SEO Terms You Should Know

A 301 redirect is a perfect way to point people and search engines from an old URL to a new one. It's like having your mail forwarded to a new address. Everyone who tries to go to the old page will automatically end up at the new location instead.

Using a 301 means any SEO power from links pointing to the original URL will transfer over. The new page will soak up all that juicy link equity. That's crucial for keeping your rankings intact when you need to move or rename a page.

Whenever someone lands on a page that's been 301'd, their browser gets a message saying, "This page has moved permanently. We're sending you to the new spot." The visitor's browser makes a quick pit stop, picks up the new address, and zips off to the right destination.

You can use a 301 to combine pages, swap domains, or clean up messy URLs. It's a slick trick for sprucing up your site structure without losing any precious SEO momentum. 301 redirects are a seamless way to reroute traffic when you need to switch things around.

So, if you've renamed a page or are merging websites, break out that 301 redirect. It'll make sure your visitors and friendly neighborhood search engines always wind up in the right place—no muss, no fuss, no lost link juice. You gotta love that 301 redirect!

 

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TF-IDF helps find important words in documents. It measures how much a word matters by checking how often it appears in your text compared to other texts. This smart method spots words that make your content special.

If a word shows up many times in your document but not much in other documents, TF-IDF gives it a high score. This means the word probably matters a lot for understanding what your document is about. Words that appear everywhere, such as "the" or "and," get low scores because they don't tell us anything specific about your content.

Search engines use TF-IDF to figure out what pages talk about. Writers can use it to check if they included enough important terms in their articles. It helps make sure your content stays focused on your main topic without stuffing in keywords unnaturally.

The math behind TF-IDF looks at two things: how often a word appears in your document and how rare that word is across all documents. This creates a balance that finds truly meaningful terms. You can use TF-IDF tools online to analyze your writing and discover which words make your content stand out from others.

 

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Time on Page shows how long people stay on your website before they leave. This number helps you see if people find your content useful and interesting. A longer time usually means they read what you wrote and enjoyed it.

You can check your Time on Page with tracking tools. These tools count the seconds from when someone opens your page until they click away. Short visits might mean people didn't find what they wanted, while long visits often show that your page answered their questions.

This number matters a lot for websites. If most people leave after just a few seconds, something might be wrong with your page. Maybe it loads slowly or doesn't match what people expected. But if visitors spend minutes reading your content probably connects well with them.

Website owners use Time on Page to improve their sites. They look at which pages keep people reading and which ones make them leave quickly. Then, they can fix the not-so-good pages by adding better pictures, clearer writing, or more helpful information. The goal is to create pages where people want to stay and read everything.

 

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TLDs are those little endings you see after website names. You know, the parts like .com, .org, .gov, or .edu at the end of web addresses. These endings tell you something about what kind of website you're looking at.

The .com ending is what most businesses use. It's the most common one you'll see around the internet. If you spot a .org, that usually means it's a group that doesn't make money, like a charity. Government websites have .gov at the end, and only real government offices can use those. Schools and universities get to use .edu endings.

Some countries have special endings, too. For example, websites from the United Kingdom often end with .uk, and Canadian ones might use .ca. These country endings help show where a website comes from.

There are also newer TLDs that tell you what a website is about, such as .shop for online stores, .blog for blogs, and .app for mobile applications. The list of possible endings keeps growing as more are added.

When you pick a website name for yourself, you'll need to choose which ending fits what you want to do. Most people go for .com because everyone knows it, but sometimes the name you want might already be taken with that ending. That's when looking at other TLDs might give you more options for good website names.

 

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Topic Efficiency helps measure how good a research topic might be for your content marketing. It looks at two things: how many people search for that topic versus how hard it feels to create content about it. You'll find great opportunities where lots of people search but not many others write about that subject. These areas offer the best bang for your buck! A high Topic Efficiency score means you discovered a sweet spot - plenty of interest from readers plus less work needed to stand out from competitors. Many content creators hunt for these efficient topics because they can bring more visitors without requiring extra effort.

 

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Total Addressable Market means every single person who might ever need what you sell. This big number counts everybody in your target groups, even people who can't pay or aren't ready to buy right away. It shows how huge your market could be if you reached absolutely everyone who needs your product or service. Companies often look at this number first before diving deeper into smaller market segments they can actually reach. TAM gives you the complete picture of all possible customers out there - it doesn't care if they know about you or want to spend money with you just yet.

 

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Total Blocking Time checks how fast your website stays active after first showing content. It counts all delays before users can click or type anything. These delays happen because the main part of your system gets busy doing other jobs. Your page might look ready, but it still can't respond to anyone trying to use it. Website builders use this number instead of FID during tests since it gives better results. This helps them fix slow websites before real people visit. A good score means visitors won't feel stuck waiting for your page to work after it appears.

 

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Total Engagement adds up all the ways people interact with your posts across different social media platforms during a period you pick. The default checks the last 30 days, but you can make this longer or shorter if you want. Each platform counts different things as engagement:

For Facebook, we add up shares, likes, all those reaction buttons (happy faces, sad faces, angry faces), plus comments on everything you posted.

For Twitter, we count all likes, retweets, plus times other accounts mentioned your handle.

For Instagram, we simply add together all likes plus comments your posts received.

These numbers help you see how many people actually notice your social media content instead of just scrolling past it.

 

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Tracking Code is a tiny bit of JavaScript that sits on your website. It sends data back to Google Analytics about your visitors. This code helps Google Analytics tell you who visits your site, what paths they took to find you, how much time they spent browsing, and what actions they performed during their visit.

 

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Traffic % shows how many of your website's visitors come from specific keywords to certain pages. You'll see this number in both the Organic Positions and Advertising Positions reports. The percentage matches the big traffic number displayed at the top left corner of these reports. Every keyword has its Traffic % listed next to the landing page where your domain appears for that search term.

 

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Traffic Cost tells you what you'd pay each month to get the same visitors through Google Ads that a website gets for free from regular searches. You can find this in Domain Analytics. It helps you understand how much money a domain's keywords are worth. We figure this out using our special method that looks at things like cost per click, how many searches happen, competition, and other stuff. This gives you a good idea of how valuable their keyword collection really is.

 

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Trend shows you a picture of how many people looked up your keyword during the past year. The graph helps you see if more or fewer people are searching for this word now compared to earlier months. This makes it easy to spot if interest in your topic is growing or shrinking. You can find this chart right inside Semrush. Many marketers check these trends before picking which keywords to target - they want words people actually search for!

 

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Tweet Listings are links from Twitter that show up in search results. You might see these Twitter posts mixed in with regular websites or articles. Search engines add these tweets because they think people searching might want to read them. This puts social media right into your search page!

 

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Twitter Cards make your social media look great! These special pieces add rich stuff - pictures, videos, previews - right inside tweets. People see these eye-catching cards as they scroll through Twitter. The cards connect back to your website content. They play videos or show sneak peeks that make users want to click. This helps bring more visitors from Twitter straight to your site. Many businesses use these cards because they work better than plain text for grabbing attention.

 

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Twitter Engagement counts up all the ways people interact with you on Twitter during a period you pick. We add together everyone who liked your tweets, shared your posts through retweets, or typed your Twitter name in their messages. This number helps you see how many people actually notice your Twitter account instead of just scrolling past it. Many companies watch this number closely because it shows if their Twitter posts make people want to react or share.

 

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Kids and adults create content on websites all the time! This happens on social media, in comment sections, and on forums. We call this User-Generated Content, or UGC for short. Any writing that regular people put online counts as UGC.

UGC also works as a special label for links inside things users write. This helps search engines know which links come from regular users versus official writers. If famous people or trusted writers make content, websites might skip using the UGC tag since these people have more authority. The most important thing about UGC is that it comes from normal website visitors instead of the website staff or professional writers.

 

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URL stands for where Google sends people after they click your ad. It's the page they land on from your Google Ads campaign. This page matters a lot since it's what users see right after clicking your advertisement. Google wants this page to match what your ad promised. The landing page should give visitors exactly what they expected to find. Your ad success depends on having a good landing page that connects with what your ad says. Make sure these pages load fast and work well for everyone who visits them!

 

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Visibility % shows how easy people can find your website in search results. We measure this for all the keywords you put in your project. The line graph in your project displays this number. If your visibility hits 100%, it means amazing news! Your website ranks first for every keyword you're tracking. This happens at the domain, subdomain, or URL level - whatever you choose to watch. The higher this percentage climbs, the better your website performs across all those search terms.

 

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Voice Search SEO helps your website show up for people talking to their devices. You need to fix your website stuff plus local business info. This makes your pages appear more often during voice searches. People ask questions on Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, plus other talking assistants. Making these changes boosts how many times your site comes up as an answer. The right changes let search engines find your pages better for voice questions.

 

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Search Volume tells us how many people look for a keyword each month. It counts all the times anyone types that word or phrase into search engines. We figure this out by taking the average from the last 12 months of searches. This number helps you know which keywords lots of people search for versus ones hardly anybody uses. A higher search volume means more people are looking for that term every month. Websites use this info to pick which keywords they want to target with their content.