SEO Glossary

Anchor text

The clickable words in a link. Descriptive anchors help users and search engines understand the destination.

Backlink

A link from another website to yours. Relevant, editorial backlinks are a strong ranking signal.

Canonical tag

An HTML element that tells search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page.

Click-through rate (CTR)

The percentage of impressions that become clicks. In Search Console it shows how often people click your result.

Core Web Vitals

Google’s user-experience metrics for loading (LCP), interactivity (INP) and visual stability (CLS).

Crawl budget

The number of URLs a search engine will crawl on your site within a given time. It matters most for large sites.

Domain authority

A third-party metric that estimates a site’s ranking strength. It is not a Google metric.

E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness: quality concepts Google uses to describe helpful content.

Entity

A distinct thing, such as a brand, person or product, that search systems can recognise and connect to other things.

Featured snippet

A highlighted answer shown above regular results that extracts content from a page.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

Optimising content and brand signals so generative AI systems mention and cite you accurately.

Google Business Profile

A free listing that controls how a business appears in Google Maps and local results.

Hreflang

An annotation that tells search engines which language or regional version of a page to show to which users.

Index

The database of pages a search engine has processed and can show in results.

Internal link

A link from one page to another page on the same website.

Keyword cannibalisation

When several pages on one site compete for the same query and dilute each other’s performance.

Local pack

The group of map-based business results shown for local searches.

Long-tail keyword

A longer, more specific search phrase, usually with lower volume and clearer intent.

Meta description

A short summary of a page that may be shown under the title in search results.

Noindex

A directive telling search engines not to include a page in their index.

Organic traffic

Visits that come from unpaid search results.

Redirect (301)

A permanent redirect that sends users and search engines from an old URL to a new one.

Robots.txt

A file that tells crawlers which parts of a site they may crawl.

Schema markup

Structured data in a standard vocabulary that helps search engines understand page content.

Search intent

The goal behind a search: to learn, compare, buy or find a place.

SERP

Search engine results page.

Sitemap (XML)

A file listing URLs you want search engines to discover.

Technical SEO

Improving how well search engines can crawl, render, index and understand a site.

Topical authority

The perceived depth and reliability of a site on a subject, built through comprehensive, high-quality coverage.