This glossary covers the terms you're most likely to meet in a backlink report or an agency proposal. Where a term belongs to Google, Moz or Ahrefs, the definition links to that organisation's own documentation, so you can check the source yourself.
A
Ahrefs: an independent SEO tool provider with a backlink index, keyword data and site-audit tools. It creates the Domain Rating metric; it does not publish a Google score.
Anchor text: the visible, clickable text of a link. Natural anchors vary with the sentence and editorial context. Repeated, keyword-heavy anchors can form part of a manipulative pattern, but there's no universal healthy percentage mix. See our anchor text guide.
Article structured data: machine-readable information that can identify an article's headline, author and dates. It can help search engines understand a page. It doesn't guarantee rankings, rich results or AI citations.
Authority: an informal SEO term for perceived trust or strength. Google does not provide a public domain-authority score. Tools such as Moz and Ahrefs estimate different aspects of a site or backlink profile.
B
Backlink: a link from one website to another. See what a backlink is and how it works.
Black-hat SEO: an industry label for tactics intended to manipulate search systems in ways that breach search-engine policies. Google's official examples sit in its spam policies.
Branded anchor: anchor text containing a company, product or person's name. It can be natural in editorial coverage, but no anchor type is automatically safe or valuable without context.
Broken link building: finding a dead reference on another site and suggesting a useful live replacement. The editor decides whether the replacement improves the page.
C
Citation Flow: a Majestic metric intended to represent link influence or quantity. It should be interpreted with Majestic's methodology and alongside quality and relevance checks.
Contextual link: a link inside the main content of a page, surrounded by text that explains its relevance. Context makes the editorial reason easier to understand, but placement alone doesn't guarantee value.
Crawlability: whether a search crawler can access a page and its links. A blocked or inaccessible page may not be processed as expected.
D
DA (Domain Authority): Moz's 0 to 100 predictive metric for comparing a domain's likelihood of ranking. Google doesn't use it. See our DA vs DR guide.
Digital PR: the work of earning online editorial coverage through newsworthy data, commentary, creative assets or announcements. Coverage may include links, mentions, referral traffic and brand exposure, though none is guaranteed for an individual pitch. See digital PR backlinks.
Disavow: Google's advanced tool for asking it to disregard specified backlinks. Google warns that most sites don't need it. Use it cautiously, when there's a substantial history of manipulative links and removal isn't possible. See toxic backlinks.
Dofollow: an informal term for a standard link without nofollow, sponsored or ugc qualification. There's no dofollow attribute in HTML. See dofollow vs nofollow backlinks.
DR (Domain Rating): Ahrefs' 0 to 100 metric for the relative strength of a website's backlink profile in Ahrefs' index. It's logarithmic and isn't a Google score.
E
E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. Google discusses these concepts in its guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content. E-E-A-T isn't a public numeric score.
Editorial link: a link a publisher or editor chooses to include as part of normal content. The strength of the link still depends on the page, relevance, readership and reason it exists.
Estimated advertising value (EAV): an estimate of what equivalent advertising space might cost. It isn't profit or ROI and shouldn't be presented as a commercial return. See how to measure digital PR ROI.
F
FAQ structured data: markup describing questions and answers on a page. Eligibility and display are controlled by Google; markup does not guarantee a People Also Ask result, rich result or AI citation.
Featured snippet: a search feature that may display an extracted answer above or among regular results. Google decides when and where it appears.
First-touch attribution: a model that credits the first recorded channel in a customer journey. It is useful for one view of discovery but ignores later touches, so disclose the model when reporting PR revenue.
G
GEO (generative engine optimisation): an emerging industry term for improving the chance that content or brands are represented accurately in AI-generated answers. Google's AI-feature guidance says standard Search technical requirements still apply and offers no special backlink threshold.
Google Search Console (GSC): Google's service for reviewing search performance, indexing and technical messages for a verified site.
Guest post: an article contributed to another website. A useful contribution on a relevant publication can be legitimate; a paid post created mainly to pass ranking credit can fall within link spam. See guest posts vs PR backlinks.
H
HARO (Help a Reporter Out): a journalist-request service that has changed owners and names several times, including a spell as Connectively. Reactive PR today runs on direct journalist relationships and on request services such as ResponseSource or Qwoted. Check a platform is active before relying on an older guide.
I
Indexed: included in a search engine's searchable index. A page can be crawlable without being indexed, and a link doesn't guarantee indexation.
Internal link: a link between two pages on the same website. Internal links help users navigate and help search engines understand site structure and page relationships. See internal links vs backlinks.
K
Keyword cannibalisation: an industry term for multiple pages that overlap enough to confuse page targeting or split signals. Overlap isn't automatically harmful, so check intent, queries, links and performance before consolidating.
Keyword difficulty: a third-party estimate of ranking competition. Each tool uses its own data and formula, so scores are not interchangeable.
L
Link building: deliberate work to earn or acquire links from other sites. Methods include digital PR, resource-page pitches and relationship-led contributions. See how link building works.
Link equity: an informal term for ranking value that may pass through links. Google doesn't expose a public amount for an individual link.
Link spam: links created mainly to manipulate rankings. Google's official policy includes paid ranking links, automated links, excessive exchanges and low-quality directory or forum links among its examples.
Link velocity: the rate at which a site gains or loses backlinks. It describes a pattern, and Google publishes no threshold for it. A newsworthy campaign can create a sudden spike, and how the links were earned explains more than the curve alone.
Linkable asset: a study, tool, dataset, guide or other resource that people may choose to reference. It still needs a useful purpose beyond attracting links.
M
Manual action: an action applied by a human reviewer for a policy violation and reported in Search Console. It's different from ordinary ranking changes or an unconfirmed “algorithmic penalty”.
Money page: informal shorthand for a page tied closely to a commercial action, such as a service, product, category or pricing page.
Moz: an SEO software provider and the creator of Domain Authority.
N
Naked URL: anchor text that displays the destination URL itself. It's one natural option, and there's no required percentage.
Niche edit / link insertion: a link added to an existing article. An editor may legitimately update a page with a better source; paid insertion mainly for ranking credit is a different and riskier practice.
Nofollow: a rel value used when the publisher does not want to imply a standard relationship and the sponsored or ugc values do not fit. Google says nofollow, sponsored and ugc are hints.
O
Off-page SEO: work outside the site that may influence discovery, reputation or search visibility, including digital PR, links and citations.
On-page SEO: work on the site itself, including content, headings, internal links, metadata and page experience.
Organic traffic: visits from unpaid search results. It should be segmented by page, query type and conversion where possible.
P
PBN (private blog network): a group of sites controlled mainly to create links. A high DA or DR number does not make a networked link compliant with search policies.
People Also Ask (PAA): a Google search feature containing related questions. There is no guaranteed markup or wording that wins inclusion.
PR backlink: a backlink earned within coverage generated through PR activity. It should be assessed like any other link: relevance, page quality, readership, context and attribute.
Press release distribution: sending or syndicating an announcement through a distribution service. It may help journalists find a news story, but syndication isn't a ranking tactic you can count on. Paid links should be qualified appropriately. See how to write a press release.
R
Rank tracking: recording how a page appears for selected queries over time. Results vary by location, device and search context, so use Search Console and consistent third-party settings.
Reactive PR: responding quickly to a journalist's current need for a source, quote or explanation. Speed matters, but accuracy and relevance come first.
Referring domain: a unique domain that links to a site. It is useful for de-duplicating a raw backlink count, but several relevant links from one publication can still serve different readers and pages.
rel="sponsored": the preferred rel value for advertisements, sponsorships and other compensated links under Google's guidance.
rel="ugc": a rel value for links within user-generated content such as comments and forum posts.
S
Schema markup / structured data: machine-readable information about a page or entity. It can help search engines understand content and decide eligibility for supported features. It isn't a ranking or citation guarantee.
Semrush: an independent SEO and marketing tool provider with its own keyword, traffic and backlink datasets.
SERP: search engine results page. It may contain standard results, ads, maps, snippets, shopping results and AI features depending on the query.
Sitemap: a file listing canonical URLs a site wants search engines to discover. Inclusion in a sitemap does not guarantee indexing.
T
Tier-one publication: informal PR shorthand for a widely recognised national, international or leading trade title. There's no universal list, and a specialist publication may be more relevant to a campaign.
Topical authority: an industry term for perceived depth and credibility in a subject area. Google doesn't publish a single topical-authority score.
Trust Flow: a Majestic metric intended to estimate link quality based on proximity to a seed set of trusted sites.
U
UTM parameters: query parameters used by analytics systems to label campaign traffic. Publishers may remove them, so retain referral and landing-page data as well.
W
White-hat SEO: an informal label for tactics intended to comply with search policies and serve users. The official policy text matters more than the colour label.
White-label: work delivered by one supplier for another agency to present under its own brand. Commercial terms, client ownership, conflicts and reporting responsibilities should be explicit.
Need a term added or corrected? Contact SEO Backlinks. For the commercial service, see our SEO backlink services or monthly packages.
FAQs
What's the difference between DA and DR?
Domain Authority is Moz's predictive score and Domain Rating is Ahrefs' measure of backlink-profile strength. Both run from 0 to 100, use different data and formulas, and are third-party comparison metrics rather than Google scores.
Is a standard link always better than a nofollow link?
No. The attribute is only one part of the link. Google treats nofollow, sponsored and ugc as hints about the relationship, and a nofollow link can still send relevant visitors and useful editorial exposure.
What does dofollow mean?
Dofollow is an industry term for a normal hyperlink that hasn't been qualified with rel=nofollow, rel=sponsored or rel=ugc. There's no rel=dofollow HTML attribute.
What's a PBN?
A private blog network is a group of sites controlled mainly to create links to other sites. Links built to manipulate rankings can breach Google's link-spam policy, regardless of the domain scores shown by the seller.
What's HARO?
Help a Reporter Out is a journalist-request service where sources answer media queries. It has changed owners and names several times, including a spell as Connectively. If an older guide recommends it, check which request platforms are active today before relying on the advice.
What does link velocity mean?
It's the rate at which a site gains or loses links over time. There's no published safe number. How the links were earned, how relevant they are and why they exist matter more than matching a monthly curve.