurately describe a web page or a blog post. It is displayed in search engine results pages (SERPs) and is used as a way to provide additional information about the content to be found on the page or blog post.

A Meta element is an HTML element that provides information about a web page. It is used to describe the content of the page, such as its title, description, author and other related metadata.

Meta Keywords are words or phrases used in the HTML code of a website to help describe the content of a website and tell search engines what the website is about. Meta keywords are an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) as they provide search engines with additional information about a website that can be used in their rankings.

Meta-search engines, also known as Metasearch engines, are online tools used to search multiple search engines at once to get results in a single place. This can be especially useful if you need to find something that the search engine may not pull up on its own.

Natural search is the process of optimising a website for the purpose of appearing in the organic search results of search engines such as Google. It is a form of search engine optimisation (SEO) that focusses on improving the organic search rankings of a website in an organic and natural way, instead of through paid advertising.

Negative SEO is a type of digital marketing practice that attempts to improve a website’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings by intentionally reducing the website’s search engine visibility. It is typically used when a website’s competitor hopes to sabotage their success in search engine rankings.

A NoFollow link is a type of link in website programming that tells search engines not to take the link into account when crawling or indexing the site. This type of link usually will not pass ‘link juice’ or authority from the referred page to the referring page.

NoIndex is a meta tag used in the HTML code of a website. It is used to instruct search engine robots not to index a page or the website in its entirety.

On-page SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice of optimising a website’s content, structure, and code to make it as search engine-friendly as possible. The aim of on-page SEO is to ensure all content is properly placed, indexed and ranked accurately.

Organic search is the process of finding information on internet-based search engines such as Google or Bing, without relying on any paid marketing tactics such as deep links, targeted ads, or sponsored results. Organic searches are conducted by web users when they type a question or phrase into a search engine and view the resulting web pages, links, and websites that make up the results.

Outbound links in marketing are links that you include on your web pages and other digital platforms that direct your audience to other websites. They are often referred to as external links or external hyperlinks and are a key component of SEO - or search engine optimization.

A Page title is the most important element of SEO (search engine optimization). It is a headline of sorts that not only tells visitors what is on the page, but also appears in search engine results.

PageRank is an algorithm used by Google to measure the relevance of your website page in relation to other websites on the internet. It is a measure by which Google assesses its pages when deciding how to rank them in its search engine results pages (SERPs).

The Panda algorithm is the name given to one of Google’s major algorithms which was initially released in 2011. It plays a significant role in helping to decide the rankings of websites on Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages).

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are owned and controlled by the same person or entity. These websites generally have similar domain names, design, format, and content, and are interlinked with each other to form an interconnected digital web.

A Permalink, or permanent link, is a URL that is used to directly link to a specific page or post on a website or blog. It can be used to share links with others or to reference content that readers have seen previously.

RankBrain is an AI system developed by Google to help improve their search results. It was first introduced in October 2015 and uses machine learning algorithms to interpret search queries and refine its responses.

Ranking is a broad term that is used in marketing to refer to an action or process of measuring the relative importance or value of something. Ranking is commonly used in the context of search engine optimisation (SEO) to measure the performance of websites and their pages in terms of visibility.

Ranking signals are the metrics used by search engines to determine the ranking positions of webpages within search engine results pages (SERPs). Specifically, they are factors that are used to calculate how well a website will rank against other websites, in terms of its relevance to a specific search query.

A 'Reciprocal link' is a link on both your website and another website that leads back and forth between the two. Essentially, it is a type of link exchange; you link to the other website and they link to you.

Robots.txt is a file used by webmasters to tell search engine crawlers (also known as robots, spiders, or simply ‘bots) which parts of their website they want indexed.

A Scraper is a type of automated software tool used to retrieve data from websites and other web sources, usually through the process of web scraping. It is based on the idea of extracting useful information from web pages and making it available for later analysis and use.

Search algorithms are a critical part of the processes used by search engines to bring users the most relevant search results. Knowing how to use them, and how they work, is essential for getting the best possible search results.

A Search Engine is a web-based tool designed to help people find information on the internet. Search engines can be divided into two distinct types: general search engines and specialised search engines.

Search Network, also known as Search Network with Display Select, gives you access to both the Google Search Network and the Google Display Network. It helps you to reach the right people at the right time in the most cost-effective way.

Search Operators are powerful tools which give us more control over our search results. They are specially formatted words and symbols which when used with search engines yield different results to what we would normally get with just a free text search.

A ‘Search query’ is a phrase typed into a search engine to find relevant webpages related to the words entered. This phrase is usually entered into the search bar of a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and so on.

A "Search term" is an online search query that someone enters into a search engine in order to find specific information. It consists of one or more keywords that are related to the specific topic that the user is looking for.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving a website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) in order to increase the amount of organic traffic it receives. It aims to improve the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as boost visibility in unpaid (‘natural’ or ‘organic’) search engine results.

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page, which is the page of results you get when you type a query into a search engine such as Google. It is essentially the ‘answers page’ from a search engine, and is the main way people find the websites, products and services they are looking for.

SERP Position is a term used to refer to the placement of a website or page on the search engine results page (SERP). It depends on the keyword relevance, content, competition and other factors to determine where a given website or page will be displayed on a SERP.

Sitelinks are links to different pages within a website that appear beneath the main search engine results page when searching for something online. They are designed to help people quickly access the content they’re looking for, as they save precious seconds that could be spent scrolling to the desired page.

A Sitemap is a document that contains a list of the webpages on a website and their associated URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), these are links pointing to other webpages. It provides an overview of the website's structure, including page hierarchy and navigation links, and helps search engine spiders find and index webpages more efficiently.

Social signals are the public signals a company sends out in order to communicate with its customer base. They can be seen as a form of communication that combines traditional advertising, public relations, and public awareness.

A Spider, also known as a web crawler, is a program designed to scour the web and collect data from websites in order to create an index of content. It is an automated tool that is used to reduce the time and cost of web based research by going from one website to another to scan, gather, and collect data.

Traffic in marketing terms refers to the number of people who visit a website, app or other online platform. It’s usually measured in terms of page views, visits, and unique visitors, and is among the most important metrics used to measure website performance.

A Website penalty, also known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) penalty, is a key topic of discussion when it comes to website optimisation and ranking strategies in the eyes of search engine providers. The general objective of website owners and marketers today is to ensure that their websites appear higher on the list of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and so remain at the top of their consumers’ minds.

White hat SEO describes a set of SEO techniques that strictly adhere to search engine guidelines. This practice is carried out to ensure the long-term success of a website, and its pages, in obtaining organic rankings for relevant keywords.