SEO Glossary

Outgoing links and images that return 404 or fail to connect hurt user trust and waste crawl budget

A canonical URL is an HTML element that tells search engines which version of a page is the preferred one for indexing.

Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of users who click on a search result after seeing it, measuring how compelling your listing is.

Crawl budget is the number of pages a search engine will crawl on your site within a given timeframe.

Pages sharing the same meta description compete for clicks in search results

Multiple pages sharing the same H1 weakens differentiation and rankings

Pages sharing the same title compete with each other in search results

Pages with an H1 tag that contains no text waste heading potential

An H1 tag is the primary heading element on a web page, signaling the main topic to search engines and users.

HTTP status codes are three-digit numbers returned by a server to indicate the result of a browser or crawler request.

Internal linking is the practice of linking pages within the same website to help users navigate and distribute link equity.

Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on the same site compete for the same search query, splitting ranking signals.

Link equity is the ranking value that flows from one page to another through hyperlinks, influencing search engine rankings.

Pages with over 5,000 words may need restructuring for better readability

Meta descriptions over 160 characters get truncated in search result snippets

H1 tags over 70 characters lose focus and dilute keyword targeting

Titles over 60 characters get truncated in search results

URLs over 120 characters are harder to share and may signal poor site structure

A meta description is an HTML tag that provides a brief summary of a page, often displayed in search engine results.

Pages with no extractable content provide no value to search engines or users

Pages without meta descriptions lose control over search result snippets

Pages without an H1 tag lack a primary heading for search engines and users

Pages without a title tag hurt search visibility and AI discoverability

Pages with more than one H1 tag dilute the heading hierarchy

NDJSON (Newline Delimited JSON) is a data format where each line is a valid JSON object, ideal for streaming and processing large datasets.

Nofollow is a directive that tells search engines not to pass link equity through links on a page.

Pages with nofollow directives prevent search engines from following their links

Noindex is a directive that tells search engines not to include a page in their search results index.

Pages with noindex directives are excluded from search engine indexes

Pages pointing their canonical tag to a different URL may lose ranking signals

Pages using rel=next and rel=prev indicate multi-part content sequences

Pagination is the practice of splitting content across multiple pages, using rel="next" and rel="prev" links to signal the sequence.

A redirect chain occurs when a URL redirects through multiple intermediate URLs before reaching the final destination.

robots.txt is a file that tells search engine crawlers which pages or sections of a site should not be crawled.

Pages with fewer than 200 words may lack sufficient depth for search engines

Meta descriptions under 50 characters waste snippet space in search results

H1 tags under 10 characters are too generic to be useful for SEO

Titles under 30 characters miss keyword and click-through opportunities

A sitemap XML file lists the pages on a website to help search engines discover and crawl content more efficiently.

Thin content refers to web pages with little or no substantive content, offering minimal value to users and search engines.

A title tag is an HTML element that defines the title of a web page, displayed in browser tabs and search engine results.

A web crawler is a program that systematically browses the web by following links, collecting data from pages it visits.