SEO GLOSSARY INDEX

301 REDIRECT

ALT TAG

ANCHOR TEXT

BACKLINKS

BLACK HAT SEO

CANONICAL TAG

CLOAKING

DEEP LINKING

DO-FOLLOW LINK

DOMAIN & HOSTING

DUPLICATE CONTENT

KEYWORDS

KEYWORD DENSITY

KEYWORDS STUFFING

LSI

LINKBAIT

LINK BUILDING

LINK FARM

LINK SCULPTING

META DESCRIPTION

META KEYWORDS

META TAGS

NATURAL LINKS

NO FOLLOW

OFF-PAGE SEO

ON-PAGE SEO

ORGANIC SEARCH

ORGANIC RESULTS

PAGE RANK

ROBOTS.TXT

SANDBOX

SEARCH ENGINE

SEM

SEO

SERP

SUPPLEMENTAL

TITLE TAG

URL

WHITE HAT SEO

XML SITEMAP

SEO GLOSSARYCurated by Aperture Group founder Jerry DeFoe

301 REDIRECT

First let’s talk redirecting ingeneral. Redirection happenswhen you visit one specific pageand immediately after that you’rebeing automatically redirected toa different page (with a differentURL). Essentially, there are two typesof redirection: temporary andpermanent. From a user’sperspective there’s no differencebetween them, but there is onefrom a search engine’sperspective.

It’s an HTML attribute of the IMGtag. The IMG tag is responsiblefor displaying images. The alttag/attribute is the text that getsdisplayed in case the image can’tbe loaded (if the file is missing,for example). To give you an example, here’swhat a standard IMG tag couldlook like:

ALT TAG

301 redirect is a permanentredirection. It informs searchengines that the page they’retrying to access has changed itsaddress permanently. This means that whatever rankingsthe page already has should betransferred to the new address (thisdoesn’t happen with a temporaryredirection).from a search engine’sperspective.

<img src=”clock.jpg” alt=”pictureof a clock” /> Alt tags have some SEO value.The thing is that Google can’t (atleast at the moment) see whatthe actual image presents, but itcan read the alt tag. There’s nobetter way of informing Googlewhat’s on your images than byusing alt tags.

BACKLINKS

Like everything SEO has its darkside too. Black hat SEO is thename for all SEO practices thatare known for being manipulativeor unethical, and in the long runcan hurt your website, or evenget it banned from searchengines.

BLACK HAT SEO

Backlink is simply a link placedon someone else’s website thatpoints back to your site.Backlinks are one of the mostimportant factors for SEO.

Getting a lot of backlinks withrelevant anchor texts is theshortest way of improving yoursearch engine rankings.

Of course, there’s a very thin linebetween “perfectly fine” and“unethical” … one day some SEOpractices are OK, and the otherthey are suddenly black hat, sothere’s no exact list of suchpractices.

ANCHOR TEXT

Every link consists of two mainelements. There’s the webaddress that the link is pointingto (the destination) and there’sthe anchor text. The anchor textis the text that works as the link. The easiest way of explaining thisis to give you an example. Here’sa link to my resource andeducation page: online businessresources.

Anchor texts are particularlyimportant for SEO. Wheneveryou’re trying to get a link back toyour website it’s good to have arelevant keyword as the anchortext.

CLOAKING

It’s a practice of taking a webpage andbuilding it in a way so it displays differentcontent to people and to search engines.That way, at least in theory, you can getgood ranking for your desired keywords (bypresenting an optimized page to thespiders) and then present real people withunrelated offers and content.

It’s an HTML link element thatlets webmasters know to informsearch engines about someduplicate content pages they’vecreated. The tag is placed in the HEADsection of the HTML structure.Here’s what it looks like:

CANONICAL TAG

The main idea is that when asearch engine sees this tag itdoes not rank that page, buttransfers all the rankings to thecanonical page. So in essence it’svery similar to the 301 redirect.

<linkrel=”canonical”href=”http://www.example.com/” />

This tag informs that the currentpage is a copy of the pagelocated under the address set inthe canonical tag (href).

DEEP LINKING

Let me quote Wikipedia here: On the World Wide Web, deeplinking is making a hyperlink thatpoints to a specific page or imageon a website, instead of thatwebsite’s main or home page.Such links are called deep links.

It’s a standard HTML link that doesn’t havethe rel=”nofollow” attribute. Do-follow links are the most valuable onesfrom an SEO perspective.

DO-FOLLOW LINK

Your domain is your uniqueaddress on the Internet(yourdomain.com) You obtainyour domain from a registrarsuch as GoDaddy. A domain nameis used for finding your websiteon the Internet.

DOMAIN & HOSTINGHosting, or a web host, is whereyour website is kept andmaintained on the web. Depending upon your estimatedtraffic and amount of applicationprocessing (eCommerce, etc.) willdetermine the level of hostingservice and management that isrequired.

Deep links are particularlyvaluable for SEO. Linking tospecific pages within your sitewith a good anchor text improvesthe rankings of these pages.Essentially, building deep links iswhere SEO game is won or lost.

DUPLICATE CONTENT

If you have two separate pageswithin your website that have thesame content on them (or verysimilar content) then you haveduplicate content. Duplicatecontent is believed to be a badthing for SEO. Google doesn’t like sites that usethe same piece of content overand over again, and they oftenpenalize them for it.

There are many definitions ofkeywords. Let me share the onethat matters for SEO.Keywords are single words orwhole phrases of a particular SEOimportance for a given page orwebsite. For example, if I’m writing anarticle about choosing the bestgardening equipment, my mainkeyword could be “gardeningequipment“.

KEYWORDS

It is the keyword I want to rankfor because I want people to findthis article when they input“gardening equipment” intoGoogle. Another example is this very list.The main keyword here is SEOglossary. I want people to findthis post by putting “SEOglossary” into Google.

If you think that you are safe thenthink again. Let me give you anexample. If your site runs onWordPress, and if you’re usingsimilar categories and tags (likefor example a tag “business” and acategory “business”) then thelisting pages for your tags andcategories will probably be verysimilar if not exactly the same.That is a prime example ofduplicate content.

KEYWORD STUFFING

If you take a random piece oftext in English some words willoccur more frequently than theother. For example, words like:and, or, it occur very frequently,while words like: powerhouse,mushrooming occur very rarely.Keyword stuffing is a practice oftaking a word or a phrase andrepeating it very often in a pieceof text. Usually to the pointwhere the text no longer looksnatural, all for the purpose ofincreasing keyword density ofyour desired phrase.

Keyword density is believed tohave an effect on SEO. Thereasoning behind it is that if agiven phrase has a high densityscore then it means that the textis clearly about that phrase, so itprobably should get goodrankings for it. Unfortunately thispractice doesn’t work so well likeit used to in the past.

Keyword density is a numberdescribing how often does aspecific phrase appear in a pieceof text. To calculate it you justhave to divide the number oftimes your keyword appears in apiece of text by the total numberof words this piece of text has,and then multiply the result by100. The final result will beexpressed as a percentage score.

KEYWORD DENSITY

While working on keyworddensity is no longer believed towork, keyword stuffing doeswork, but it works against you.Stuffing your text with keywordsis sure to backfire.

It’s like fishing bite only for links.Basically, it’s a piece of highlyviral content. Content that ismost likely to attract a lot oflinks, hence – linkbait.

Creating linkbait content isusually very hard even thoughthe principles are simple. Thereare a couple of ways you canchoose:

create something really funny, create something of exceptionalquality, create something that brings alot of value for free.

Linkbait content is not only text.Videos, pictures, graphics, andaudio work equally well.

LATENT SEMANTICINDEXINGThe standard definition of LSI

(Latent Semantic Indexing) istruly impossible to understandso I’m not going to bring it uphere. Instead here’s a moredigestible one. LSI is considered to be animportant factor for searchengines when ranking your page.It’s said that search enginesanalyze the content on your pageand search for LSI keywordssupporting your main keyword. Ifthey find such keywords yourpage gets a boost in rankings foryour main keyword. LSI keywords are keywords thatare similar to your main one –keywords that are usually foundalong your main keyword in thenatural language.

For example, if your mainkeyword is “gardeningequipment” and you’re using it alot in your article it would begreat to use some LSI keywordsas well, such as: “plants“,“garden“, “vegetables“, “planting“,etc. These are the keywords thatwould be mentioned naturally ina genuine conversation. In other words, LSI is a way ofchecking whether the text isgenuine or just stuffed withrandom keywords purely forimproving rankings. 

LSI

LINKBAIT

LINK BUILDING

This is one of the biggest SEOterms. Link building is simply aprocess of getting backlinks toyour page. For example, if you’republishing articles onezinearticles.com with a link toyour site then you’re doing somelink building.

It’s a network of websites that linkto each other for the solepurpose of increasing theirrankings and PageRanks. Let me give you an example. Ifyou ware to create a link farm(don’t!) you could launch 4different websites, for example.Each on a different server. Thenyou would link page #1 to pages#2, #3, #4. Page #2 to pages #1,#3, #4, and so on. Basically, everypage links to every other page.Such a network isn’t verypowerful when it contains only 4sites, but when they’re hundredsor thousands of them (which isn’tuncommon) then it’s a completelydifferent story.

LINK FARM

One more thing. Link building isconsidered to be the mostimportant element of every SEOstrategy. If you want to have awell ranked page you have to getbacklinks to it.

BUT!This is considered as a “black hat”SEO technique. Don’t take part init unless you want your site toget penalized. Basically, every page links toevery other page. Such a networkisn’t very powerful when itcontains only 4 sites, but whenthey’re hundreds or thousands ofthem (which isn’t uncommon)then it’s a completely differentstory. BUT!This is considered as a “black hat”SEO technique. Don’t take part init unless you want your site toget penalized.

LINK FARM

It’s a short description of ablog/page/post used mostly bysearch engines. This descriptionis not displayed anywhere on theblog. Here’s how Google uses it.Whenever someone googles aspecific keyphrase Google makesa decision which websites shouldbe displayed and in what order.For each website Google displaysa title and a short description.Google has two ways of puttingthis description together:

By using the “nofollow” attributeof a link you can make some ofthe links on your site unimportantfrom an SEO point of view.Therefore, by using this attributeskillfully you can “sculpt” thePageRanks of certain pages withinyour website. You can increasethe visibility of some pages bygranting them with follow linksand decrease the visibility ofothers by using nofollow links.

LINK SCULPTING

This whole technique requires alot of practice and knowledge todo it properly. What’s more, manypeople believe that it’s no longerthat effective due to Google’s newapproach for handling nofollowlinks.

If the meta description of thewebsite contains the keyphraseused by the user then Googledisplays the meta description.If the meta description doesn’tcontain the keyphrase thenGoogle displays a fragment of thewebsite’s content that doescontain it.If you’re using WordPress thenmeta description for each page orpost can be set using the All InOne SEO Pack plugin.

META DESCRIPTION

NATURAL LINKS

All links your page has acquirednaturally without you activelybuilding them. For example, if you’ve written agreat post that gets viral ontwitter and a lot of people end  

META TAGS

It’s a list of keywords andkeyphrases for eachblog/page/post used mostly bysearch engines.Nowadays, many people thinkthat the major search enginesdon’t pay any attention to thiselement while ranking websites.And it’s probably the case.Nevertheless, setting properkeywords won’t do you any harm.

META KEYWORDS

Therefore including your mainkeyword on the meta keywordslist might be a good idea. For thispost, I’d include SEO glossary andSEO terms.If you’re using WordPress thenmeta keywords for each page orpost can be set using the All InOne SEO Pack plugin.

Meta tags consist of two mainelements: meta description, andmeta keywords. Meta tags areplaced in the HEAD section of theHTML structure of your page. Theinformation contained in thosetags is usually not meant for theusers but for the search engines.

It helps them determine what thepage is about. Therefore it mightbe worth to set them manuallyfor each page or post within yourblog. If you’re using WordPress thenall meta tags for each page orpost can be set using the All InOne SEO Pack plugin.

up linking to it because they likeit so much, all those links arenatural links. Then metadescription for each page or postcan be set using the All In OneSEO Pack plugin.

The are two main elements of SEO:“on-page” and “off-page”. Off-pagepractices are everything you dooutside your page to improve itsrankings. Basically, the main element of off-page SEO is link building.

OFF-PAGE SEO

“Nofollow” is a very popular termin today’s SEO. When in fact it’sjust an optional attribute of alink. However, its “optionalism”doesn’t make it unimportant. Infact, it’s the most importantattribute from a SEO standpoint. By default every link is a followlink. This means that whenever asearch engine encounters a link,it follows it. Checks where itleads to, and basically takes it asa vote. A vote by the linkingwebsite to the website that isbeing linked to. The nofollowattribute notifies the searchengines that they shouldn’t evenpay attention to such a link – novote, no link juice.

NOFOLLOW

From a user’s perspective nofollowlinks look exactly the same as theirfollow brothers and sisters. In order to create a nofollow linkjust add one extra attribute to anHTML link: rel=”nofollow” An example nofollow link: <a href=”http: / /wik ipedia .org/ ”re l=”nofol low”>Wik ipedia</a>

ORGANIC SEARCH

ON PAGE SEO

The are two main elements ofSEO: “on-page” and “off-page”.On-page practices are everythingyou do on your page to improveits rankings. This includes things like: tuningthe HTML structure, improvingtitle tags and descriptions,

making your site load faster,checking the keyword usage anddensity, improving the internallinking structure (the way yourpages are linked to each other),etc.

ORGANIC SEARCH RESULTS

When you do a search on Googlethe results will most often comein two columns. The column onthe right presents the paidresults (AdWords ads thatsomeone has bought). he columnon the left presents the organicsearch results.Getting high rankings in organicsearch results is what the SEOgame is all about.

You’re doing organic search whenyou visit Google, input a phraseand push the search button.

This is a file. One that’s particularlyimportant for SEO. It notifies thesearch engines which areas of yourblog are restricted for them.Restricting search engines fromaccessing some of your pagesmight not sound that tempting atfirst but in fact it’s a valuable thing.First of all, you can exclude all youradmin pages from indexing (forexample, pages in the wp-adminsection of your WordPress blog).

ROBOTS.TXT

PageRank or PR is an algorithmfirst created by Larry Page (oneof two founding fathers ofGoogle) to calculate (although“estimate” might be a betterword here) the importance of agiven website. No one is 100%certain about how it actuallyworks or what all the factors arebecause Google is not very openin that matter. However, one ofcommonly believed opinions arethat one of the deciding factorsis the number of backlinks a sitehas and the PageRanks of thesites linking to it.

So basically, the more links youhave, and the better PageRankthese linking sites have thebetter your PageRank will be.It’s not surprising but pages withhighest PageRanks are usuallyones that are highly recognizableand popular around the internet.For example, Google.com itselfhas a PR of 10. Facebook is PR9website. Yahoo – PR9.

PAGERANK

You can also use it to preventsearch engines from seeingduplicate content on your site.What you do, for example, isprevent them from accessing thecategory listings on your blog, soonly the tag listings are indexed,or the other way around.

TITLE TAG

XML SITEMAP

What you see at google.com is asearch engine. Essentially, searchengines are softwareapplications. Their main task is tosearch the internet for a givenphrase. Search engines havespecific algorithms for doing this.These algorithms have a way ofdeciding which sites shouldappear first in the search results(which sites are the mostrelevant).

SEARCH ENGINE

Google is believed to have asecond index called the sandbox(or the supplemental index). Notevery new page appears in themain index straight away. Some ofthem are put into the sandboxuntil Google decides that they areworthy of appearing in the mainindex – the one you see wheneveryou do a standard search onGoogle.

SANDBOX

Websites that are placed in thesandbox don’t appear for normalsearches. This means that beingin the sandbox is the worst thatcan happen to your site.

TITLE TAG

XML SITEMAP

SEM

SEARCH NGINE

SEO stands for Search EngineOptimization. It’s a practice ofimproving site’s rankings in thesearch engines for givenkeywords. When doing SEO youneed to take care of both on-page and off-page SEO.

SEO

SEM stands for Search EngineMarketing. In other words itmeans “marketing via searchengines”. Marketing or promotingyour products or services viasearch engines can be done intwo main ways. You eitheroptimize your site so it appearsat a high spot in organic searchresults, or pay for the clicksdirectly, in which case your site islisted under the “sponsoredlistings” section.

SEM

The actual tasks that need to bedone are changing almost everyday. What was working perfectlyyesterday may not be working atall tomorrow. That’s just thereality of SEO. It’s why SEO isnever a one-time task but anongoing work.

SERP

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page (SERPS – Search EngineResults Pages). This is a page that gets displayed when you search for akeyword on Google or other search engine.

XML SITEMAP

Let me quote Wikipedia on thisone. Supplemental Result is a URLresiding in Google’s supplementalindex [i.e. sandbox], a secondarydatabase containing pages of lessimportance, as measuredprimarily by Google’s PageRankalgorithm. […] A supplemental page will stillrank in search results, but only ifthere are not enough pages inthe main index that are returnedwithin the search.

SPIDER

Search engine spider is a specialpiece of software that browsesthe web, looks for new sites,checks what’s going on on themand sends the data back toGoogle (or other search engine)so they can index and rank thesesites.

You may hear Spider alsoreferred to as crawler, bot, robot.

SUPPLEMENTAL

TITLE TAG

Every page has a title tag. From auser’s standpoint the title tag isvisible only in one place – yourbrowser’s title bar. For example, the title tag of thepage you’re reading right now is:“SEO Glossary – 41 SEO TermsExplained“. It’s a very importantSEO factor. There’s no better wayfor search engines to find outwhat the page is about than bylooking at the title tag, that’s whyyou need to spend a moment oncoming up with a good title tag.

Not getting into boring technicaldetails it’s simply the address of aspecific web page. For example, the URL of the postyou’re currently reading is: https://apertureabc.com/blog

URL (URI)

How to set up a title tag: If you’re using WordPress thenthe whole thing is rather simple.First of all, every new postreceives a title tag that’s thesame as the title of the post.However, if you want to changethe title tag you need a plugin –All In One SEO Pack, for example.This plugin provides a reallysimple way of changing the titletag of any page or post on yourblog.

You will notice that you will startto see that WWW is no longerneeded. Your site should have https, oryou are not current.

XML SITEMAP

WHITE HAT SEO

As opposed to the black hat SEO,white hat SEO is a set of all SEOpractices that search enginesencourage you to use. Of course,there’s no official referenceplace or ranking for SEOpractices, so in order to be up todate with what’s recommendedand what isn’t, you have toconstantly read the most popularSEO blogs, and some in-houseGoogle blogs like these two:Official Google Blog, OfficialGoogle Webmaster Central Blog.

XML SITEMAP

It’s a file (usually sitemap.xml). Its main function is to give search enginesa map of all the different URLs that your blog contains (all pages, posts,archives, etc). With such a thing they can index your blog a lot quicker.If you’re using WordPress you don’t have to create this file on yourown.

Is everything here?Most certainly … not. I’m more than happy toexpand this list even further. So don’t hesitateto shoot me an email if you like me to expandupon a term or find another term you'd like toknow about. info@apertureabc.com