Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a long-term process which includes many steps. In our previous two articles, we discussed the importance, classification, and methods of SEO. If you read these posts, you will come across some unknown SEO Terminology. There is no matter to worry about because we have written this post to introduce you with the most important 50 SEO terminology. If you read any other articles on SEO or perform SEO practically into your website, these explanations will always be helpful for you.

50 SEO Terminology

We organized the following 50 SEO Terminology according to the alphabetic order for your convenience:

1. A href: 

The <a> HTML tag refers to a Hyperlink. It’s mainly a link that indicates to another internal or external location. That location is specified by the attribute ‘href’. An ‘a href’ is a “Hypertext Reference”. We put our anchor text between the opening tag <a> and the closing tag </a>. 

2. Alexa: 

This is an associating organization of Amazon that shows statistics on traffic rankings the websites. Generally, the reports are created analyzing the number of visitors who enter the websites using the Alexa toolbar. Moreover, it displays many other SEO related data about the website which gives an overall idea of the quality of the website. But there is a dispute on the accuracy of the ranking report as the analysis is made only on the people who use the Alexa toolbar. 

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3. Algorithm:

A method or a set of rules that is followed by Search Engines to calculate web data or solving issues is called Algorithm. It is a unique formula by which Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Search Engines determine the relevancy of a page to a search query. It also determines the rank of particular content or website compared with other similar web pages. 

4. AMP & API:

AMP stands for ‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’. It is a specific HTML version created by Google that improves user experience on mobile phones. When users use Google platform for searching purposes it allows them to take more control over the ad ecosystem. 

The elaboration of API is “Application Program Interface”. This interface indicates the interaction among different components of software. 

5. Blog, Blogger & Blogging: 

A Blog is a log on the web. The weblog on which we post articles that are enlisted sequentially is called a Blog. Most websites have a blog where they can post their niche related articles to attract visitors.

A person who owns a blog and writes on it is known as a Blogger. He has something special of his own to say. He is followed by people.

The practice of writing on a blog is called Blogging. Blogging is a good medium for earning money.

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6. Blog Commenting: 

Blog Commenting is an important SEO Terminology. It was a very popular way of Link Building in case of Off-page SEO. In this method, you have to find out a blog article relevant to the niche of your content and leave a comment under it along with a link to your content. 

But at present, it is a reason of dispute among all. People abused this method greatly by spamming in blog comments. Spammers left irrelevant comments with links everywhere. That’s why comment sections now allow a no-follow to links. Google also stopped this trend by penalizing links from irrelevant sites and reducing the link equity passed on by pages that comprise large quantities of links. 

Yet leaving a relevant comment in a blog post can assist you in building connections in your niche and result in guest posting opportunities. It can at least increase traffic to your site.

7. Boolean Search: 

Searches containing mathematical formulas such as AND, OR, or NOT, numerical numbers, etc. allowed by the Search Engines are called Boolean Search. Generally, most Search Engines add AND with search queries to find out relevant results against all the words of the query.  

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 Example: A Google search for ‘freelancing marketplaces’ will return results for both ‘freelancing’ and ‘marketplaces’.

8. Bounce Rate:

It is another important SEO Terminology. It is a statistic indicating how many people come to your website, and then left directly afterward without any acts or visiting other pages of the sites. Lower Bounce Rate is better for ranking your site. Getting a high bounce rate (over 70 percent) is a major concern that may be induced by several specific issues such as slow page loading, low-quality content, unresponsive landing page, displaying so many advertisements, shortage of content’s relevancy with the keywords used by the visitor, etc.

How to monitor Bounce Rate:

It is good to compare the bounce rate to the average time on site. When the visitor who bounces has been on the site for five minutes before leaving, you’re doing fairly well. Whereas a user has come to your page and after only two seconds, they’ve gone on to another page, you know that even though you have a small bounce rate, with the average page time being very short, it may not be the perfect page. So, you could adjust your PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising campaign.

You could promote a different page organically. There are several different techniques to improve bounce rates. For a product page, it will be nice to have a list of similar items, so that anyone can quickly see what other products are available and what other products are available and which other pages he should visit. You can also use a breadcrumb that easily shows the category in which this product is included so that anyone can just access the site level. If you create a blog post, it is a good idea to add related blog post links, categories, maybe a link to the Twitter profile of the writer if you want other people to go to read other pages of your web site. These kinds of procedures ensure that the user engages with your website a little more. 

You can monitor the bounce rate of your website using Google Analytics, Yandex Metrica, and Matomo Analytics.

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9. Bread Crumb Navigation or Trail: 

It is an effective secondary navigation system that is used to figure out the location of the users into a website easily. It usually refers to the links above the main content. The links are displayed horizontally linking each previous page of the website. You must know about this SEO Terminology.

An example of the usual appearance of breadcrumbs is:

Home>Women’s Fashion>Clothing>Skirts 

Bread Crumbs improves the internal link structure for a larger website that is beneficial to both user experience and crawling.

Bread Crumbs Navigation allows-

  1. Visitors to navigate easily on the site and
  2. Search Engines to easily determine the structure of the website. 

SERPs can also display Bread Crumbs instead of the site URL that builds readable and user-friendly links. In the case of the WordPress website, you can set up Bread Crumb Trail using the Yoast Plugin.  

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10. Broken Links:

The hyperlinks that are no longer active are referred to as Broken links.

A link can be broken for some particular reasons such as-

a) If the web page containing that link exists no longer or permanently deleted,

b) If the page has been moved to another new address without using a 301 or 302 Redirect,

c) If there is an error in the source code of the web page, etc.

11. Call-to-Action: 

A message that recommends a user to take an action is referred to as a Call-to-Action. It can suggest actions like purchasing a product, clicking on a link or giving like, follow, votes, etc. This action option can be created as a text link, button, or image. Call-to-actions can be verbal also like video records or podcasts. It is a SEO Terminology related to Affiliate Marketing as well as CPA Marketing.

12. Canonical URL: 

When multiple URLs have the analogous content, an HTML code is used to specify a preferred website URL. That creates a Canonical URL that is used to reduce duplicate content. 

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13. Click through Rate (CTR):

It is a statistic that shows the percentage of people who click on a website or advertisement from the search results of Search Engines. Click through Rate (CTR) is the result of the division of the number of clicks by the number of impressions. A good CTR percentage can rank your website higher and increase your income. 

To get better CTR for your website you should be concerned on the following matters: 

a) Creating high-quality content, 

b) Adding a ‘Call-to-action’ button in your site, 

c) Presenting your blog or attractively, 

d) Improving the relevance of external advertisements, etc.

14. Cloaking: 

It is a technique of Black Hat SEO practice. Cloaking refers to displaying a web page in a different way to users and Search Engines. It is performed to fool the Search Engine spiders by providing specific keywords that help for ranking the page. But users get fully different content from the page which is not relevant to those keywords. Some kinds of cloaking are reasonable and legitimate but most of the time it causes a site to get banned from the Search Engine permanently. 

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15. Content/Article: 

All the data presented on a website is called Content. Content can be text, images, videos, flash files, and animations also. Content is the most important feature of a website that attracts traffic organically. High-quality fresh content can rank a website highly. In the case of Blogs, content refers to Articles. In the case of Vlogs, it refers videos.

16. Content Spinning (Article Spinning):

If an article is modified using similar words or by changing word orders in the sentence, then this is called Content or Article Spinning.  

It is a kind of Black Hat SEO technique done with various software or bot at present. In this method, many articles are being created now thinking that Google won’t detect them as a duplicate content. But it’s very risky for a website’s ranking. 

Authors often spin content to reduce the matched sources. If this is performed for only a small portion of a content, that’s not a matter to worry about. But one shouldn’t spin content deliberately and post it all over the web linking back to the original one. 

17. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO):

CRO is the process of making a web content more compatible for conversion. Although various websites offer various services, products, and information, the anonymous purpose of most websites is to create conversions. This is about generating more online traffic which in turn equates to more sales in a greater profit regardless of whether this is your strategy for your website it is still always important that you find ways to continually improve your conversion rate not only to make a profit and a name for your website but also to cater to the needs of your online users. A conversion rate is a measurement of the number of potential customers who visit your website to buy your products or services. 

You can use Hub Spot’s free marketing tools for CRO. There are many more tools on the internet.

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18. Cost Per Click (CPC): 

The measurement of the rate paid to a Pay Per Click Advertiser is called Cost Per Click (CPC). The rate varies depending on location and the standard of the advertising company. 

19. Cross-linking: 

Cross-linking means linking the domains owned by the same person or organization. If the websites are not much relevant to each other or if there are not many links that won’t create any issue. Cross-linking is one of the methods of Off-page SEO. To reduce the risk of penalty, quite similar anchor text and site-wide linking should be avoided.

You can link your profiles on various social networking sites by sharing posts of your websites from one social media to another in a particular way. That’s also called Cross-linking. Then you should follow other peoples of those social sites and also increase your followers to drive more traffic to your website.  

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20. Domain Authority (DA): 

Domain Authority demonstrates the relevance of a website for its organization or business area. It shows the performance level of the website in the SERPs. It also measures the site’s competition level compared to other sites in a particular niche. Domain Authority can be improved by increasing backlinks from trustworthy websites that will help in ranking the website. 

21. Domain Name: 

It is the web address that users type in the browser’s search bar to find out a website. The standard format of a website address is www.domainname.com. One can also get a website in the SERPs using only the Domain Name easily if the website ranks on the first page of the Search Engine results. Domain Name identifies a brand. An SEO-friendly Domain Name can be one of the best ranking factors in the Search Engine algorithm. One can purchase a Domain Name yearly or for several years from various online companies. It is a familiar SEO Terminology for all.

I can suggest you to buy a domain name for your website or blog using the following link: https://bit.ly/2VxtJUZ

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22. Duplicate content:

If there are homologous content in more than one website URL, the content is considered as a duplicate content.

Two examples of being duplicate content are mentioned below:

Example 1: If a spammer copies content or an article from any website and post that on his website. 

Example 2: If you have two different versions of a webpage, you may result in duplicate content issues. 

This issue can be fixed in 3 ways:

a) Using 301 redirects to the original URL: It is the best way for redirecting traffic and link equity to the original webpage.  

b) Using rel=canonical attribute to the original content: This tag tells Search Engine that a particular URL is an original webpage. 

c) Using Google search console tool: You can set a preferred domain for your website, which will allow Google spiders to crawl various web pages differently.

23. Dwell Time & Time on Page: 

This is the measurement of the period that users spend on a website or blog between the moment or clicking a search result and returning to the SERPs. 

Although this matrix is not displayed in Google Analytics, many experts consider it as a significant ranking factor for a website. 

Google Analytics shows a report on ‘Avg. Time on Page’ matrix which indicates the time spent by a visitor on a web page before going anywhere else such as- another page of the site, SERPs, to a bookmarked page, etc. 

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24. Fresh Content: 

A content that is completely original or dynamic is known as Fresh Content. People always search for the new and latest content. So a Fresh Content drives traffic to a website to a great extent. Even a web page with a Fresh Content attains a superior position on the SERP. Innovative and updated content makes a Search Engine to crawl a site more recurrently.

25. Gateway or Doorway Page:  

A Gateway or Doorway Page is a kind of Landing Page designed mainly for attracting traffic to redirect them to another web page. It is also a part of the SEO technique in Digital Marketing.

26. Google algorithms:

Google algorithms are some special programs created by Google. These programs use advanced concepts to retrieve information from the index of Google. They also deliver web results according to the search query of the users. 

Some of the major algorithms are below: 

a) Google Panda:

It was first released in February 2011. This algorithm emphasizes on delivering high-quality content. It removes web pages (from the index) that have low-quality and duplicate content. It is updated regularly. 

b) Google Penguin:

After Panda, the Google Penguin algorithm was released. Its majority focused on combating low-quality links. 

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Penguin focuses on two specific practices: 

i) Link schemes:

Penguin aims to decrease the ranking of web pages that are created artificially by using black-hat techniques. 

For example, A car company in the UK is trying to fill internet forums with spam comments by linking to itself as “Branded best cars in the UK”. 

ii) Keyword stuffing:

Repetitive usage of the same keyword in an article will get you penalized by Google Penguin algorithm for having low-quality content. 

The following example is of a person attempting to stuff keywords on his website:  

“We sell branded t-shirts. Our branded t-shirts are available online. If you want to buy branded t-shirts, please contact us at number 844-1122”.

c) Google Rank Brain/Brain:

Google Rank Brain is a processing algorithm that uses machine learning to interpret search queries that users search on Google. 

For example, when you are searching for online marketing, you will also get results for digital marketing on SERP. 

d) Google Humming Bird: 

Google Humming Bird is the latest algorithm scheme of Google that works for improving the Google search experience for users. It doesn’t work focusing on just keywords like other algorithms. It is furthermore upgraded. 

27. Google Analytics: 

This is a web analytic service of Google that provides concise data on measuring the SEO performance of a website. After adding the tracking code to a site, one can get detailed information on the traffic of that site. There are many categories of options to track the visitor’s geographical location, age, interests, devices used to access the site, dwell time, bounce rate, etc. One can also receive data on the quantity of referral traffic, direct traffic, and organic traffic. Moreover, the page speed and content quality can also be measured from here. So, Google Analytics is one of the best indicators of the overall SEO performance of a website or blog. It is also a very important SEO Terminology.

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28. Hub: 

A web page containing numerous links to the most relevant and trustworthy websites in its niche is known as a Hub. It is also a technical feature used in SEO practices. 

29. HTML Source Code: 

HTML is the short form of ‘Hypertext Markup Language’ used to create web pages and applications. Its source code is the format readable to human. The code can be modified before the compiler translates it into what we see in the browser. One should use a plain text or code editor to modify it. We can find out the source code of any site by right-clicking and then clicking the option named Inspect in Google Chrome and View Page Source in Mozilla Firefox browser. Technical SEO can be performed to a great extent using this HTML Source Code. 

30. HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol):

HTTP is the major protocol on the web that allows us to show and receive data. It is better to use the secure type ‘HTTPS’ in case of SEO practices. 

31. Hyperlink:

Hyperlink or Link is a clickable text or an image that redirects to a web page or content of a website. A Hyperlink provides easy navigation through the web. We can easily get access to a web page through a Hyperlink from anywhere such as MS Word or MS Excel file, any information from social media, E-mail, etc. 

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32. Impression: 

An impression refers to a ‘page view’. It is an event of visiting a web page by a user for one time. It is a matrix of measuring SEO performance. 

33. Index & Indexing: 

An index (noun) is a database of a Search Engine that contains websites and their content. To index or indexing (verb) refers to include a website to a Search Engine directory. SEO works for indexing a website into a Search Engine index. It is a mandatory SEO Terminology.

34. Invisible or Hidden Text: 

If a text is created with the same color of the page’s background or if the font size of the text is kept zero (0), the text becomes invisible or hidden to the visitors unless they highlight the text. Sometimes Invisible Texts are kept hidden behind an image. Hidden Texts are created for Keyword stuffing purposes to rank the content fast. But it is not a good practice. Google Penguin Algorithm focuses on these kinds of hidden texts. It is a Black Hat SEO technique that is risky for the ranking of a website. 

35. Keyword Density: 

When a specific keyword emerges several times in a web page, then the ratio percentage of the number of the particular keyword compared to the total number of words on that page is referred to as Keyword Density.  

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36. Keyword Research:

It is the most important SEO Terminology. Users generally type some words on Search Engines to find out something. These words are the keywords. Depending on keywords, Search Engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, etc. rank websites based on what content they deem most relevant to users. Keyword research/planning/analysis is one of the crucial stages of SEO. It is the method of finding common terms and phrases used on search engines by users who are looking for content. The research of a keyword enables us to understand how high the demand is for that particular keyword and how difficult it would be to compete for those terms in the organic search results, offering some instructions on optimization efforts. 

You should perform keyword research depending on high search volume, high relevance, and less competition. 

Two kinds of keywords are available in the web. Such as-

        a) Short-tail keyword: These keywords are more generic. They consist of less than 3 words. These kind of keywords are high in search volume and highly competitive although have less conversion rate.

Example- ‘Canadian hotels’ is a Short-tail keyword. 

        You should use Short tail keywords if you are trying to drive a lot of visitors to your website. 

       b) Long-tail keyword: These keywords are very specific. They generally comprise of more than three words.  In comparison with Short tail keywords, those keywords have less competition and low search volume but a high conversion rate.    

Example- ‘Best Canadian hotels in Buckingham’ is a Long-tail keyword. 

        When visitors land from Long-tail keywords they are usually ready to make a purchase. You should use Long-tail keywords for targeted pages such as product pages and articles. 

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37. Local SEO:

The local SEO is the way to optimize a website to get traffic through location-based search queries. It assists to advertise your products and services to local purchasers. Local search results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity. These factors help to find the best result for your query. Due to this reason, it is necessary to have your NAP details accurate and consistent across the internet. 

38. Minification: 

It is one of the effective methods of increasing page speed and reducing bandwidth usage on websites. It is also the procedure of minimizing markups and codes in script files and web pages. 

39. NAP:

NAP refers to your organization’s Name, Address, and Phone number that you show across websites. It is a significant fact for the organizations that want to get good organic ranking in local search. Inconsistent use of your NAP details can result in a low ranking on SERP. Search engines evaluate the authenticity of companies through cross-referencing NAPs of companies across a range of websites.

The benefits of exact and coherent NAPs are as follows:

a) It increases organic search rankings and 

b) It helps to get traffic to your website from local searches. 

A consistent format for NAP used for local SEO is below: 

2854, Lindale Avenue

TX 705461

San Leandro, California

+1 310-487-6485

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40. Page Rank (PR): 

Page Rank (PR) is also a useful SEO Terminology. You can use it to analyze links by the Search Engines. It is an algorithm that determines the relative importance of a link within their database. Page Rank starts from 0 to 10. Average Page Rank provided by search engines to a website is 3. Google re-evaluates Page Rank about 3 to 4 times per year, so for almost every 4 months, Google calculates your website’s Page Rank. 

You can follow the following techniques to increase Page Rank: 

a) Link Building, 

b) Posting High Quality and Updated Contents, 

c)  Submission of the Site on Different Search Engines, 

d) Guest Posting, 

e)  Exchanging Links and Directory Submission.

41. PPC (Pay Per Click): 

It is a paid advertisement method of paid SEO technique. In this method, an advertiser puts an advertisement on an online platform and pays for that advertisement. That advertising venue is paid for each time a visitor clicks on that ad. Google Adwords is a typical example of advertising site. PPC is a significant SEO Terminology.

42. Robots.txt:

Robots.txt is a text file that is accessible at the root of a website. It instructs Search Engine crawlers about the ignorable areas of the site. It is the short form of the ‘Robots Exclusion Protocol or Standard’. 

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43. Scraping: 

The process of collecting information (especially metadata) form various websites using auto-generated software or bot (Web Scraper) is called Scraping. Generally, it is a Black Hat SEO technique where content from a competitor’s blog especially the titles and meta descriptions are scrapped to post those into other websites. Scraped content can also be used in White Hat SEO by using the data informatively especially for link building purpose in Off-page SEO. 

44. Search Engine Marketing (SEM): 

It is a very important SEO Terminology. This is an online marketing strategy related to online research, submission, and placement of a web page within Search Engines to ensure its maximum visibility. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) occupies the terms such as- Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Keyword Research, Paid Listings, Competitive Analysis, and other Search Engine related services that target to achieve a high quantity of traffic to a website. 

45. Self-Branding:

For establishing yourself as an online marketer or for using effective digital marketing strategies, you need to do Self-Branding. That means first you need to brand yourself with a particular name that will be used in any area or site of the online sector. This name will be your online identity and you will be familiar to all through that particular name. If your name is very common and if its search volume is so high then please give another specific name of change your name partially for Self-Branding. 

You have to do the following tasks for Self-Branding:

a) Firstly, you have to create accounts on some popular and well-known social networking sites such as- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, etc. with the same Gmail address and same user name which will help to rank you into the search engines. 

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         Go to the following links to get all popular social networking sites together :

         i) https://bit.ly/360FabC and 

        ii) https://ift.tt/2LrgRtL (It helps you to link all sites to each other).

b) Secondly, you have to create an attractive and descriptive profile on these social networking sites from which people, as well as the Search Engines, can recognize you. Your profile must look professional containing your skills and qualifications. You must update 100% of your profile. All of your profile pictures, information, and descriptions in all the social sites should be the same and 100% real. 

46. Social Media Optimization (SMO): 

It is the method of advertising a product, brand, event, or service through several social media networks and communities for the viral promotion of that. Some SEO service providers offer Social Media Optimization (SMO) with traditional SEO services.  

47. Status Code 301, 302, 404, 410, 500 & 503:

301 redirect:

This code indicates ‘a URL has been permanently redirected (or moved) to a new location’. You can use it to send the visitor automatically to the new page instead of getting an error page. It can be used mainly when a page has been deleted. 

302 redirect:

This code means ‘a URL has been temporarily redirected’. It occurs when a page has been removed and its URL now redirects to another web page. 301 and 302 redirects seem similar to the users but are different from the Search Engines. 

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Status Code 404: 

It indicates ‘Page not found’. It happens when one removes a web page but links to it still exist. That creates a bad impact on user experience as well as the website’s ranking. So in this case, you should set up a 301 redirect for the best results.

Status Code 410: 

You can use this is for ‘a permanently deleted web page’. It allows the crawlers of the Search Engine to remove it from their index forever. 

Status Code 500: 

This status code defines ‘a problem with the server’. The problem is generally at the database or code level that allows no access of the users to that website. 

Status Code 503: 

Generally, you can use this for maintenance purposes and request the Search Engine crawlers to come later at your site using this status code.

48. Submission:

After performing SEO for a website or blog, you needs to be submit it to the Search Engine for indexing purposes. Submission is the process of submitting the site URL for faster indexing into the Search Engine. 

Many people think that it is not so essential as the Search Engine crawlers are experts in discovering a fresh content or site. But it can be a lengthy process sometimes if the site or web page takes time to pop up in the SERPs. So for quick indexing, one should submit a site manually to the Search Engine. 

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There are different methods and conditions for submitting a website in different Search Engines. In the case of Google, you can manually submit the URL by adding XML Sitemap in the Google Search Console. 

49. Traffic: 

Another important SEO Terminology is Traffic. It is a measurement of the total visitors coming to a website.

Traffic can be classified into 4 types: 

a) Direct Traffic: Direct Traffic includes the visitors who click into a website straightly such as from a bookmark or typing the URL into the search bar. 

b) Organic Traffic: Organic Traffic includes the visitors coming from Search Engines and other SEO practices. 

c) Paid Traffic: Paid Traffic includes the visitors who arrive from online paid advertisements such as ads by Google Adwords. 

d) Referral Traffic: Referral Traffic includes the visitors of a website suggested from another web page by referral links or other media. 

50. Website architecture:

The SEO Terminology ‘Website Architecture’ gives an overview of the website layout to the Search Engine. If you are planning to develop websites from an SEO perspective, you should be focusing on a few things such as- Site architecture and navigation, Responsive design, Optimize for the crawlers, A consistent URL structure, Robot.txt. It helps in spreading link equity. 

Hope this 50 SEO Terminology will help you to perform Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website. If you need to know about more SEO Terminology, you can ask us through comments. Stay connected for more updates and feel free to contact us.

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