SEO Glossary: Essential Terms You Need to Know
Do you ever find yourself confused about the different SEO terms and meanings used by experts in the industry?
Are you puzzled by SEO abbreviations like DA, DR, LSI, and others? Want to get better acquainted with the technical aspects of SEO for your website?
This comprehensive SEO glossary from A to Z covers essential industry terminology while focusing on the modern intersection of Structured Data, Entity SEO, and AI-Search. Use this guide to understand how technical SEO now serves as the foundation for AI grounding and LLM-readiness.
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A
Above the fold
Affiliate
Aggregation sites
Alexa Rank
ALT Text
AMP
Anchor text (link text)
API
App Packs (App Boxes)
Application indexing
Autosuggestion (Autocomplete)
AI Grounding
The process of ensuring an AI model’s responses are based on verifiable, factual data. In SEO, this is achieved by using Structured Data (Schema) to provide search engines with a clear “Source of Truth” for your website’s facts.
B
Backlinks
Black Hat SEO
Bot
Bounce rate
Breadcrumbs
C
Cached link
Cached page
Call to Action (CTA)
Canonical tag
Carousel (SERP feature)
ccTLD
Citation
Click fraud
CMS (Content Management System)
Comment spam
Conversion
Conversion rate
Cookies
Cover
CPC
CPM
Crawl depth
Crawl errors
Crawl rate
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
CTR (Click Through Rate)
Cybersquatting
D
Deep links
Direct Reply (aka Quick Reply, Answer Box)
Disavow backlinks
Discover more places
DNS (Domain Name System)
DNS Server (Domain Name System Server)
Domain name
Domain name registrars
Doorway Page (aka Gateway Page)
Duplicate content
Entity-Based SEO
An optimization approach that focuses on “Entities” (unique persons, places, or things) rather than just keywords. Search engines use entities to build a Knowledge Graph and understand the context of your content.
F
Favicon
Featured Snippet (SERP Feature)
Fetch as Google
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
G
Goal description
Google analytics
Google Analytics tracking code
Google cached links
Google dance
Google Fonts
Google for Jobs
Google Home Service Ads
Google Hummingbird
Google Juice
Google MapMaker
Google My Business Directory
Google Optimize
Google panda
Google penguin
Google Pigeon
Google play store
Google Possum
Google posts
Google Sandbox
Google Search Console (Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Trends
Google Webmaster Guidelines
Googlebot
gTLDs
Grounding-Induced Alignment
The technical method of aligning an AI’s output with specific, structured information. Websites that provide high-quality Schema markup help search engines achieve better alignment when summarizing brand information.
H
Head Tag (in HTML)
Hits
Hreflang tag
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)
HTML headers
HTTP
HTTP headers
HTTPS
I
Iframe
Image Box
Incognito Mode (Private Browsing)
Indexed Pages
Internal link
IP adress
iTunes App Store
J
Java
Javascript
JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data)
The structured data format recommended by Google. It is a lightweight way to encode linked data, making it easy for both search engines and AI agents to parse the relationship between different elements on a page.
K
Keyword
Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword density
Keyword planner
Keyword research
Keyword stuffing
Knowledge Graph
A massive database used by search engines (like Google) and AI models to store and connect information about entities. High-quality technical SEO helps your brand become a recognized node within this graph.
Knowledge panel
L
Link
Link accumulation
Link bait
Link building
Link Exchange (Reciprocal Link)
Link Farm
Link Juice (Link Love)
Link popularity
Local pack
Local search engine
Local SEO
Long Tail Keyword
LLM-Readiness (Large Language Model Readiness)
The state of a website’s technical infrastructure that allows AI models like GPT-4, Gemini, or Claude to easily crawl, interpret, and accurately retrieve information without hallucinations.
M
Machine learning
Manual action penalty
Markers
Meta Keywords
Meta tags
Metadata
Mirror site
Mobile SEO
Mobile-First Indexing
N
Natural Language Processing
Nofollow
Noindex
O
Online reputation management
Organic links
Organic search results
Organic traffic
P
Pagerank (PR)
Pagespeed
Pageviews (Impressions)
People also ask
PPC
R
RankBrain
Redirect
Reference chord
Related search
Responsive website design
Reviews (Stars)
Rich cards
Robot.txt file
ROI
RSS Feed
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
An AI framework that allows Large Language Models to retrieve facts from an external, trusted source (your website) before generating an answer. Technical SEO ensures your data is “retrieval-friendly” for these systems.
S
SAB (Service Area Business)
Search box
Search operators
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
SEO friendly URL
SEO toolbars
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
SERP Features
Server log files
Similar link (on Google)
Site Map
Sitelinks
SMM (Social Media Marketing)
Social bookmarks
Soft 404 error
Spamdexing
Spider trap
Structured cuts
Structured marking
Subdomain
Schema Markup
A standardized vocabulary (Schema.org) added to HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in SERPs and AI-driven search results.
Semantic Search
A search engine’s ability to understand the intent and contextual meaning of a query, rather than just matching literal strings of keywords. This is the core technology behind modern AI search.
Structured Data
A system of pairing a name with a value that helps search engines categorize and index your content. It is the primary language used to communicate a site’s specific details to AI search algorithms.
T
TF-IDF
The hamburger button
The weather on the page
Things to do / Top Sights (SERP feature)
Thumbnail image
Title (Page Title)
Top Level Domain (TLD)
Top Stories (aka News box)
Tracking budget
Tracking frequency
Twitter Feature (SERP Feature)
U
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)
URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
URL parameters
User Generated Content
V
Video Thumbnail (SERP feature)
W
Web 2.0
Web Scraping
White Hat SEO
Whois