Competition
There are two types of competition: Direct Competitors: Companies that sell similar products and/or services, serve the same needs, and target a similar audience both...
About
In a world ruled by algorithms, SEJ brings timely, relevant information for SEOs, marketers, and entrepreneurs to optimize and grow their businesses — and careers.
Articles
Content
Words, images, videos, or sounds (or any combination thereof) that convey information that is meant to be distributed to and consumed by an audience. One...
Content is King
A phrase often used by speakers at conferences and writers on popular SEO (and digital marketing) publications. In this context, “content is king” usually means...
Algorithm
A complex computer program used by search engines to retrieve data and deliver results for a query. Search engines use a combination of algorithms to...
Algorithm Change
Some algorithmic changes go completely unnoticed. However, the impact of a major algorithmic change can usually be seen quite quickly, though the change sometimes takes...
Alt Attribute
HTML code that provides information used by search engines and screen readers (for blind and visually-impaired people) to understand the contents of an image.
Analytics
The science of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to take future action based on what has (or hasn’t) worked historically. Also see: Google Analytics
Anchor Text
The clickable word or words of a link. This text is intended to provide contextual information to people and search engines about what the webpage...
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The science of making computers perform tasks that require human intelligence. Rather than following a set of programmed rules (like an algorithm), an AI computer...
Authority
The combination of signals search engines use to assess websites and webpages for the purposes of ranking.
B2B
Short for business-to-business. In B2B SEO, the buying cycle is longer, products and services are more expensive, and the audience is professional decision-makers.
B2C
Short for business-to-consumer. In B2C SEO, the buying cycle is typically shorter (though it still varies by industry), products and services are (mostly) cheaper, and...
Backlink
See: Inbound Link
Baidu
The most popular search engine in China. Baidu was founded in January 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu.
Bing
The name of Microsoft’s search engine. Bing launched in June 2009, replacing Microsoft Live Search (previously MSN Search and Windows Live Search). Since 2010, Bing...
Black Box
A complex computer program that is poorly understood. Inputs and outputs can be observed, but there is no access to the process itself due to...
Black Hat
Risky tactics that go against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Also see: Webspam
Blog
A publication of content, sorted in chronological order, with the most recent content appearing at the top. The content reflects personal or corporate interests and...
Bounce Rate
The percentage of website visitors who leave without visiting another page on that website. Bounce rates range widely depending on industry and niche. Although bounce...
Bot
A program search engines use to crawl the web. Bots visit webpages to collect information and add or update a search engine’s index.
Branded Keyword
When a user’s query includes an exact match, or variation, of a specific company or brand name. For instance, “Search Engine Journal,” “SEJ,” “SearchEnginejournal.com,” and...
Above the Fold
Content that appears on a website before the user scrolls. Google created the Page Layout Algorithm in 2012 to lower the rankings of websites featuring...
AJAX
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is a type of programming that allows a webpage to send and receive information from a server to change that page...