150+ SEO Acronyms & Abbreviations
This guide includes over 150+ SEO acronyms used by professionals.
One of the most common acronyms used in digital marketing is SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a practice of Search Engine Marketing that seeks to improve search engine rankings. This primarily includes Google, but can also include other search engines like Bing.
There are a few specific areas of SEO, which include the following:
- On-page SEO – Refers to “on-page” copy edits.
- Off-page SEO – Refers to “off-page” efforts like building.
- Content Marketing – The publishing of content to improve SEO.
In addition to these basics, there are over 150 other SEO acronyms that you should know…
| Acronym | Description |
|---|---|
| AJAX | Asynchronous Javascript and XML |
| AOV | Average Order Value |
| API | Application Program Interface |
| B2B | Business to Business |
| B2C | Business to Consumer |
| BH | Blackhat |
| BHW | Blackhat World |
| BL | Backlink |
| BL | BrightLocal |
| BR | Bounce rate |
| ccTLD | Country Code Top-Level Domain |
| CF | Citation flow |
| CGI | Common Gateway Interface |
| CMS | Content Management System |
| CPA | Cost Per Acquisition |
| CPC | Cost per Click |
| CPL | Cost Per Lead |
| CPM | Cost Per Impression |
| CPO | Cost Per Order |
| CPV | Cost Per View |
| CR | Conversion Rate |
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management |
| CRO | Conversion Rate Optimization |
| CSS | Cascading Style Sheet |
| CTA | Call to Action |
| CTR | Click-through Rate |
| DA | Domain Authority |
| DFO | Data Feed Optimization |
| DKI | Dynamic Keyword Insertion |
| DLP | Directory Listings Page |
| DLR | Deep Link Ratio |
| DMCA | Digital Millennium Copyright Act |
| DMP | Data Management Platform |
| DNS | Domain Name System |
| DR | Domain Ranking |
| DR | Direct Response |
| DSRP | Directory Search Results Page |
| eCPC | Enhanced Cost Per Click |
| EMD | Exact Match Domain |
| EMQ | Exact Match Query |
| EPC | Earnings Per Click |
| EPM | Earnings Per Impression |
| ERD | Educational Referring Domain |
| ESP | Email Service Provider |
| FB | |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol |
| G | |
| GA | Google Analytics |
| GAP | Google Advertising Professional |
| GIS | Google Image Search |
| GKP | Google Knowledge Panel |
| GRD | Governmental Referring Domain |
| GSC | Google Search Console |
| GTM | Google Tag Manager |
| GUI | Graphical User Interface |
| GWT | Google Webmaster Tools |
| H1 | Heading Level 1 HTML Markup |
| H2 | Heading Level 2 HTML Markup |
| H3 | Heading Level 3 HTML Markup |
| H4 | Heading Level 5 HTML Markup |
| H5 | Heading Level 5 HTML Markup |
| H6 | Heading Level 6 HTML Markup |
| Href | Hypertext Reference |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language |
| HTTP | HyperText Transfer Protocol |
| HTTPS | Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure |
| IBL | Inbound Links |
| IG | |
| IP | Internet Protocol (Address) |
| ISP | Internet Service Providers |
| KW | Keyword |
| KWR | Keyword Research |
| LB | Link Building |
| LPO | Landing Page Optimization |
| LSA | Local Service Ads |
| LSEO | Local SEO |
| LSI | Latent Semantic Indexing |
| LTV | Lifetime Value |
| NAP | Name Address Phone Number |
| NLP | Natural Language Processing |
| OBL | Outbound Link |
| ODP | Open Directory Project |
| OG | Open Graph |
| ORM | Online Reputation Management |
| OS | Open Source |
| OS | Operating System |
| OSE | Open Site Explorer |
| PBN | Private Blog Network |
| Portable Document Format | |
| PHP | Hypertext Preprocessor |
| PNG | Portable Networks Graphic |
| PPC | Pay Per Click |
| PPL | Pay Per Lead |
| PPR | Pay Per Rank |
| PPS | Pay Per Sale |
| PR | Press Release |
| PR | Page Rank |
| PV | Pageview |
| QA | Quality Assessment |
| QS | Quality score |
| RD | Referring Domain |
| RM | Reputation management |
| ROI | Return on Investment |
| RSS | Really Simple Syndication |
| RTD | Real-time Data |
| SaaS | Software as a service |
| SB | Social Bookmark |
| SD | Semantic Distance |
| SDTT | Structured Data Testing Tool |
| SE | Search Engine |
| SEJ | Search Engine Journal |
| SEM | Search Engine Marketing |
| SEO | Search Engine Optimization |
| SERM | Search Engine Results Management |
| SERP | Search Engine Results Page |
| SEW | Search Engine Watch |
| SI | Supplemental Index |
| SMM | Social Media Marketing |
| SMO | Social Media Optimization |
| SMP | Social Media Platform |
| SNS | Social Networking Service |
| SQL | Sales Qualified Lead |
| SSI | Server Side Includes |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer |
| SVG | Scalable Vector Graphic |
| TF | Scalable Vector Graphic |
| TLD | Top Level Domain |
| TLP | Top Level Page |
| TOS | Terms of Service |
| TF | Trust Flow |
| UCD | User-centric design |
| UI | User Interface |
| UR | URL Rating |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator |
| USP | Unique Selling Proposition |
| UTM | Urchin Tracking Module |
| UV | Unique visitor |
| UX | User Experience |
| VA | Virtual Assistant |
| W3C | World Wide Web Consortium |
| WH | Whitehat |
| WMT | Webmaster Tools |
| WP | WordPress |
| WWW | World Wide Web |
| XHTML | Extensible HyperText Markup Language |
| XML | Extensible Markup Language |
| YML | Your Money Your Life |
| YoY | Year over Year |
| YT | YouTube |
| YTD | Year-to-Date |
| 301 | 301 Redirect (Resource Moved Permanently) |
| 302 | 302 Redirect (Resource Moved Temporarily) |
| 401 | 401 Status Code (Resource Requires Authentication) |
| 403 | 403 Status Code (Forbidden Access) |
| 404 | 404 Error Status Code (Resource Not Found) |
| 503 | 503 Error Status Code (Server Unavailable) |
You don’t need to know all of them, but at least half of these are used on a weekly basis.
Being familiar with the list will put you ahead of most traditional marketers, and enable you to have better conversations.
Happy SEO-ing 🙂