Glossary of SEO Definitions

AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages – is an Open Source framework designed to speed up load times for mobile internet users.

Agile content development is a technology-supported method to develop and continuously optimize competitive content.

Alt attributes make it possible to enter an alternative description in the HTML code for every image on a website.

An anchor text is the text displayed on a website for a given link.

Backlinks are links from outside domains that point to pages on your domain; essentially linking back from their domain to yours.

Websites can occupy a so-called Bad Neighborhood. This refers to all websites that have been severely downgraded by search engines.

A so-called website blocker is something that prevents search engines from accessing the site.

A briefing is a short meeting or an introduction to a new topic. It is mainly used in the areas of military, aviation and diving as well as in online marketing and advertising.

A broken link is a link that has no object or does not lead to anything.

A business directory is like an online version of the Yellow Pages.

Cloaking is a method which gives search engines the impression that a website carries content that is different to what users actually see.

Businesses generally know who their competitors are on the open market. But are they the same companies you need to fight to get the best placement for your website? Not necessarily!

The Content Editor is a feature of Searchmetrics Content Experience (SCE) for the creation of competitive content.

A content gap analysis is a strategic method for checking and optimizing the content of a website.

Content marketing is a marketing discipline with the goal of increasing awareness and scope for products and brands in the desired target group with content published on the web and offline.

Content Relevance is used to indicate how relevant a website is in relation to a particular search term or topic.

The content score is an aggregated predictor for the competitiveness of online content.

Conversions are processes in online marketing that lead to a defined conclusion.

Cookies are small text files that are saved on a user’s local computer when browsing and sent back to the server when the user visits the same sites again.

A crawler is a program used by search engines to collect data from the internet.

A defective link is a link that has no object or does not lead to anything.

Domain Popularity refers to the number of backlinks (incoming links) from other domains that refer back to a website.

The domain trust of a website describes its trustworthiness and integrity.

Duplicate content refers to several websites with the same or very similar content.

Featured snippets are highlighted excerpts of text that appear at the top of a Google search results page in what is known as ‘Position 0’.

Frames can be laid down in HTML code to create clear structures for a website’s content.

It is possible to pay a search engine for a placement in certain search results.

The Google Keyword Planner is a tool that Alphabet Inc. makes available to advertisers as part of its Google Ads program.

The Google Knowledge Graph is a part of the universal & extended search and therefore an enhancement of the organic Google search result. The Knowledge Graph is presented in a dedicated area in the SERPs with the results from various sources delivered graphically.

Lighthouse is an open source tool for running technical website audits. The tool was developed by Google, and it analyzes the following aspects of a URL: Performance, Progressive Web App, Accessibility, Best Practices and SEO.

Google+Local, developed from Google Places, is a service provided by Google that allows companies to be present in a Google Maps search. Company entries are usually automatically created by Google or can be created and managed by companies themselves via the Google Places Business Center.

Google Maps is one of, if not the biggest, readily accessible and free online map services in the world.

Google algorithm updates that prioritize mobile optimization of websites are described as Google mobile updates. Google made mobile friendliness a ranking factor for mobile search results with the first rollout in 2015.

Google My Business is a product by the Google search engine.

Google News is a vertical search engine that Alphabet began in 2002. Results from Google searches – mostly news – are listed very prominently as a box in the organic search results in the event of current topicality.

The "Panda update" was an adjustment of the Google Search algorithm, introduced in 2011. The Panda update, alongside the Penguin update, is one of the most important Google updates, as its effect on the rankings of websites was dramatic.

The Penguin update is an update to the Google ranking algorithm, first carried out in 2012. Back then, the rollout of the update had massive effects on many websites. Google intended the update to fight webspam.

Google's "Phantom update" is a bundle of partially unconfirmed Google updates, the rollout which began in mid-May 2015.

Google Places is Google’s listing for local business search results. Google Places appears at the very top of the Google search results when a user is looking for local information.

The Google Search Console is a free web analysis tool offered by Google.

Google Shopping is Google’s product-based advertising service.

With Google Trends the interest in relevant search terms can be analyzed. This allows search queries to be valued and, over the course of time, such as for the seasonality of search terms, be classified.

Google Updates are important events for webmasters and SEOs everywhere. These algorithm changes, filters, data refreshes or other alterations are often to blame when a website suffers a drop in ranking or SEO Visibility.

In September 2013 Google announced that it had rolled out a brand new algorithm – “Hummingbird” – the month before. The name was chosen with care – the Hummingbird is very fast, and extremely precise.

A homepage is a collection of HTML documents that can be called up as individual webpages via one URL on the web with a client such as a browser.

An index is another name for the database used by a search engine. Indexes contain the information on all the websites that Google (or any other search engine) was able to find. If a website is not in a search engine’s index, users will not be able to find it.

Hyperlinks that link to subpages within a domain are described as "internal links". With internal links the linking power of the homepage can be better distributed across directories. Also, search engines and users can find content more easily.

A keyword is what users write into a search engine when they want to find something specific.

Keyword cannibalization, also known as URL cannibalization or keyword cannibalizing, means that two subpages of a domain rank on the same keyword(s). This SEO mistake has a negative impact on ranking success but is easy to fix with the right keyword strategy.

Keyword density tells you how often a search term appears in a text in relation to the total number of words it contains.

A search term can be made up of a combination of keywords. The keyword proximity refers to the distance between the search term’s individual keywords.

Keyword stuffing is when someone attempts to manipulate their position in the search results by concentrating relevant keywords.

Link juice is slang used to describe and measure how much power a backlink passes onto another site and therefore strengthens it.

Link popularity refers to the number of backlinks (incoming links) that point to a given website.

A text associated with a link target is described as a link text. This can be a word, a character or even several words up to (theoretically) several sentences. The clickable link text associated with a URL is then described as a hyperlink.

The meta description is one of a web page’s meta tags. With this meta information, webmasters can briefly sketch out the content and quality of a web page.

Search terms can be included in the meta tags of any website’s HTML code.

Meta tags are areas in HTML code that contain information about a website.

See Page Title

Offpage optimization refers to all the measures that can be taken outside of the actual website in order to improve its position in search rankings.

Onpage optimization (AKA on-page SEO) refers to all measures that can be taken directly within the website in order to improve its position in the search rankings.

See Websites

Page content refers to all the information contained in a website.

Every webpage (e.g. homepage, subpage) has its own title.

It is possible to pay a search engine for a placement in certain search results.

The Plagiarism Finder is an instrument for quality checking in the Searchmetrics Content Experience.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are app-like web pages that can be opened on mobile devices via a browser.

The term “Ranking Factors” describes the criteria applied by search engines when evaluating web pages in order to compile the rankings of their search results. Ranking factors can relate to a website’s content, technical implementation, user signals, backlink profile or any other features the search engine considers relevant. Understanding ranking factors is a prerequisite for effective search engine optimization.

Ranking opportunities in the context of search engine optimization (SEO) describe the potential of a website to rank in search engines for certain keywords.

Rankings in SEO refers to a website’s position in the search engine results page.

Special result snippets in Google search results are described as rich snippets.

Robots.txt file is a text file that can be saved to a website’s server.

A search engine is a website through which users can search internet content.

It is possible to pay a search engine for a placement in certain search results.

The majority of search engines have guidelines in place.

Search engine marketing refers to measures that are designed to better position a website in the search results and in doing so to direct visitors to the website.

Search engine optimization refers to measures that aim to improve a website’s position in a search engine’s natural search results.

You can register a website directly with a search engine.

Search engine spam refers to measures that try to influence the position a website has in search engines.

Search results refer to the list created by search engines in response to a query.

A search term is what users key into a search engine when they want to find something specific.

Search volume refers to the number of search queries for a specific keyword in search engines such as Google.

SEO Visibility is a metric compiled from several relevant search factors that is used to calculate how visible a website is in a search engine’s organic results.

The sitemap.xml file in an XML file that is saved to a website’s server.

In a so-called "SSL encryption" (Secure Sockets Layer) a connection between a server and a client is encrypted.

Structured data is the term used to describe schema markup on websites. With the help of this code, search engines can understand the content of URLs more easily, resulting in enhanced results in the search engine results page known as rich results. Typical examples of this are ratings, events and much more. The Searchmetrics glossary below contains everything you need to know about structured data.

The Topic Explorer is an instrument for topic research in the Searchmetrics Content Experience.

With search engines, topical relevance is mainly used in conjunction with backlinks (incoming links).

In the context of search engine optimization, “Universal Search” (also called “Blended Search” or “Enhanced Search”) refers to the integration of additional media like videos, images or maps – displayed above or amongst the organic search results of search engines like Google or Bing.

The term URL is an acronym for the designation "Uniform Resource Locator".

User experience (or UX for short) is a term used to describe the experience a user has with a product.

The user intent, or search intent states which goal or intention an internet user has when entering a search term into a search engine.

Signals a website user sends to search engines based on their positive (and negative) interactions with a website are called user signals.

Web catalogues contain a collection of linked internet addresses which are mostly sorted according to specific criteria e.g. by industry.

Web directories contain a collection of linked internet addresses which are mostly sorted according to specific criteria e.g. by industry.

When you enter an internet address (a URL, e.g. https://login.1und1.de/) into a web browser, a webpage will appear.

Webmaster guidelines are guidelines that are set out by search engine providers such as Google or Bing.

A website is a collection of HTML documents that can be called up as individual webpages via one URL on the web with a client such as a browser.

A website's structure refers to how the website is set up, i.e. how the individual subpages are linked to one another.

Zero click searches are queries in search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yandex that do not send you to a third-party website from an organic search result. Around 50 percent of searches currently end without a click on an organic search result. Everything you need to know about zero click searches can be found here in the Searchmetrics Glossary.