SEO Glossary

The following is a list of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) terms and their definitions.

Providing this glossary is intended to help clarify and deepen your understanding of SEO; and Microplasm’s SEO services.

You can jump to a category with the following list:

  • Core SEO Concepts
  • Keywords & Content
  • On-Page Optimization
  • Technical SEO
  • Links & Authority
  • Local SEO (Canada)
  • Analytics & Tracking
  • Domains & Hosting

Core SEO Concepts

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — The practice of improving a site’s visibility in search engines through content quality, site structure, technical performance, and authority-building. Objective: more qualified traffic and conversions.
  • Search Engine Optimizer — A person or team that plans and executes SEO strategies (research, on-page, technical, and link-building).
  • Search Engine — A system (e.g., Google, Bing) that crawls the web, indexes pages, and ranks results for user queries.
  • SERP (Search Engine Results Page) — The results page for a query; includes organic listings, ads, map pack, and rich results (featured snippets, FAQs, etc.).
  • Search Intent — The user’s goal behind a query: informational (learn), navigational (find a site), commercial (compare), transactional (buy).
  • Topical Authority — Demonstrated depth and breadth on a subject via coherent clusters of content that satisfy intent better than competitors.
  • Pillar Page / Topic Cluster — A comprehensive hub page (pillar) supported by interlinked subtopics (cluster) to build topical authority.
  • Keyword Cannibalization — Multiple pages on your site target the same keyword and compete with each other, weakening rankings for all.

Keywords & Content

  • Keyword — A single search term users type into a search engine (e.g., “kaolin”).
  • Keyword Phrase — Multi-word search term (e.g., “kaolin clay benefits”).
  • Long-Tail Keyword — Specific, lower-volume phrases with clearer intent and typically higher conversion potential (e.g., “buy food grade diatomaceous earth Canada”).
  • Buying Keywords — Queries with strong purchase intent (e.g., “best price,” “near me,” “order,” “coupon”).
  • E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness; signals used to evaluate content quality, especially for sensitive topics.
  • YMYL — “Your Money or Your Life” niches (health, finance, safety) that require higher factual accuracy and trust signals.
  • Duplicate/Thin Content — Reused or low-value pages that fail to satisfy user intent; risk poor rankings or filtering.

On-Page Optimization

  • On-Page SEO — Optimizing content, titles, headings, internal links, media, and structured data on individual pages.
  • Title Tag — The primary page title shown in search results; concise, unique, and aligned to intent.
  • Meta Description — A short summary that encourages clicks; not a ranking factor but influences CTR.
  • Headings (H1–H6) — Hierarchical structure of a page; H1 is the main topic, H2/H3 organize sections.
  • Alt Text — Descriptive text for images that aids accessibility and clarifies image purpose for search engines.
  • Internal Link — Link to another page on your site; distributes authority and clarifies relationships.
  • External Link — Link to outside domains; adds context, sources, or partner references.
  • Open Graph / Twitter Cards — Meta tags that control how URLs render on social platforms (title, description, image).
  • Schema / Structured Data (JSON-LD) — Code that helps search engines understand entities and enables rich results (Article, Product, FAQPage, LocalBusiness).
  • Off-Page SEO — Signals outside your site (backlinks, citations, reviews, PR) that influence trust and rankings.

Technical SEO

  • Technical SEO — Ensures your site can be crawled, rendered, indexed, and served quickly and reliably.
  • Crawlability — Whether bots can access your pages (not blocked by robots.txt, login, or errors).
  • Indexability — Whether pages are allowed to be stored in the index (not blocked by noindex, canonicalized away, or duplicates).
  • Robots.txt / Robots Meta / X-Robots-Tag — Instructions that allow/deny crawling or indexing at site/page/file levels.
  • Canonical Tag — Declares the preferred URL among duplicates or near-duplicates.
  • Sitemap.xml (Web/Image/Video) — Machine-readable map of URLs to aid discovery and crawling.
  • Hreflang — Language/region annotations (e.g., en-CA vs en-US) for correct localization in results.
  • Core Web Vitals — Performance/UX metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
  • Speed Concepts — TTFB, render-blocking resources, lazy-loading, image compression, caching, CDN usage.
  • JavaScript SEO — Making JS-rendered content discoverable (server-side rendering, hydration, or proper prerendering).
  • Pagination / Faceted Navigation — Category/listing structures that can create crawl traps; requires canonical and noindex strategies when needed.
  • Redirects (301/302/307/308) — URL forwarding; 301 = permanent, 302/307 = temporary, 308 = permanent method-preserving.
  • HTTP Status Codes — 200 (OK), 404 (Not Found), 410 (Gone), 5xx (Server errors) — signals used by crawlers and browsers.
  • SSL/TLS (HTTPS) — Encryption that protects users and is a trust/ranking requirement.
  • Crawl Budget — The amount of crawling search engines allocate; improved by fast, clean architecture.
  • Backlink — A link from another site to yours; a major authority signal when relevant and earned.
  • Anchor Text — The clickable text of a link; should describe the destination’s topic.
  • Referring Domain — A unique website sending one or more backlinks.
  • Link Equity (“Link Juice”) — The ranking value passed via links, influenced by source quality and context.
  • Rel Attributes — Link hints: nofollow (don’t endorse), sponsored (paid), ugc (user-generated content).
  • Disavow — A Search Console file asking Google to ignore certain backlinks (use sparingly and only when warranted).
  • Third-Party Metrics — DA/PA (Moz), DR (Ahrefs), TF/CF (Majestic); directional indicators, not Google ranking factors.

Local SEO (Canada)

  • Google Business Profile (GBP) — Your business listing powering Maps and Local results; manage NAP, hours, services, posts, and reviews.
  • Local Pack / Map Pack — The 3 highlighted businesses shown for many local queries.
  • NAP Consistency — Name, Address, Phone consistency across the web to reinforce trust and visibility.
  • Local Citations — Directory/aggregator listings that validate business data (Canadian directories, industry-specific sites).
  • Service-Area Business (SAB) — A business model with hidden physical address and defined service regions.
  • Reviews — Customer ratings and feedback that influence local ranking and conversion; respond professionally.

Analytics & Tracking

  • GA4 (Google Analytics 4) — Event-based analytics platform for traffic, engagement, and conversions.
  • Google Search Console — Tracks impressions, clicks, queries, index coverage, and issues; essential for diagnostics.
  • Impressions / CTR / Position — Visibility metrics for how often you appear, how often users click, and your average rank.
  • Conversion Rate (CVR) — The percentage of visitors who complete a goal (purchase, form, booking).
  • UTM Parameters — URL tags (source/medium/campaign) to attribute traffic and performance.
  • A/B Test — Controlled experiments to compare variations and improve conversion or engagement.
  • UX Diagnostics — Heatmaps, session replay, and surveys to uncover friction and opportunities.

Domains & Hosting

  • URL — The address of a web resource (protocol + domain + path + parameters).
  • Domain / Domain Name — Human-readable web address (e.g., microplasm.ca).
  • Domain Extension (TLD) — Top-level domain suffix (e.g., .ca, .com, .biz).
  • Hosting — Infrastructure where your site files and database live (shared, VPS, dedicated, managed WP).
  • DNS Records — Settings that route your domain (A/AAAA, CNAME, TXT for verification/email, etc.).
  • CMS (Content Management System) — Software used to manage content (e.g., WordPress).
  • Staging Site — A safe, non-public clone for testing changes before going live.
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