SEO Glossary
Master every search engine optimization term with clear definitions and practical examples.
Backlink
A hyperlink from an external website pointing to your site. High-quality backlinks are a major Google ranking factor.
Example: A Forbes article linking to your blog post is a backlink.
Core Web Vitals
Google's page experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Interaction to Next Paint (INP).
Example: A page with LCP under 2.5s passes the LCP Core Web Vital threshold.
Canonical URL
The preferred version of a URL when duplicate or similar content exists on multiple URLs.
Example: Setting https://example.com/page as canonical prevents /page?ref=social from competing with it.
Crawl Budget
The number of pages Googlebot will crawl on your site within a given timeframe.
Example: A site with 10,000 pages but a crawl budget of 1,000 may have uncrawled pages.
SERP
Search Engine Results Page — the page displayed by Google after a user performs a search query.
Example: Ranking #1 on the SERP for "mortgage calculator" drives significant traffic.
Title Tag
An HTML element specifying a page's title. Appears in browser tabs, SERPs, and social shares. Critical ranking signal.
Example: <title>Free Mortgage Calculator | VoltaVibes</title>
Meta Description
An HTML meta tag providing a 150–160 character summary of a page's content for search engines and users.
Example: A compelling meta description improves CTR even without affecting rankings directly.
Domain Authority
A Moz metric (1–100) predicting how likely a domain is to rank in search results, based on link profile quality.
Example: A DA of 60+ typically correlates with strong organic visibility.