SEO & Web Glossary

Method comparing two versions of a web page to determine which performs better in terms of conversions.

Visible part of a web page without scrolling. Strategic area for priority content and CTAs.

Design practice making websites usable by everyone, including people with disabilities. WCAG standard.

Set of rules used by Google to rank web pages in search results. Regularly updated.

Alternative text describing an image for search engines and screen readers. Essential for SEO and accessibility.

Clickable text of a hyperlink. Should be descriptive and relevant for SEO.

Application Programming Interface allowing two applications to communicate. REST and GraphQL are the most common.

Amazon's cloud platform offering 200+ services: hosting, databases, AI, serverless, CDN and more.

Incoming link from another website to yours. Quality backlinks are a major SEO ranking factor.

SEO techniques violating Google's guidelines: cloaking, keyword stuffing, artificial links. Risk of penalty.

Percentage of visitors leaving a site after viewing only one page. High rate may indicate UX or content issues.

Secondary navigation showing the hierarchical path of the current page. Improves UX and SEO (BreadcrumbList schema).

Compression algorithm by Google, more efficient than Gzip. Reduces CSS, JS and HTML file sizes.

Temporary data storage to speed up subsequent loads. Browser cache, CDN and server cache.

HTML tag telling search engines the preferred version of a page in case of duplicate content.

Geographically distributed server network serving content closer to users. Reduces latency.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment. Automated pipeline to test, build and deploy code to production.

Core Web Vitals metric measuring visual stability of a page. Ideal score: below 0.1.

Content Management System for creating and managing websites without coding. WordPress, Prestashop, Drupal.

Strategy of creating and distributing valuable content to attract and retain a target audience.

Desired action performed by a visitor: purchase, signup, quote request, download.

Three Google web performance metrics: LCP (loading), INP (interactivity) and CLS (visual stability). Ranking factor.

Process by which search engine bots browse web pages to index them.

Number of pages a search engine is willing to crawl on a site within a given time.

Visual element prompting the user to take action: button, link, form. Essential for conversion.

Ratio between clicks and impressions. Key indicator in SEO and paid search.

Domain Name System translating domain names into IP addresses. Impacts TTFB.

Containerization platform packaging an application and its dependencies into a portable container.

Score estimating a domain's ability to rank in search results. Based on backlinks and trust.

Online commerce. Selling products or services via a website. Prestashop, WooCommerce, Shopify are main platforms.

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Google's quality criteria for evaluating content credibility.

Optimized excerpt displayed at position zero in Google. Directly answers the user's question.

Artificial intelligence capable of creating content: text, images, code. GPT-4, Claude, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion.

Content optimization to appear in AI-generated answers: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview.

Free Google tool for measuring traffic, visitor behavior and website conversions.

Google business listing for appearing in Google Maps and local pack. Essential for local SEO.

Free Google tool for monitoring indexation, search performance and technical errors of a site.

Main heading of a web page. Each page should have a single H1 containing the primary keyword.

Service providing a server to store and serve website files. Shared, VPS, dedicated or cloud.

HTML attribute telling search engines the language and region targeted by a page. Essential for multilingual sites.

Secure version of HTTP using SSL/TLS encryption. Required for SEO and user trust.

Core Web Vitals metric measuring page responsiveness to user interactions. Ideal score: below 200ms.

Hyperlink pointing to another page on the same site. Internal linking distributes SEO juice and facilitates crawling.

Client-side and server-side (Node.js) programming language. Used for interactivity, animations and web apps.

Structured data format recommended by Google for Schema.org markup. Embedded in a script tag.

Term or phrase searched by users in a search engine. Foundation of any SEO strategy.

Black hat technique of overloading a page with keywords. Penalized by Google.

Page designed to convert a visitor into a lead or customer. Optimized for a specific keyword and goal.

Popular PHP framework for web application development. MVC, Eloquent ORM, Blade templates.

Deferred loading technique for off-screen images and content. Improves LCP and reduces bandwidth.

Core Web Vitals metric measuring load time of the largest visible element. Ideal score: below 2.5s.

Google open-source tool for auditing performance, accessibility, SEO and best practices of a web page.

AI model trained on large amounts of text. GPT-4, Claude, Llama. Used for content generation and chatbots.

Text file at a site's root describing its content for AI bots. Equivalent of robots.txt for LLMs.

Long and specific search queries (3+ words). Less volume but better conversion rate and less competition.

Short summary (155-160 chars) of a page displayed in search results. Doesn't impact ranking but affects click rate.

HTML tags in the head providing information to search engines: title, description, robots.

Design approach prioritizing mobile experience. Google uses mobile-first indexing since 2021.

Strategy for acquiring quality backlinks to improve a site's authority and ranking.

Server-side JavaScript runtime. Used for APIs, build tools and real-time applications.

rel='nofollow' attribute telling search engines not to follow a link. Used for sponsored or untrusted links.

Meta robots directive telling search engines not to index a page. Used for low SEO value pages.

Metadata protocol controlling how a page appears when shared on social media (og:title, og:image).

Loading speed of a web page. Google ranking factor and key determinant for user experience.

Server-side programming language. Used by WordPress, Prestashop, Laravel and 77% of websites.

French open-source e-commerce CMS. Complete solution for online stores: catalog, payment, shipping, SEO.

Web app offering native-like experience: installation, offline mode, push notifications. Based on Service Workers.

Art of crafting precise instructions to get the best results from a generative AI.

Permanent URL redirect. Transfers about 90-99% of SEO juice. Essential during site migration.

Adaptive web design automatically adjusting to screen size: mobile, tablet, desktop.

API architecture using HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) for application communication.

Enhanced search result with additional info: stars, price, FAQ, images. Based on structured data.

File at a site's root telling bots which pages to crawl or ignore.

Return on Investment. Measures profitability of a marketing action: (gain - cost) / cost × 100.

AWS object storage service. Used for hosting static files, backups, assets and static websites.

Structured data vocabulary recognized by Google, Bing and Yahoo. Enables rich snippets and improves content understanding.

Paid advertising on search engines. Google Ads, Bing Ads. Immediate results but cost per click.

Set of techniques to improve a site's ranking in organic search results.

Search Engine Results Page. Includes organic results, paid results, featured snippets and knowledge panels.

Cloud architecture where the provider manages infrastructure. Developer only deploys code. AWS Lambda, Vercel.

JavaScript script running in the browser background. Enables offline cache, push notifications and prefetch.

XML file listing all URLs of a site to facilitate crawling and indexing by search engines.

URL part identifying a page in a readable way. E.g.: /blog/seo-guide-2024. Should be short and contain the keyword.

API enabling page prerendering on link hover. Drastically improves perceived navigation speed.

Security attack injecting malicious SQL code via forms. Prevented by prepared statements.

Generating static HTML pages at build time. Ultra-fast, secure and SEO-friendly. Astro, Hugo, Next.js.

Encryption protocols securing communications between browser and server. Certificate required for HTTPS.

Rendering pages server-side on each request. Better SEO than CSR but slower than SSG.

Optimizing a site's infrastructure: speed, crawlability, indexation, HTTPS, structured data, Core Web Vitals.

Page title displayed in browser tab and search results. Important SEO ranking factor.

Time between browser request and receiving the first byte of response. Server performance indicator.

Typed superset of JavaScript by Microsoft. Adds static typing to reduce bugs.

Unique address of a resource on the web. Clean and descriptive URLs improve SEO and user experience.

Overall quality of a user's interaction with a website or application.

Image format by Google offering superior compression to JPEG and PNG with transparency support.

SEO techniques compliant with Google's guidelines: quality content, UX, clean technical setup.

Free e-commerce plugin for WordPress. Flexible solution for creating an online store.

Most used open-source CMS in the world (43% of sites). Flexible, extensible via plugins and themes.

Security attack injecting malicious JavaScript into a web page. Prevented by data escaping.