I understand that the abundance of acronyms in the industry can be daunting for newcomers or those considering delving into the world of SEO. I truly get it!
Unfortunately, you will have to learn them; there is no way around it. But take heart; once you start, most acronyms are pretty straightforward.
I’ve been doing SEO since 2009, and I sat down with some of the best SEOs to develop a list of over 200 SEO abbreviations and acronyms.
Some acronyms will be used in technical or onsite SEO; others might be related to managing a client’s SEO business, and the list is pretty extensive.
As I go about our daily SEO lives and come across more SEO acronyms, I’ll keep adding them to the list, making this page the most exhaustive and up-to-date list of SEO acronyms online.
Quick Summary
SEO is the process of optimizing a website to improve its visibility and rankings on search engine results pages. It involves making the website more attractive to search engines through content, structure, and technical optimizations.- There are 7 types of SEO: Organic SEO, Technical SEO, Local SEO, E-commerce SEO, International SEO, Mobile SEO, Voice Search SEO.
- The average SEO agency typically charges a monthly retainer of $1000-$2000 per month, while a freelancer might work at a rate of $75 to $125 per hour.
Types of SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy for enhancing a website to rank in search listings on search engines like Google and Bing. There are several types of SEO, each with its own specific focus and objectives.
Organic SEO
Organic SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website’s content, structure, and other elements to improve its ranking in organic search results pages.
This includes the natural use of focus keywords and semantic keywords on-page, supported by quality content and an organized structure for indexing.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO involves optimizing the technical aspects of a website, such as site speed, mobile responsiveness, and crawlability, to improve its performance and ranking in search engine results pages.
This includes optimizing functionality, shortening load time, and addressing search engines crawl errors like broken links, missing H1 tags, missing metadata, and misuse of alt tags in images.
Local SEO
Local SEO focuses on improving the visibility and ranking of a business in local search results, such as Google Maps. This is achieved by optimizing the business’s online presence and location-based information.
An optimized Google My Business profile can increase a business’s chances of showing up in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, and organic rankings in general.
E-commerce SEO
E-commerce SEO functions to optimize online stores to improve their visibility, traffic, and conversion rates. This involves optimizing product pages, site structure, and other e-commerce-specific elements.
International SEO
International SEO involves optimizing a website to rank well in search engines across multiple countries or languages. This often involves creating content that is tailored to specific regions or languages.
Mobile SEO
Mobile SEO focuses on optimizing a website for mobile devices. This includes ensuring that the website loads quickly, is easy to navigate, and has mobile-friendly design elements.
Voice Search SEO
With the growing popularity of voice search assistants like Siri and Alexa, Voice Search SEO focuses on optimizing a website’s content and structure to rank well in voice search results.
Each of these types of SEO work in conjunction for your entire online presence. Whether you’re a seasoned SEO professional or just getting started, understanding these types of SEO is essential to improving your website’s visibility and attracting more organic traffic.
A
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| AJAX | Asynchronous Javascript and XML |
| AOV | Average order value |
| API | Application Program Interface |
| AR | Augmented reality |
| AS | Article Submission |
| ASP | Application service provider |
| ASP.NET | A program that runs insidee IIS which allows web programmers to build dynamic websites on Microsoft servers. |
| ATD | Agency trading desk |
| AV | AltaVista |
B
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| B2B | Business to Business |
| B2C | Business to Consumer |
| BH | Blackhat |
| BHW | Blackhat world |
| BL | Backlink |
| BR | Bounce rate |
C
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ccTLD | country code top-level domain |
| CAPTCHA | Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart |
| CF | Citation flow |
| CGI | Common Gateway Interface |
| CLV | Customer lifetime value |
| CMS | Content Management System |
| COA | Cost of Acquisition |
| CPA | Cost Per Acquisition |
| CPC | Cost per Click |
| CPI | Cost Per Impression |
| CPL | Cost Per Lead |
| CPM | Cost Per Thousands |
| CPO | Cost Per Order |
| CPV | Cost Per View |
| CR | Conversion rate |
| CRM | Customer relationship management |
| CRO | Conversion Rate Optimization |
| CSE | Comparison Shopping Engine/Custom Search Engine |
| CSS | Cascading Style Sheets |
| CTA | Call to Action |
| CTR | Click Through Rate |
| CX | Customer experience |
D
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| DC | Data Center |
| DFO | Data Feed Optimization |
| DKI | Dynamic Keyword Insertion |
| DLP | Directory Listings Page |
| DLR | Deep Link Ratio |
| DMCA | Digital Millennium Copyright Act |
| DMOZ | Directory – Mozilla |
| DMP | Data management platform |
| DNS | Domain name system |
| DR | Domain Ranking |
| DR | Direct response |
| DS | Directory Results Web Pages |
| DRPs | Directory Submission |
| DSP | Demand-side platform |
| DSRP | Directory Search Results Page |
E
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ECPC | Enhanced Cost Per Click |
| EMD | Exact Match Domain |
| EPC | Earnings per click |
| EPM | Earnings per thousand |
| ERD | Education referring domains |
| ESP | Email service provider |
F
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| FBML | Facebook Markup Language |
| FCP | Frequently Cached Page |
| FFA | Free For All Pages |
| FTP | File transfer protocol |
G
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| G+ | Google Plus |
| GA | Google Analytics |
| GAP | Google Advertising Professional |
| GAS | Guaranteed Article Submission |
| GDS | Guaranteed Directory Submission |
| GIS | Google Image Search |
| GIY | Google It Yourself |
| GRD | Government referring domains |
| GSC | Google Search Console |
| GTM | Google Tag Manager |
| GUI | Graphical user interface |
| GWT | Google Webmaster Tools |
| GYM | Google Yahoo MSN |
H
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| H1 | Level 1 heading markup |
| H2 | Level 2 heading markup |
| H3 | Level 3 heading markup |
| H4 | Level 4 heading markup |
| H5 | Level 5 heading markup |
| Href | Hypertext Reference |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language |
| HTTP | HyperText Transfer Protocol |
| HTTPS | Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure |
I
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| IBL | In Bound Links |
| IDF | Inverse Document Frequency |
| IFTTT | If this than that |
| IM | Internet Marketing |
| IP | Internet Protocol (Address) |
| ISP | Internet Service Providers |
J
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| JGI | Just Google It |
L
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| LB | Link Building |
| LPO | Landing Page Optimization |
| LSA | Latent Semantic Analysis |
| LSEO | Local SEO |
| LSI | Latent Semantic Indexing |
| LTKW | Long Tail keyword |
| LTV | Lifetime value |
M
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| MCP | Moderately Cached Page |
| MFA | Made For Advertising |
| MQL | Marketing qualified Lead |
| MTO | Meta Tags Optimization |
| MVT | Multivariate testing |
N
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| NAP | Name Address Phone Number |
| NSEO | Negative SEO |
O
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| OBL | Outbound Link |
| ODP | Open Directory Project |
| ORM | Online Reputation Management |
| OS | Operating system (sometimes this is used for 'open source') |
| OSE | Open Site Explorer |
| OWBL | One Way Back Link |
P
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| P4P | Paid For Placement |
| PBN | Private Blog Network |
| Portable Document Format | |
| PFI | Pay For Inclusion |
| PFL | Paid For Listings |
| PFP | Pay for Performance |
| PHP | Hypertext Preprocessor |
| PPC | Pay Per Click |
| PPCSE | Pay Per Click Search Engine |
| PPL | Pay Per Lead |
| PPR | Pay Per Rank |
| PPS | Pay Per Sale |
| PR | Press Release |
| PR | Page Rank |
| PV | Pageviews |
Q
| Acronyms | Meaning |
|---|---|
| QA | Quality assurance |
| QS | Quality score |
R
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| RD | Referring Domains |
| RFI | Request for information |
| RI | Regular index |
| RM | Reputation management |
| ROI | Return on Investment |
| RON | Run of network |
| ROR | Ruby on Rails |
| ROS | Run of site |
| RSS | Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary |
| RTD | Real time data |
| RTL | Regional Long Tail |
S
| Acronyms | Meaning |
|---|---|
| SaaS | Software as a service |
| SB | Social Bookmarking |
| SD | Semantic Distance |
| SE | Search Engine |
| SEM | Search Engine Marketing |
| SEO | Search engine optimisation |
| SEOs | Search Engine Optimization Performance |
| SEP | Search Engine Positioning |
| SER | Search Engine Ranking |
| SERM | Search Engine Results Management |
| SERP | Search Engine Results Page |
| SES | Search Engine Strategies |
| SEW | Search Engine Watch |
| SI | Supplemental Index |
| SLA | Service level agreement |
| SMB | Small and Medium Businesses |
| SMEs | Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises |
| SMM | Social Media Marketing |
| SMO | Social media optimisation |
| SMP | Social media platform |
| SNS | Social Networking Service |
| SQL | Sales qualified lead |
| SRM | Search Reputation Management |
| SSI | Server Side Includes |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer |
| SSP | Supply-side platform |
| STW | Search The Web |
| SWL | SiteWide Link |
T
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| TBPR | Toolbar PageRank |
| TF | Trust Flow |
| TF-IDF | Term frequency-inverse document frequency |
| TLD | Top level domain |
| TLP | Top Level Page |
| TOS | Terms of service |
| TR | Trust Rank |
| TSETSB | The Search Engine That Spam Built |
| TTF | Topical Trust Flow |
U
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| UCD | User-centric design |
| UI | User interface |
| UR | Url Ranking |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator |
| USP | Unique Selling Point |
| USP | Unique selling proposition |
| UTM | Urchin Tracking Module |
| UV | Unique visitor |
| UX | User experience |
V
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| VA | Virtual Assistant |
| VIPS | Visual-block Page Segmentation |
| VOD | Video on demand |
W
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| W3C | World Wide Web Consortium |
| WH | Whitehat |
| WMT | Web Master Tools |
| WMW | Webmaster World |
| WOMM | Word of mouth marketing |
| WWW | World Wide Web |
| WYSIWYG | What you see is what you get |
X
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| XHTML | Extensible HyperText Markup Language |
| XML | Extensible Markup Language |
Y
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Y! | Yahoo! |
| Y2K | Year Two Thousand |
| YOY | Year on year |
| YTD | Year to date |
Numbers
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 301 | Resource Moved Permanently (A permanent redirect code to a new domain or location) |
| 302 | Resource Moved Temporarily (A temporary redirect code to a new domain or location) |
| 401 | Unauthorized Access to Resource (requires authentication) |
| 403 | Forbidden (Access not allowed (server understood the request but refuses to fulfill it)) |
| 404 | Resource (page) not found |
| 503 | The server is unavailable (usually a temporary response due to overloading or maintenance) |
FAQ
What Does SEO Mean in Marketing?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which defines your actions to ensure your website or web page comes up high in search results for a given keyword.
What Is SEO Business Term?
SEO refers to the techniques and methods used to increase website traffic by improving one’s position on search engines (Google, YouTube, etc).
What Does the Abbreviation SEO Represent?
SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization.
What Is the Difference Between SEO and SEM?
The difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO is a subset of Search Engine Marketing as a whole. SEM extends towards other search engines traffic generation forms, such as paid advertisement.
How Much Does SEO Cost?
The average SEO agency typically charges a monthly retainer of $1000-$2000 per month, while a freelancer might work at a rate of $75 to $125 per hour.
