Index of Terms for SEO
9 min read
Check the list below when you want to learn more about SEO terms. We've included some of the most common terms you see when you work on optimizing your site's content for search engines.
In this article, learn more about:
General SEO terms
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) make it possible to display mobile-optimized versions of your site’s pages. This can make your pages load faster on mobile devices, which in turn can help your page rank higher in search results. AMP pages can also be featured in carousel search results on Google. You can enable AMP for your Wix Blog posts in the Blog tab of your site’s dashboard or in your site's SEO Settings.
Bot
Bots (also known as spiders or crawlers) are automated programs that search engines like Google use to continually scan (or "crawl") live websites on the internet. Bots add the information they find to search engine databases in a process known as "indexing". These databases make up the list of sites that are used for search engine results.
Bounce rate
A "bounce" is where a visitor views a single page of your site and leaves without viewing any other pages. For example, they may visit your homepage and leave immediately after. The bounce rate for your site represents the percentage of visitors who leave after a single pageview.
A high bounce rate could indicate that your visitors have difficulty navigating your site or finding relevant content that they need.
Crawling
Bots continuously scan the internet to discover new website content in a process known as "crawling". The bots follow any links they find within a website to scan from one webpage to another.
Bots record any new websites they find and return to previously crawled websites to look for new page content, links, and other updates. The information the bots find gets added to search engine databases known as indexes. Learn More
Duplicate content
This is content that matches or appears very similar to the content on other pages or websites. Search engines like Google can recognize duplicate content and may penalize your site in ranking results. If you need to have identical content on multiple pages of your site, you can use canonical links to indicate to search engines which page is the most important.
Hit
A hit represents a single request made by a website visitor or a bot to a web server. It can be a request for a specific page, image, document, or other type of file. For example, when a visitor opens a web page with 3 images, it generates 4 hits (one hit for the page and three hits for the images).
Index
An index is a database of website URLs and content. Search engines use these databases to generate search results. The information in indexes comes from bots crawling websites for new page content, links, and other updates. Learn More
Indexing
Bots add the information they find during crawling to a search engine database in a process known as indexing. You can choose to exclude pages from search results by telling bots not to index certain pages on your site or by editing your site's robots.txt file.
Keywords
Keywords are words that a user enters into a search engine to find information about a topic. Search engines use keywords to match them with websites that provide the most relevant content. Groups of keywords are also called "search phrases". Learn More
Keyword density
A measure of how often a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. Use a variety of keywords to describe the main purpose of your site in different ways to optimize your site for search engines. Learn More
Link popularity
This is a measure of the popularity of your site according to the quantity and quality of links to your site from other sites. These links are known as backlinks. Backlinks from reputable sites are considered more valuable. Search engines use the quality and number of backlinks to assess the importance of a site. Learn More
Local listings
There are search results based on the location of a user. Local listings appear in a special section of the results page and often show a map of the location and photos. All major search engines offer local listings. Learn More
Page ranking
This is the position of a website page in organic search results for a certain keyword or search phrase. This ranking indicates the relative importance of a page compared to all other pages for the same keywords. Learn More
Rich result
Rich results are a type of enhanced Google search result that include text and images from the source page. Some examples are article previews, product previews, event previews, and FAQs. Learn more
You can use structured data markup to help Google create rich results for your site’s pages.
Traffic
This is the number of users who visited your site over a certain period of time. You can use Wix Analytics Traffic Reports to find out how visitors find your site and navigate around it. Learn More
URL
This stands for "Uniform Resource Locator". A URL is the unique address of a specific website page or file on the Internet. An example of a URL is "https://mystunningwebsite.com". Learn more about URLs
Wix SEO Setup Checklist
The Wix SEO Setup Checklist is a personalized checklist that helps you get your site found in search engine results. The checklist guides you through setting up basic search engine optimization (SEO) for your site’s pages and connects and verifies your site with Google. Learn more about the SEO Setup Checklist
SEO page features
Alt text
Alt text is a type of descriptive text you can add to images. Search engine bots can't read images and use the alt text to understand what the images are about. Alt text can also be read by screen reader software for visually impaired users and is important for making your site accessible. Alt text is not visible on your website. Learn More
Anchor text
Heading tag
You can apply heading tags (H1-H6) to text to divide page content into sections based on importance. Text with heading tags is usually larger than other text on a page. Learn More
Meta description
A meta description is the piece of text that appears in a search result to summarize the content of a page. Meta descriptions appear below a page's title and URL in search results. Adding a unique meta description to each page on your site helps users and search engines understand your pages better.
Meta tag
Meta tags are pieces of HTML code that describe the content of your site's pages. Web browsers and search engines can read meta tags to get information about your site. Meta tags are not visible to site visitors. Learn More
Noindex tag
This is a type of meta tag that tells search engines not to index a specific page. This means that the page should not appear in search results, although it's not guaranteed. When you hide a page on your site in Editor or Editor X, a noindex tag is added to the page. Noindex tags are not visible to your site visitors.
Open graph (og) tags
Open Graph (og) tags are a type of meta tag. Og tags are used by social networks to display text and images when a page is shared. Customizing your page’s og tags lets you suggest the information that Facebook and other social networks should use to describe your site’s pages. Learn how to customize your page’s og tags
Robots.txt file
This is a file that tells search engine bots not to access certain areas of your site. These areas of your site won't be indexed and won't show in search engine results.
Wix automatically adds a robots.txt to your site. This is to prevent search engines like Google from crawling certain links on your site that don't need to be crawled. This does not impact your site's search engine ranking.
You can edit your robots.txt file to have better control of which areas of your site bots can crawl.
Robots meta tag directives
Robots meta tag directives tell search engines what information to present about a page in search results. You can use the directives to get more control over the way that search engines index a page. For example, you can use the "nosnippet" directive to tell search engines not to include a text snippet or video preview for a page in search results. Learn more about robots meta tag directives
Sitemap
This is a file on your site that contains a list of the site's pages. Search engines like Google use your sitemap to understand the structure of your site. Your sitemap is not visible to site visitors. You can view your site's sitemap by adding sitemap.xml to the end of your site's URL. For example, "https://mystunningwebsite.com/sitemap.xml". Learn More
Title Tag
A title tag is the “headline” for a page in search engine results. Title tags appear above a page’s URL and meta descriptions. Title tags are also used as the title of a page in browser tabs. A clear title helps potential site visitors decide whether or not to visit your site. Adding a unique title tag for each page helps both site visitors and search engines differentiate between the pages of your site.
Learn more about adding title tags
Learn more about adding title tags
URL slug
A URL slug is the part of a URL that identifies a specific page on a site. It usually comes after your site’s domain name in a URL. An example of a URL slug is “about” in "https://mystunningwebsite.com/about". Learn how to change your page’s URL slug
URL prefix
A URL prefix is an additional part of URL that appears between the site’s domain name and a page’s URL slug. For example, Wix Stores products use the prefix "product-page". A URL for a product called "Red Wool Sweater" would look like this: "https://mystunningwebsite.com/product-page/red-wool-sweater". Learn how to customize URL prefixes
SEO techniques
Backlinking
Backlinks are links from other websites that point towards your website. Backlinks are like votes of confidence for your website. Search engines use the quality and number of backlinks to assess the importance of a site, so they're important for your site's SEO. Backlinks from reputable sites are considered more valuable. Learn More
Black hat techniques
These are unethical SEO techniques that are used to achieve a higher page rank. These techniques go against search engine guidelines for quality. Using black hat techniques can cause your site to be removed from search engine results. Learn More
Canonical tag
A canonical tag is a type of meta tag. It tells search engines that a certain page is the primary version of a page. If you have different URLs that load the same page content on your site or external sites, search engines choose one URL and consider it the primary one. This is the only URL that appears in search results. Other URLs are treated as duplicates and receive less attention from search engines.
Internal linking
Creating links from one page of your site to other pages on your site makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site. You can also use internal linking to tell search engines which page on your site is the most important by linking to it from your other pages.
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is loading a webpage with keywords or numbers to manipulate a site's ranking in search results. These extra keywords often have no relationship to the site's purpose. Filling pages with keywords or numbers creates a negative user experience for your site's visitors. It's also against search engine guidelines for quality and can harm your site's ranking. Learn More
Off-page optimization:
This means optimizing your site's search engine ranking by using techniques not related to the content of your site. Some examples are creating communities on social networks, blogging, search engine submissions, cross-linking, and video blogging. Learn More
On-page optimization
This means optimizing the content on your site to improve its search engine ranking. Some examples are creating original content for your site, adding keywords, using heading tags, and adding internal links. Learn More
Site verification
Site verification is where you confirm your ownership of your site with search engines. Verifying your site with search engines also gives you access to search engine webmaster tools to manage your site’s search presence. To verify ownership, most search engines require you to add meta tags using custom code on your site. You can also use the Wix Site Verification Tool to verify your site with search engines like Google. Learn more about site verification
Structured data markup
Structured data markup is a standardized format for giving search engines detailed information about your page. Adding markup to your site's pages can help improve your website's search results and ranking. Search engines like Google can also use markup to create rich results like article previews, product previews, and FAQs for your page's search results. Learn more about structured data markup
URL redirect
A URL redirect is a way to permanently or temporarily redirect one page URL to another page URL. In practice, the URL redirect tells browsers the new location for the page. When users try to go to the previous URL, they will be automatically taken to the redirect URL. Learn more about setting up URL redirects
Variable
A variable is text that represents a value or text that's a placeholder for a value. Using variables, you can create general rules that use different values for each section or page of your site. For example, you can set an SEO Setting to apply "'Product Name', 'Site Name'" to each of your product pages. Then each product page would have a unique title while following the same title setting, "Product 1, My Site"; "Product 2, My Site". Learn more about using variables in SEO Settings
White hat techniques
These are SEO strategies that focus on your site's visitors rather than search engine bots. These techniques also completely follow search engine guidelines for quality.
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