Encyclopedia

The SEO glossary.

The terms you meet when you work on links, rankings and Search Console, defined in plain English and cross-linked so you can follow the thread. Start with what a backlink is.

Core

Backlink

A backlink is a link from one website to another, and it acts as a signal that search engines use to judge a page's authority and relevance.

Internal link

An internal link connects one page of your site to another page on the same domain.

Nofollow link

A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", which asks search engines not to associate the linking page with the page it links to. Google treats it as a hint, not a command.

Anchor text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable words of a link, and it tells both users and search engines what the linked page is about.

Link equity

Link equity (often called "link juice") is the ranking value passed from one page to another through a link.

Contextual link

A contextual link is a link placed within the main body content of a page, surrounded by relevant text that explains what it points to.

Metrics

Domain Rating (DR)

Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs' 0-to-100 logarithmic score estimating the strength of a website's overall backlink profile.

Domain Authority (DA)

Domain Authority (DA) is Moz's 1-to-100 predictive score estimating how likely a website is to rank in search results.

Trust Flow

Trust Flow is a Majestic metric (0-100) that scores a URL or domain by how close its backlinks are to a curated set of trusted seed sites.

Citation Flow

Citation Flow is a Majestic metric (0-100) that measures the raw quantity and link power flowing to a URL or domain, regardless of quality.

Spam Score

Spam Score is a Moz metric: the percentage of sites with features similar to a given site that Moz has found to be penalized or banned by Google.

Link velocity

Link velocity is the rate at which a site gains (or loses) backlinks over time, measured per week or month.

Tactics

Guest posting

Guest posting is publishing an article you wrote on another website, usually in exchange for one or more contextual link back to your own pages.

Niche edit (link insertion)

A niche edit, or link insertion, is a link added to an article that already exists on someone else's site, instead of to a new post written for the link.

Digital PR

Digital PR is earning high-authority editorial backlinks by creating newsworthy stories, data, or commentary that journalists and publishers want to cover and cite.

Broken link building

Broken link building finds dead links on other websites, then suggests your working resource as the replacement, earning a link while fixing the host's problem.

Skyscraper technique

A content-driven link-building tactic where you find a popular, heavily linked piece, build something demonstrably better, then ask the sites linking to the original to link to yours instead.

Resource page link building

Earning links by getting your page added to curated resource or links pages that exist specifically to list helpful references on a topic.

HARO (Help a Reporter Out)

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a free, email-based service that connects journalists with expert sources. Founded in 2008, it has been run by Featured since 2025.

Unlinked mention

A place where another site names your brand, product, or content in text but does not hyperlink it, representing an easy link-reclamation opportunity.

Link reclamation

Recovering links you should have but currently don't, by fixing broken backlinks, restoring lost ones, and converting unlinked brand mentions into live links.

Linkbait

Content created specifically to attract links and shares naturally, such as original research, free tools, strong opinions, or visualizations that other sites want to cite.

Private blog network (PBN)

A private blog network (PBN) is a set of websites, often built on expired domains, that one owner controls solely to link to their money sites and manipulate rankings.

Risk

Link spam

Link spam is creating links to or from a site mainly to manipulate search rankings. Google's policies used to call it "link schemes".

Disavow

Disavowing is telling Google to ignore specific backlinks or domains when assessing your site, via a file uploaded in the disavow tool.

Manual action

A manual action is a penalty applied by a human reviewer at Google, reported in Search Console, that can demote or deindex pages or a whole site.

Google Penguin

Google Penguin is a search algorithm update, first launched in 2012, that targets sites manipulating rankings through spammy or unnatural backlinks.

Technical

Canonical tag

A canonical tag (rel="canonical") is an HTML element that tells search engines which version of a page is the preferred one to index when duplicate or near-duplicate URLs exist.

301 redirect

A 301 redirect is an HTTP status code telling browsers and search engines that a page has moved permanently to a new URL. Google treats it as a strong signal that the new URL should be the canonical one.

Orphan page

An orphan page is a page on your site that no internal links point to, leaving it disconnected from your site's navigation and link structure.

Striking distance

Striking distance refers to keywords for which a page already ranks just outside the top positions, typically positions 11 to 20, where a small push can move it onto page one.

Sitewide link

A sitewide link appears on every, or nearly every, page of a site, usually because it sits in a shared template such as the header, footer or sidebar.