SEO Glossary

  • Algorithm: Computer program
  • Topical directory: Website listing the pages that belong to a given topic.
  • General directory: Website listing pages that belong to several topics.
  • Backlink: When a link on a website B is pointing to website A and followed by robots, it is a backlink for the website A.
  • Semantic markup: Appropriate use of HTML tags depending on the content and sense of tags.
  • Meta tag: A tag located on the Head part of an HTML document, there are plenty of properties for meta tags such as description and keywords.
  • BL : Abbreviation for BackLink.
  • Blacklisting : Worst penalty applied by a search engine. A blacklisted website no longer appear in results pages.
  • Cloaking : A technique that makes possible to display a different content depending on the entity of the consultant trying to consult it.
  • Clustering: We talk about clustering when a search engine brings together 2 results from the same website for the same query.
  • Crawler: Name of the action performed by bots when they visit a web page.
  • Dmoz: Worldwide general and open directory listing websites. It is also known as the Open Directory Project (ODP).
  • Indexing: A document is indexed when it is in the databases of a search engines and it is possible to find it via a search on it.
  • Referencing: Synonym of indexing.
  • Ranking: A document is ranked when it is in the first page of Google on a given term related to the topic of the document.
  • PageRank: Index calculated by Google representing the popularity of a web page based on the quantity, popularity and quality of inbound links.
  • PR: Acronym for PageRank.
  • Data Center : A place where numerous servers are stored.
  • DC: Acronym for Data Center
  • HTTP header: HTTP header are the first lines transmitted by a web server before displaying a document.
  • Google Bombing: Activity aimed at ranking a web page on a often humorous term that is not included in its content. It is necessary to set up many backlinks to the target page using the selected term as an anchor.
  • Google Adsense: Service offered by Google for websites editors in order to display targeted ad on websites and then make their websites profitable.
  • Google Adwords: Service offered by Google for advertisers to display ad on the search engine and partners network.
  • Google Search Console: Service offered by Google for webmasters.
  • GYM: Acronym for the trio Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
  • Density score: Percentage of repetition of a term in a text.
  • External link: A link from a website A pointing to a page of a website B.
  • Internal link: A link from a website A pointing to a page of the website A.
  • Deep link: Link from a website B pointing to a page of the website A which is not the homepage.
  • Link baiting: One of the netlinking strategies aiming at raising interest of other webmasters in talking about your website. They will add a backlink without asking you any favor in return.
  • Link Juice: Represents the benefits conveyed by the implementation of a link.
  • Netlinking: Activity consisting in getting backlinks, it is a synonym of Link Building.
  • Doorway page: Forbidden technique consisting in creating a web page for bots in order to be more visible in search engines. The user is automatically redirected to another page of the website.
  • Universal Search: Ability to query multiple different indexes from a single query and offer the user on the same results page links to different formats of documents: text, image, video...
  • Referrer: Variable transmitted by the browser containing the URL of the page from which an Internet user comes from.
  • Paid SEO: You have to pay to be ranked, which means you have to pay to include a document in the index of a search engine. Synonym of Trusted Feed and Paid inclusion. Not to be confused with sponsored links.
  • Robot/Bot: Computing program aimed to "download the Internet". It is a synonym of Bot and Spider.
  • Robots.txt: File containing directives for robots.
  • Sand Box: A penalty applied by search engines consisting in ignoring a website for a given time lapse.
  • SEA: Acronym of Search Engine Advertising. In French, it corresponds to sponsored links sold by search engines.
  • SEM: Acronym for Search Engine Marketing. Includes the market for sponsored links (SEA) and natural referencing (SEO).
  • SEO: Acronym for Search Engine Optimization.
  • SERP: Acronym for Search Engine Result Page.
  • Sitemap: XML document making it possible to declare the URLs of a website with the aim of indexing by search engine robots, among others possibilities.
  • Snippet: Extract of a web page displayed in the Search Engine Result Pages and located between a title and an URL.
  • Spam: Use of techniques prohibited by search engines.
  • Spamdexing: Indexing a lot of pages that are not useful in search engines.
  • Bounce rate: Percentage of visitors who leave the website without consulting other pages.
  • Url Rewriting: A technique for simplifying URLs and presenting them in a format that is often more popular with users and search engines.
  • W3C: Acronym for World Wide Web Consortium, it is a standards organization sharing recommendations about good practices to respect on the Internet.