Operator-grade definitions of the metrics, attributes, and patterns that move modern search rankings. Authority, backlinks, on-page, technical, and content strategy — all in one place.
Majestic's 0–100 metric quantifying the volume and link power of a site's backlink profile.
A 0–100 logarithmic score predicting how well a domain will rank in search results, popularised by Moz.
Ahrefs' 0–100 logarithmic score measuring the strength of a domain's backlink profile.
Google's framework for assessing content quality: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
A 0–100 score predicting how well a specific URL will rank, calculated per-page from inbound links.
Google's original algorithm for ranking pages by recursively weighting the links pointing to them.
Majestic's 0–100 metric measuring backlink quality based on proximity to trusted seed sites.
The visible, clickable text of a hyperlink — used by search engines as a relevance signal.
An inbound link from another website pointing to your site — the foundational unit of off-page SEO.
A hyperlink pointing to a URL that returns an error (typically 404), either inbound or outbound.
A backlink with no special attribute, which passes ranking signals normally to the target page.
An article written for and published on another website, typically including a contextual backlink to the author's site.
The practice of acquiring new backlinks to a website through outreach, content, PR, and partnerships.
The ranking value a hyperlink transfers from the source page to the target page.
Informal term for the ranking authority passed from one page to another through a hyperlink.
The rate at which a site acquires new backlinks over time — a pacing signal that search engines monitor.
A previously existing inbound link that has been removed, redirected away, or whose source page has been deleted.
A link attribute (rel="nofollow") telling search engines not to pass ranking credit through the link.
A network of websites controlled by a single operator and used to manipulate rankings by passing links to a target site.
A unique domain that links to your site — counted once regardless of how many individual backlinks it provides.
An inbound link from a low-quality, spammy, or manipulative source that may harm rather than help rankings.
The text alternative for images, used by screen readers and search engines to understand image content.
A navigation aid showing a page's location in the site hierarchy, often marked up with structured data.
An HTML element (rel="canonical") that tells search engines which URL is the authoritative version of duplicated content.
The primary heading element on a page — typically the visible page title and a strong topical signal.
An HTML attribute or sitemap entry that tells search engines which language and region a page targets.
The HTML meta tag that summarises a page's content — used by search engines as the default SERP snippet.
An HTML meta tag controlling how search engines crawl, index, and display a specific page.
Structured data added to a page to help search engines understand its content and enable rich SERP features.
The HTML element that defines a page's title — shown in browser tabs and used as the default SERP headline.
Google's set of user-experience metrics measuring loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.
The number of pages a search engine will crawl on a site in a given time window, constrained by demand and capacity.
A Core Web Vitals metric quantifying unexpected visual layout shifts during page load and interaction.
The encrypted version of HTTP — a baseline ranking signal and trust requirement for modern websites.
Whether a page is technically eligible to be included in a search engine's index.
A Core Web Vitals metric measuring how quickly a page visually responds to user interactions.
A Core Web Vitals metric measuring when the largest visible content element finishes rendering.
Google's indexing approach that uses the mobile version of a site as the primary source for indexing and ranking.
A plain-text file at the site root that instructs crawlers which URLs they may or may not fetch.
Standardised markup that describes a page's content in a machine-readable format, enabling rich SERP features.
The time between a browser's request and the first byte of response — a foundational performance metric.
An XML file listing the URLs on a site that the owner wants search engines to discover and index.
A content architecture in which a pillar page is supported by topically related sub-pages, all internally linked.
A SERP feature that displays a direct answer extracted from a top-ranking page above the standard organic results.
The process of identifying the queries users search for, their volume, and their relevance to a business.
Google's database of entities — people, places, organisations, concepts — used to enrich search results.
Search Engine Results Page — the page a search engine returns in response to a user query.
The underlying goal behind a user's search query — informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional.
The degree to which a site is considered an expert source on a specific topic by search engines.
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