Glossary

SEO & e-commerce terms, explained in plain English.

Definitions of the terms I use in SEO, e-commerce and marketing automation. Every entry opens with a short definition and continues with the longer explanation, examples and what it means for your website.

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404 ErrorThe HTTP status code a server returns when a requested page does not exist. Too many 404s waste crawl budget and frustrate...Read more

B

BacklinkA link from another website to a page on your site. Search engines treat backlinks as votes of confidence, so relevant links...Read more

C

Core Web VitalsGoogle's three page-experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability).Read more

G

GA4Google Analytics 4, Google's current analytics platform. It tracks users and events across web and apps and replaced Universal Analytics in 2023.Read more

H

HreflangAn HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and country a page targets, so users in Germany see the German version...Read more

I

International SEOSEO for websites that target multiple countries or languages: choosing a URL structure, implementing hreflang, localising content and building authority per market.Read more

L

Landing PageA standalone page built for one goal, such as a sign-up or purchase, that visitors 'land' on from an ad, email or...Read more Local SEOOptimising a business to appear in location-based searches such as 'plumber near me', mainly through the Google Business Profile, reviews, local citations...Read more

O

Off-Page SEOEverything done outside your own website to improve its authority and rankings, mainly earning backlinks from other sites, plus brand mentions and...Read more On-Page SEOOptimising the elements on a page itself, such as content, headings, title tags, meta descriptions, internal links and images, so search engines...Read more

S

SEOSearch engine optimisation: the practice of improving a website so it ranks higher in the organic (unpaid) results of search engines like...Read more Structured DataCode (usually JSON-LD using Schema.org vocabulary) added to a page so search engines understand what it is about, for example a product,...Read more

T

Technical SEOThe part of SEO that makes a website easy for search engines to crawl, index and render: site speed, site structure, sitemaps,...Read more

X

XML SitemapA file that lists the URLs of your website so search engines can discover, crawl and index them more efficiently, including when...Read more
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