SEO Glossary – Every Term from A to Z, Explained

AEO is optimising to be the answer rather than a result. How it differs from classic SEO and what actually makes content quotable.

Brand building makes a company recognisable and searched for by name. Why that increasingly decides rankings and AI recommendations.

Reviews are published accounts of using a product. Why they convert better than ads and how AI systems read them as sentiment.

A press release distributes news to many newsrooms at once. What it is good for in digital PR, and where its reputation is worse than its usefulness.

SEO content is written to be found and to convince. What separates an article a publisher accepts from one that reads like an advert.

Keyword research identifies the terms your buyers search for. Why it comes before link buying, not after, and which numbers actually matter.

Internal links connect your own pages and distribute the value that backlinks bring in. Why external links underperform without them.

URL structure decides which address carries your content and receives links. Why pointing a link at the wrong URL wastes it.

Duplicate content is the same text appearing at more than one address. Why it matters when buying placements and how to avoid it in guest posts.

Indexing means a page is stored in Google's index and can appear in results. Why it is the first thing to check before buying any link.

A backlink profile is the sum of all links pointing to a site. Which patterns look natural, which look built, and what to check before adding more.

A referring domain is a unique website linking to you. Why fifty links from one site are worth less than five from five, and how to read the ratio.

Domain Rating scores the strength of a backlink profile on a 100-point scale. What it does not tell you, and why it should never be the only criterion.

A link building strategy decides which pages get links, in what order, and at what pace. The four questions to answer before buying anything.

Link building is the practice of earning or buying links from other websites. What separates a campaign that works from one that wastes budget.

AI visibility describes how present a brand is in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. What drives it and how to measure it.

A brand mention names a company in editorial content, with or without a link. Why mentions increasingly outweigh backlinks for AI visibility.

Digital PR places brand messages in editorial media. How it differs from classic PR and from link building, and what it delivers beyond a link.

LLM SEO is the practice of getting a brand into the sources that AI models cite. How it differs from classic SEO and which signals actually matter.

A niche edit places your link into an article that already exists and already ranks. How it differs from a guest post, and when it is the better choice.

A guest post is an article you contribute to another publication. What separates a valuable placement from a link farm, and what to check before booking.

Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link. Which types exist, why an over-optimised mix backfires, and what a natural distribution looks like.

A backlink is a link from one website to another. What makes a backlink valuable, what Google actually evaluates, and how to tell a good placement from a wasted one.

A dofollow link passes ranking signals to the page it points to. What makes one valuable, why the attribute alone says little, and how to judge a placement.

A nofollow link tells search engines not to pass ranking signals. What that means in practice, how it differs from sponsored and UGC, and when it is still worth having.