SEO Speak Translated: The Real SEO Glossary

lost-in-translation*

In the SEO industry agencies, experts and even bloggers have adopted a special mode of speech not to say

slang that might be misunderstood by outsiders

like clients, website visitors or the general public. To help you understand what search engine optimization experts really mean I devised this real glossary of SEO speak:

  • We offer Search Engine Optimization/SEO = We assume you are the Google bot and want you to index this page for both keywords
  • We offer Search Engine Optimisation = Our SEO company is based in the UK
  • Guaranteed top positions = We place Google Adwords for you
  • We do SEO, SEM, PPC to increase your ROI = We do not want you to know what we do
  • We stick to the Google Webmaster Guidelines = We only break them in a way that we assume Google won’t notice
  • We tell you how to make money online = We want you to click on our ads
  • 10 ways of making money online = Those are our 10 affiliates, please click on the respective undisclosed ads
  • We offer social media marketing = We buy Facebook ads for you
  • We offer link baiting services = We want to put those drunk naked ladies video on your site
  • Our network = Our link farm
  • Authority sites = Sites that do no SEO
  • Black hat SEO = We do anything to get rich quick, even if your site gets banned
  • White hat SEO = We only cheat Google where we have to, others do it too, come on!
  • We optimize for Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask = If we fail on Google you still have to pay
  • Search Engine Submission = We need your mail address, those guys offered us $$$ for each 1000 verified addresses
  • Partners = People we never heard of until we exchanged links
  • PageRank optimization = Sorry, we just started doing SEO and do not have a clue
  • SEO India = We offer 1000 links for 30$
  • Alexa optimization = All our employees have the Alexa Toolbar installed, it really works!
  • We offer content, inbound or digital marketing – We’re ashamed of practicing SEO

In case you have more SEO terms that you do not understand feel free to ask me in the comments!

Last updated: July 2nd, 2015.

* Still from the Motion picture Lost in Translation