Learning Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be daunting as a beginner, especially since it includes many terms and abbreviations. To help, we’ve compiled a list of the most common SEO acronyms.
Review each to get a better understanding of modern terms and how they’re used to communicate about digital growth.
SEO Acronyms
Common abbreviations related to Search Engine Optimization
| Acronym | Stands For | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| AI | Artificial Intelligence | Technology used in many modern tools to generate and analyze content. |
| API | Application Programming Interface | A set of functions and procedures for building software and applications. |
| BERT | Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers | Google’s neural network-based technique for natural language processing pre-training. |
| CMS | Content Management System | Software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content. |
| CTR | Click-Through Rate | The percentage of viewers who click on a link out of the total viewers. |
| DA | Domain Authority | A score by Moz estimating a website’s ability to rank. |
| E-E-A-T | Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness | Google’s criteria for assessing the quality of web content. |
| GA | Google Analytics | A web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. |
| GSC | Google Search Console | A web service by Google that allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize the visibility of their websites. |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language | The standard language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. |
| KD | Keyword Difficulty | How difficult it will be to rank for that keyword. Ahrefs likes to use this abbreviation a bunch. |
| KPI | Key Performance Indicator | A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. |
| LOE | Level of Effort | How hard it is to get accomplished. |
| LSI | Latent Semantic Indexing | Used to understand text documents better. Debunked term for SEO efforts. |
| NLP | Natural Language Processing | The use of AI to understand and manipulate human language. |
| PA | Page Authority | A Moz score measuring a page’s backlink profile and other authority metrics. |
| PBN | Private Blog Network | A network of websites used to build links to a single website to manipulate search engine rankings. Bad idea! |
| PPC | Pay-Per-Click | An advertising model where you pay each time your ad is clicked. |
| PR | Page Rating | An Ahrefs metric for the strength of a page’s backlink profile. |
| QDF | Query Deserves Freshness | A Google initiative for its Freshness update that indicated results needed recency. |
| RDFa | Resource Description Framework in attributes | A set of HTML5 extensions to support linked data by embedding rich metadata within web documents. |
| ROI | Return on Investment | The performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. |
| SEM | Search Engine Marketing | A holistic term for SEO and PPC, all search marketing efforts. |
| SEO | Search Engine Optimization | Optimizing a website to improve its visibility in search engine results. |
| SERP | Search Engine Results Page | The result page shown in search engines for a query. |
| SMM | Social Media Marketing | Using social media platforms to promote a product or service. |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer | A standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link with a server. |
| TF-IDF | Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency | A numerical statistic that reflects how important a word is to a document in a collection. |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator | The address of a web page on the internet. |
| UR | URL Rating | An Ahrefs metric for measuring the strength of a URL’s backlink profile. |
| UX | User Experience | How users interact with and experience a website. |
| XML | Extensible Markup Language | Used for important files like sitemaps that ensure search engines can find and crawl the site properly. |
Bottom Line
This list should make learning specific SEO acronyms and their meanings easier. You don’t need to know each to produce quality SEO results, but familiarizing yourself with the terms will broaden your understanding and simplify your education.