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SEO is one of those industries that has way too many acronyms. It can be intimidating if you’re new to SEO or considering giving it a go. Unfortunately, you will have to learn them; there is no way around it. But take heart, once you get started, most of the acronyms are pretty straightforward.
We’ve sat down and come up with 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 SEO business, the list is pretty extensive.
As we go about our daily SEO lives and we come across more acronyms, we’ll keep adding them to the list, making this page the most exhaustive and up-to-date list of SEO acronyms online.
Contents
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 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 the actions you would take to make sure your website 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 forms of search engine traffic generation 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.
