Reference
Glossary
Every term used on this site, defined once, without assuming you already know what the other terms mean.
- Alt text
- A written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers and used by search engines to understand what the picture shows.
- Backlink
- A link from another website to yours. Historically the strongest signal of authority in search, and still one of the hardest to earn honestly.
- Cache
- A stored copy of a page so it does not have to be rebuilt for every visitor. The most common single cause of a site feeling slow is not having one.
- Canonical tag
- A line of code telling search engines which version of a page is the original, used when the same content is reachable at more than one address.
- CMS
- Content management system. The software you log into to edit the site. WordPress is one.
- Core Web Vitals
- Google's specific measurements of loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability. Reported in Search Console.
- CDN
- Content delivery network. Copies of your files kept in several locations so they load from somewhere near the visitor.
- DNS
- The directory that translates your domain name into the address of the server holding your site. Also controls where your email goes.
- Featured snippet
- The answer box at the top of some search results, quoted directly from a page. The original target of answer engine optimization.
- Hreflang
- Markup indicating which language and region a page is intended for. Relevant only if you publish in more than one.
- Indexing
- A search engine storing your page so it can appear in results. Being crawled is not the same as being indexed.
- Meta description
- The summary text under a result. It does not affect ranking directly, but it affects whether anybody clicks.
- Plugin
- Software added to WordPress to give it a capability it does not have by default. Every one is another thing to keep updated.
- Redirect
- An instruction sending one address to another. A 301 is permanent and passes on most of the accumulated value of the old address.
- Robots.txt
- A file asking crawlers not to visit certain parts of a site. A request rather than an enforcement.
- Schema markup
- Structured data describing what a page contains, so machines can read it without guessing. The mechanism behind rich results.
- Sitemap
- A file listing the pages you want indexed. Submitted through Search Console to speed up discovery.
- SPRS, SAM, CAGE
- Federal contracting identifiers and systems. Relevant if you sell to government agencies.
- SSL certificate
- What produces the padlock. Encrypts traffic between visitor and site. Free ones are as secure as paid ones.
- Staging site
- A private copy of your website where changes can be tested before they go live. The absence of one is why sites break during updates.
- TTFB
- Time to first byte. How long the server takes to start responding. A hosting measurement rather than a design one.
- UTM parameters
- Tags added to a link so analytics can tell which campaign sent a visitor.
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