Skill: lesishu/seo-guide (version 1.0.0)

--- name: seo-guide description: SEO 全流程技能：网站诊断、页面优化、技术SEO、内容策略、外链建设。 当用户提到 SEO、搜索排名、网站优化、关键词、标题描述优化、结构化数据、 技术SEO、Core Web Vitals、sitemap、robots.txt、SEO审计等时触发。 --- # SEO Guide Skill SEO 全流程技能。默认来源：Google 官方文档（86篇）+ Moz 精炼指南 + Ahrefs Academy 课程。 最后更新：2026-04-24 --- ## 快速导航 | 任务 | 参考文档 | |------|---------| | ⭐ TKD 规范标准 | [references/tkd-standard.md](references/tkd-standard.md) | | 关键词研究 | [references/keyword-research.md](references/keyword-research.md) | | 页面优化 | [references/on-page-seo.md](references/on-page-seo.md) | | 技术SEO | [references/technical-seo.md](references/technical-seo.md) | | 内容策略 | [references/content-strategy.md](references/content-strategy.md) | | 外链建设 | [references/link-building.md](references/link-building.md) | | 本地SEO | [references/local-seo.md](references/local-seo.md) | | 核心原则 + 误区辟谣 | [references/seo-principles.md](references/seo-principles.md) | | SEO 诊断与审计 | [references/seo-audit.md](references/seo-audit.md) | | 常用工具 | [references/seo-tools.md](references/seo-tools.md) | | Google 官方文档索引（86篇） | [references-google/INDEX.md](references-google/INDEX.md) | | Moz 补充资料（10章） | [references-moz/INDEX.md](references-moz/INDEX.md) | | Ahrefs 补充资料（7门课） | [references-ahrefs/INDEX.md](references-ahrefs/INDEX.md) | | PDF 报告生成 | [scripts/README.md](scripts/README.md) | --- ## 工作流决策树 ```用户请求 SEO 相关任务 │ ├─ 关键词/竞品分析 → references/keyword-research.md ├─ 优化页面/文章 → references/on-page-seo.md ├─ 技术SEO问题 → references/technical-seo.md ├─ 内容规划/写作 → references/content-strategy.md ├─ 外链建设 → references/link-building.md ├─ 本地商家/地图 → references/local-seo.md ├─ 全站SEO体检 → references/seo-audit.md（Part B） ├─ 单页快速诊断 → references/seo-audit.md（Part A）+ references/technical-seo.md │ └─ PDF报告 → 见 scripts/README.md └─ Google官方文档查询 → references-google/INDEX.md 按主题查找 ```

path: scripts/README.md
content: # SEO 诊断 PDF 报告生成

> **规则：只在用户明确要求时才生成 PDF，不要主动生成。**

SEO 诊断完成后可生成格式化 PDF 报告，完全自包含，不依赖其他技能。

## 依赖

```bash
pip3 install reportlab    # Python 3.8 需锁定 reportlab<4.3
```

## 调用方式

**方式 1：Python 调用**
```python
import sys, os
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.expanduser("~/.qclaw/skills/seo-guide/scripts"))
from generate_seo_report import generate_seo_pdf

data = {
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "date": "2026-04-22",
    "scores": {"title_meta": {"stars": 2, "label": "标题/描述"}},
    "issues": [{"priority": "high", "title": "...", "detail": "...", "fix": "..."}],
    "good_points": [{"title": "...", "detail": "..."}],
    "recommendations": [{"priority": "high", "issue": "...", "solution": "...", "impact": "..."}],
    "summary": "一句话总结"
}
generate_seo_pdf(data, "~/Downloads/seo-report.pdf")
```

**方式 2：命令行**
```bash
python3 ~/.qclaw/skills/seo-guide/scripts/generate_seo_report.py \
  --data report_data.json --output ~/Downloads/seo-report.pdf
```

## data 字段说明

| 字段 | 必填 | 说明 |
|------|------|------|
| url | 是 | 网站 URL |
| date | 是 | 分析日期 |
| scores | 是 | 各维度评分（stars 1-5 + label） |
| issues | 否 | 问题列表（priority: high/medium/low） |
| good_points | 否 | 优点列表 |
| recommendations | 否 | 优化建议（priority + issue + solution + impact） |
| summary | 否 | 一句话总结 |


path: scripts/generate_seo_report.py
content: #!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
generate_seo_report.py — SEO 诊断报告 PDF 生成器
属于 seo-guide，完全自包含，不依赖其他 skill。

用法：
    python generate_seo_report.py --data report_data.json --output ~/Downloads/seo-report.pdf

或在 Python 中调用：
    from generate_seo_report import generate_seo_pdf
    generate_seo_pdf(data, output_path)

data 结构（dict）：
{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "date": "2026-04-22",
    "site_type": "Shopify 电商",
    "scores": {
        "title_meta":    {"stars": 2, "label": "标题/描述"},
        "technical":     {"stars": 4, "label": "技术SEO"},
        "images":        {"stars": 2, "label": "图片SEO"},
        "structured":    {"stars": 4, "label": "结构化数据"},
        "social":        {"stars": 2, "label": "社交分享"},
        "mobile":        {"stars": 4, "label": "移动适配"},
    },
    "issues": [
        {
            "priority": "high",   # high / medium / low
            "title": "Title 超长（204字符）",
            "detail": "当前内容过长，建议精简至 50-60 字符。",
            "fix": "Aroha® - Premium Hawaiian Aloha Shirts | Unique Hand-Painted Designs",
            "table": [  # 可选，附加对比表格
                {"项目": "字符长度", "当前值": "204 字符", "建议值": "50-60 字符", "状态": "⚠️ 超长"},
            ]
        },
    ],
    "good_points": [
        {"title": "Canonical URL 正确声明", "detail": "https://www.example.com/ — 有效防止重复内容"},
    ],
    "recommendations": [
        {
            "priority": "high",
            "issue": "Title 超长",
            "solution": "精简至 50-60 字符",
            "impact": "搜索展示改善，CTR 提升"
        },
    ],
    "summary": "技术 SEO 扎实，但标题和社交分享标签是明显短板。",
}
"""

import argparse
import json
import os
import sys

# ── 自包含：从同目录加载 setup_chinese_pdf ──
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
from setup_chinese_pdf import setup_chinese_pdf

from reportlab.lib import colors
from reportlab.lib.enums import TA_CENTER, TA_LEFT
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import A4
from reportlab.lib.styles import ParagraphStyle
from reportlab.lib.units import cm
from reportlab.platypus import (
    HRFlowable, Paragraph, SimpleDocTemplate, Spacer, Table, TableStyle,
)

# ── 优先级配置 ──
PRIORITY_CONFIG = {
    "high":   {"emoji": "🔴", "label": "高",  "color": "#e74c3c", "row_bg": "#fdf2f2"},
    "medium": {"emoji": "🟡", "label": "中",  "color": "#e67e22", "row_bg": "#fffbf0"},
    "low":    {"emoji": "🟢", "label": "低",  "color": "#27ae60", "row_bg": "#f0fff4"},
}

# ── 星级 → 颜色 ──
STAR_COLORS = {1: "#e74c3c", 2: "#e74c3c", 3: "#e67e22", 4: "#27ae60", 5: "#27ae60"}


def _star_str(n):
    return "⭐" * n + "☆" * (5 - n)


def _hex(h):
    return colors.HexColor(h)


def build_pdf(data: dict, output_path: str):
    """核心构建函数，接收 data dict，输出 PDF 到 output_path。"""

    # ── 1. 初始化字体和样式 ──
    cn_font, base_styles = setup_chinese_pdf()

    def S(name, **kw):
        """快速创建继承 CJK 字体的 ParagraphStyle。"""
        parent = kw.pop("parent", "Normal")
        return ParagraphStyle(name, parent=base_styles[parent], **kw)

    title_style    = S("ReportTitle",  parent="Title",   fontSize=22, spaceAfter=4,
                       alignment=TA_CENTER, textColor=_hex("#1a3a5c"))
    subtitle_style = S("Subtitle",     fontSize=13, spaceAfter=3,
                       alignment=TA_CENTER, textColor=_hex("#555555"))
    meta_style     = S("Meta",         fontSize=9,  spaceAfter=2,
                       alignment=TA_CENTER, textColor=_hex("#888888"))
    h2_style       = S("H2",  parent="Heading1", fontSize=14, spaceBefore=14, spaceAfter=5,
                       textColor=_hex("#1a3a5c"))
    h3_style       = S("H3",  parent="Heading2", fontSize=11.5, spaceBefore=8, spaceAfter=3,
                       textColor=_hex("#2c5f8a"))
    body_style     = S("Body",  fontSize=10.5, leading=17, spaceAfter=3)
    good_style     = S("Good",  fontSize=10.5, leading=17, spaceAfter=3,
                       textColor=_hex("#27ae60"))
    warn_style     = S("Warn",  fontSize=10.5, leading=17, spaceAfter=3,
                       textColor=_hex("#c0392b"))
    footer_style   = S("Footer", fontSize=8, alignment=TA_CENTER,
                       textColor=_hex("#999999"))
    badge_style    = S("Badge",  fontSize=9,  alignment=TA_CENTER, textColor=colors.white)
    summary_style  = S("SummaryText", fontSize=11, leading=18, spaceAfter=4,
                       textColor=_hex("#1a3a5c"))

    def P(text, style=None):
        return Paragraph(text, style or body_style)

    def HR():
        return HRFlowable(width="100%", thickness=1, color=_hex("#dddddd"), spaceAfter=4)

    # ── 2. 评分徽章 ──
    def score_badge(stars, label):
        bg = _hex(STAR_COLORS.get(stars, "#888888"))
        cell = Paragraph(
            f'<b>{_star_str(stars)}</b><br/><font size="8">{label}</font>',
            badge_style
        )
        t = Table([[cell]], colWidths=[2.6 * cm], rowHeights=[1.5 * cm])
        t.setStyle(TableStyle([
            ("BACKGROUND", (0, 0), (-1, -1), bg),
            ("ALIGN",      (0, 0), (-1, -1), "CENTER"),
            ("VALIGN",     (0, 0), (-1, -1), "MIDDLE"),
            ("LEFTPADDING",  (0, 0), (-1, -1), 2),
            ("RIGHTPADDING", (0, 0), (-1, -1), 2),
        ]))
        return t

    # ── 3. 通用表格构建 ──
    def build_table(rows, col_widths, header_color="#2E4057", row_bg_colors=None):
        """rows[0] 为表头（字符串列表），rows[1:] 为数据行。"""
        table_data = []
        for i, row in enumerate(rows):
            table_data.append([P(cell, base_styles["Normal"]) for cell in row])

        t = Table(table_data, colWidths=col_widths)
        row_bgs = row_bg_colors or [_hex("#f9f9f9"), colors.white]
        t.setStyle(TableStyle([
            ("BACKGROUND",   (0, 0), (-1, 0),  _hex(header_color)),
            ("TEXTCOLOR",    (0, 0), (-1, 0),  colors.white),
            ("FONTNAME",     (0, 0), (-1, -1), cn_font),
            ("FONTSIZE",     (0, 0), (-1, -1), 9.5),
            ("GRID",         (0, 0), (-1, -1), 0.5, colors.grey),
            ("ROWBACKGROUNDS", (0, 1), (-1, -1), row_bgs),
            ("ALIGN",        (0, 0), (-1, -1), "LEFT"),
            ("VALIGN",       (0, 0), (-1, -1), "MIDDLE"),
            ("LEFTPADDING",  (0, 0), (-1, -1), 6),
            ("RIGHTPADDING", (0, 0), (-1, -1), 6),
            ("TOPPADDING",   (0, 0), (-1, -1), 5),
            ("BOTTOMPADDING",(0, 0), (-1, -1), 5),
        ]))
        return t

    # ── 4. 开始构建 story ──
    story = []
    url       = data.get("url", "")
    date_str  = data.get("date", "")
    site_type = data.get("site_type", "")

    # ── 封面 ──
    story.append(Spacer(1, 0.4 * cm))
    story.append(P(url or "SEO 分析报告", title_style))
    story.append(P("SEO 诊断报告", subtitle_style))
    story.append(Spacer(1, 0.2 * cm))
    story.append(HRFlowable(width="80%", thickness=2, color=_hex("#1a3a5c"), spaceAfter=4))
    if site_type:
        story.append(P(f"网站类型：{site_type}", meta_style))
    if date_str:
        story.append(P(f"分析时间：{date_str}  |  数据来源：网站首页 HTML 抓取", meta_style))
    story.append(Spacer(1, 0.4 * cm))

    # ── 评分卡片行 ──
    scores = data.get("scores", {})
    if scores:
        badges = [score_badge(v["stars"], v["label"]) for v in scores.values()]
        # 每行最多 6 个
        chunk_size = 6
        for i in range(0, len(badges), chunk_size):
            chunk = badges[i:i + chunk_size]
            row_table = Table([chunk], colWidths=[2.6 * cm] * len(chunk), hAlign="CENTER")
            row_table.setStyle(TableStyle([
                ("ALIGN",  (0, 0), (-1, -1), "CENTER"),
                ("VALIGN", (0, 0), (-1, -1), "MIDDLE"),
                ("LEFTPADDING",  (0, 0), (-1, -1), 2),
                ("RIGHTPADDING", (0, 0), (-1, -1), 2),
            ]))
            story.append(row_table)
        story.append(Spacer(1, 0.4 * cm))

    # ── 严重问题 ──
    issues = data.get("issues", [])
    if issues:
        story.append(HR())
        story.append(P("❌  严重问题（优先修复）", h2_style))
        for idx, issue in enumerate(issues, 1):
            cfg = PRIORITY_CONFIG.get(issue.get("priority", "medium"), PRIORITY_CONFIG["medium"])
            story.append(P(f"{idx}. {issue['title']}", h3_style))
            if issue.get("detail"):
                story.append(P(issue["detail"], body_style))
            # 可选对比表格
            if issue.get("table"):
                tbl = issue["table"]
                headers = list(tbl[0].keys())
                rows = [headers] + [[str(row.get(h, "")) for h in headers] for row in tbl]
                col_w = [A4[0] / len(headers) - 1.5 * cm] * len(headers)
                story.append(build_table(rows, col_w,
                    header_color=cfg["color"],
                    row_bg_colors=[_hex(cfg["row_bg"]), colors.white]))
                story.append(Spacer(1, 0.15 * cm))
            if issue.get("fix"):
                story.append(P(f"<b>建议修复：</b>", body_style))
                story.append(P(issue["fix"], body_style))
            story.append(Spacer(1, 0.2 * cm))

    # ── 做得好的地方 ──
    good_points = data.get("good_points", [])
    if good_points:
        story.append(HR())
        story.append(P("✅  做得好的地方", h2_style))
        for gp in good_points:
            story.append(P(gp["title"], h3_style))
            if gp.get("detail"):
                story.append(P(f"✅ {gp['detail']}", good_style))
        story.append(Spacer(1, 0.2 * cm))

    # ── 优化建议汇总 ──
    recs = data.get("recommendations", [])
    if recs:
        story.append(HR())
        story.append(P("📋  优化建议汇总", h2_style))
        headers = ["优先级", "问题", "解决方案", "预计影响"]
        col_w   = [2 * cm, 4 * cm, 6 * cm, 4 * cm]
        rows = [headers]
        for r in recs:
            cfg = PRIORITY_CONFIG.get(r.get("priority", "medium"), PRIORITY_CONFIG["medium"])
            rows.append([
                f"{cfg['emoji']} {cfg['label']}",
                r.get("issue", ""),
                r.get("solution", ""),
                r.get("impact", ""),
            ])
        story.append(build_table(rows, col_w, header_color="#2980b9",
            row_bg_colors=[_hex("#f0f8ff"), colors.white]))
        story.append(Spacer(1, 0.2 * cm))

    # ── 总结 ──
    summary_scores = data.get("scores", {})
    if summary_scores or data.get("summary"):
        story.append(HR())
        story.append(P("📝  总结", h2_style))
        if summary_scores:
            headers = ["维度", "评分", "状态"]
            col_w   = [6 * cm, 3.5 * cm, 6.5 * cm]
            rows = [headers]
            for v in summary_scores.values():
                stars = v["stars"]
                status = "✅ 良好" if stars >= 4 else ("⚠️ 需改善" if stars == 3 else "❌ 问题较多")
                rows.append([v["label"], _star_str(stars), status])
            story.append(build_table(rows, col_w, header_color="#1a3a5c",
                row_bg_colors=[_hex("#f4f6f9"), colors.white]))
            story.append(Spacer(1, 0.3 * cm))
        if data.get("summary"):
            story.append(P(f"<b>{data['summary']}</b>", summary_style))
        story.append(Spacer(1, 0.4 * cm))

    # ── 页脚 ──
    story.append(HRFlowable(width="100%", thickness=0.5, color=_hex("#cccccc"), spaceAfter=3))
    footer_parts = ["Generated by QClaw SEO Skill"]
    if date_str:
        footer_parts.append(f"Date: {date_str}")
    if url:
        footer_parts.append(f"Source: {url}")
    story.append(P("  |  ".join(footer_parts), footer_style))

    # ── 5. 构建 PDF ──
    doc = SimpleDocTemplate(
        output_path,
        pagesize=A4,
        leftMargin=2 * cm,
        rightMargin=2 * cm,
        topMargin=2 * cm,
        bottomMargin=2 * cm,
    )
    doc.build(story)
    print(f"✅ PDF 已生成: {output_path}")
    return output_path


def generate_seo_pdf(data: dict, output_path: str = None) -> str:
    """
    对外接口。
    data: SEO 诊断数据 dict（见模块文档）
    output_path: 输出路径，默认 ~/Downloads/seo-report.pdf
    返回实际输出路径。
    """
    if output_path is None:
        output_path = os.path.expanduser("~/Downloads/seo-report.pdf")
    output_path = os.path.expanduser(output_path)
    os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(output_path), exist_ok=True)
    build_pdf(data, output_path)
    return output_path


# ── CLI 入口 ──
if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="SEO 诊断报告 PDF 生成器")
    parser.add_argument("--data",   required=True, help="JSON 数据文件路径")
    parser.add_argument("--output", default="~/Downloads/seo-report.pdf", help="输出 PDF 路径")
    args = parser.parse_args()

    with open(args.data, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
        report_data = json.load(f)

    generate_seo_pdf(report_data, args.output)


path: scripts/setup_chinese_pdf.py
content: """
setup_chinese_pdf  –  CJK font bootstrap for reportlab
=======================================================

Import this module in **every** reportlab script that generates PDFs,
regardless of whether the content is Chinese or English:

    import sys, os
    sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "scripts"))
    from setup_chinese_pdf import setup_chinese_pdf

    cn_font, styles = setup_chinese_pdf()

`cn_font`  – registered font name; pass to canvas.setFont() and ParagraphStyle.
`styles`   – a pre-patched StyleSheet1 where every ParagraphStyle already uses
             the CJK font. Use styles['Title'], styles['Normal'], etc. directly.

Run standalone to verify font availability:

    python scripts/setup_chinese_pdf.py
"""

import os
import platform
import sys

from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet, ParagraphStyle


def setup_chinese_pdf():
    """
    Register a system CJK font and return (cn_font, styles).

    cn_font: the registered font name — pass to canvas.setFont() and any
             ParagraphStyle you create manually via fontName=cn_font.

    styles:  a StyleSheet1 where ALL default ParagraphStyles already use
             the CJK font. Use styles['Title'], styles['Normal'], etc.
             directly — Chinese will render correctly without extra args.

    Also works for child styles: ParagraphStyle('X', parent=styles['Title'])
    will inherit the CJK fontName because the parent was patched BEFORE the
    child was constructed (ParagraphStyle copies parent attrs at init time).
    """
    system = platform.system()

    if system == 'Darwin':  # macOS
        # PingFang.ttc does NOT exist on disk — it is a virtual system font.
        # STHeiti / Songti are real files present on all macOS versions.
        candidates = [
            ('/System/Library/Fonts/STHeiti Light.ttc',       'STHeiti',       0),
            ('/System/Library/Fonts/STHeiti Medium.ttc',      'STHeitiMedium', 0),
            ('/System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental/Songti.ttc', 'Songti',        0),
            ('/Library/Fonts/Arial Unicode MS.ttf',           'ArialUnicode',  0),
        ]
    elif system == 'Windows':
        candidates = []
        dirs = []
        windir = os.environ.get('WINDIR', 'C:\\Windows')
        dirs.append(os.path.join(windir, 'Fonts'))
        local = os.environ.get('LOCALAPPDATA', '')
        if local:
            dirs.append(os.path.join(local, 'Microsoft', 'Windows', 'Fonts'))
        for d in dirs:
            for fname, name, idx in [
                ('msyh.ttc',   'MicrosoftYaHei', 0),   # 微软雅黑 — Win10/11
                ('msyhbd.ttc', 'MicrosoftYaHeiBold', 0),
                ('simhei.ttf', 'SimHei',          0),   # 黑体
                ('simsun.ttc', 'SimSun',          0),   # 宋体
                ('mingliu.ttc','MingLiU',         0),   # 細明體
            ]:
                candidates.append((os.path.join(d, fname), name, idx))
    else:  # Linux
        candidates = [
            ('/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc', 'NotoSansCJK', 0),
            ('/usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc', 'NotoSansCJK', 0),
            ('/usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/wqy-zenhei.ttc',           'WQYZenHei',   0),
            ('/usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid/DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf','DroidSans',  0),
        ]

    cn_font = None
    for font_path, font_name, idx in candidates:
        if os.path.exists(font_path):
            try:
                pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont(font_name, font_path, subfontIndex=idx))
                cn_font = font_name
                break
            except Exception:
                continue
    if cn_font is None:
        raise RuntimeError(
            f"No CJK font found on {system}.\n"
            "  macOS:   check /System/Library/Fonts/\n"
            "  Windows: ensure msyh.ttc or simhei.ttf in %WINDIR%\\Fonts\n"
            "  Linux:   sudo apt install fonts-noto-cjk"
        )

    # Build a stylesheet with ALL styles pre-patched to use the CJK font.
    # This eliminates garbling even if fontName= is accidentally omitted.
    styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
    for style in styles.byName.values():
        if isinstance(style, ParagraphStyle):
            style.fontName = cn_font

    return cn_font, styles


# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Self-test: run  `python setup_chinese_pdf.py`  to verify font availability.
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
if __name__ == "__main__":
    try:
        font, _ = setup_chinese_pdf()
        print(f"OK — CJK font registered: {font}")
    except RuntimeError as exc:
        print(f"FAIL — {exc}", file=sys.stderr)
        sys.exit(1)


path: references-moz/growing-popularity-and-links.txt
content: #### Table of Contents:

[1\. Introduction](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo) [2\. Quick Start Guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide) [3\. SEO 101](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary) [4\. How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate) [5\. Keyword Research](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research) [6\. On-Page SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo) [7\. Technical SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo)

[8\. Link Building & Establishing Authority](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links)

[9\. Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO Success](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success) [10\. SEO Glossary of Terms](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

##### Share

  *   *   *   * Copied!

## Link Building & Establishing Authority

### Turn up the volume

You've created content that people are searching for, that answers their questions, and that search engines can understand, but those qualities alone don't mean it'll rank. To outrank the rest of the sites with those qualities, you have to establish authority. That can be accomplished by earning links from authoritative websites, building your brand, and nurturing an audience who will help amplify your content.

Google has [confirmed](https://searchengineland.com/now-know-googles-top-three-search-ranking-factors-245882) that links and quality content (which we covered back in [Chapter 4](/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo)) are two of the three most important ranking factors for SEO. Trustworthy sites tend to link to other trustworthy sites, and spammy sites tend to link to other spammy sites.

But what is a link, exactly? How do you go about earning them from other websites? Let's start with the basics.

### What's that word mean?

There's a lot to remember when it comes to the wide world of link building. Check out more definitions for this section in the SEO glossary.

[ See Chapter 6 definitions  ](/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary#chapter6)

## What are links?

**Inbound links** , also known as [backlinks](/learn/seo/backlinks) or [external links](/learn/seo/external-link), are HTML hyperlinks that point from one website to another. They're the currency of the Internet, as they act a lot like real-life reputation. If you went on vacation and asked three people (all completely unrelated to one another) what the best coffee shop in town was, and they all said, "Cuppa Joe on Main Street," you would feel confident that Cuppa Joe is indeed the best coffee place in town. Links do that for search engines.

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-01-v3.svg?dm=1553886588)

Since the late 1990s, search engines have treated links as votes for popularity and importance on the web.

[**Internal links**](/learn/seo/internal-link), or links that connect internal pages of the same domain, work very similarly for your website. A high amount of internal links pointing to a particular page on your site [will provide a signal to Google](/blog/should-seos-care-about-internal-links-whiteboard-friday) that the page is important, so long as it's done naturally and not in a spammy way.

The engines themselves have refined the way they view links, now using algorithms to evaluate sites and pages based on the links they find. But what's in those algorithms? How do the engines evaluate all those links? It all starts with the concept of E-E-A-T.

### Build better links

Want a deep-dive on link building for beginners? We have just the thing: the [Beginner's Guide to Link Building](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building). Check it out and build some great links!

[ Read the guide  ](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building)

## You are what you E-E-A-T

Google's [Search Quality Rater Guidelines](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf) put a great deal of importance on the [concept of E-E-A-T](/learn/seo/google-eat) — an acronym for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Sites that don't display these characteristics tend to be seen as lower-quality in the eyes of the engines, while those that do are subsequently rewarded. E-E-A-T is becoming more and more important as search evolves and increases the importance of solving for [user intent](/learn/seo/search-intent).

Creating a site that's considered expert, authoritative, and trustworthy should be your guiding light as you practice SEO. Not only will it simply result in a better site, but it's future-proof. After all, providing great value to searchers is what Google itself is trying to do.

### What is user intent?

"User intent" refers to the driving reason behind a searcher's query. A search for "puppy" doesn't have a strong intent — are they looking for pictures? Facts about breeds? Care information? On the other hand, a search for "puppy training in Seattle, WA" has a very strong intent: this user wants to train their puppy, they're probably looking for help in Seattle, and they may wish to sign up for a class. Try to craft content that satisfies your searchers' intent.

[ Learn more about user intent  ](/learn/seo/search-intent)

### E-E-A-T and links to your site

The more popular and important a site is, the more weight the links from that site carry. A site like Wikipedia, for example, has thousands of diverse sites linking to it. This indicates it provides lots of expertise, has cultivated authority, and is trusted among those other sites.

To earn trust and authority with search engines, you'll need links from websites that display the qualities of E-E-A-T. These don't have to be Wikipedia-level sites, but they should provide searchers with credible, trustworthy content.

Moz has proprietary metrics to help you determine how authoritative a site is: [Domain Authority](/learn/seo/domain-authority), [Page Authority](/learn/seo/page-authority), and [Spam Score](/help/link-explorer/link-building/spam-score). In general, you'll want links from sites with a higher Domain Authority than your sites.

## Followed vs. nofollowed links

Remember how links act as votes? The rel=nofollow attribute (pronounced as two words, "no follow") allows you to link to a resource while removing your "vote" for search engine purposes.

Just like it sounds, "nofollow" tells search engines not to follow the link. Some engines still follow them simply to discover new pages, but these links don't pass link equity (the "votes of popularity" we talked about above), so they can be useful in situations where a page is either linking to an untrustworthy source or was paid for or created by the owner of the destination page (making it an unnatural link).

Say, for example, you write a post about link building practices, and want to call out an example of poor, spammy link building. You could link to the offending site without signaling to Google that you trust it.

Standard links (ones that haven't had nofollow added) look like this:

    <a href="">I love Moz</a>

Nofollow link markup looks like this:

    <a href="" rel="nofollow">I love Moz</a>

### If follow links pass all the link equity, shouldn't that mean you want _only_ follow links?

Not necessarily. Think about all the legitimate places you can create links to your own website: a Facebook profile, a Yelp page, a Twitter account, etc. These are all natural places to add links to your website, but they shouldn't count as votes for your website. (Setting up a Twitter profile with a link to your site isn't a vote from Twitter that they like your site.)

It's natural for your site to have a balance between nofollowed and followed backlinks in its link profile (more on link profiles below). A nofollow link might not pass authority, but it could send valuable traffic to your site and even lead to future followed links.

Use the MozBar extension for Google Chrome to highlight links on any page to find out whether they're nofollow or follow without ever having to view the source code!

[ Download the MozBar  ](/products/pro/seo-toolbar)

## Your link profile

Your link profile is an overall assessment of all the inbound links your site has earned: the total number of links, their quality (or spamminess), their diversity (is one site linking to you hundreds of times, or are hundreds of sites linking to you once?), and more. The state of your link profile helps search engines understand how your site relates to other sites on the Internet. There are various SEO tools that allow you to analyze your link profile and begin to understand its overall makeup.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/John-Varghese-Try-Link-Explorer.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760467213&s=bc104910782552b0f70dca8cd9fe0cf7)](/link-explorer)

### What are the qualities of a healthy link profile?

When people began to learn about the power of links, they began manipulating them for their benefit. They'd find ways to gain artificial links just to increase their search engine rankings. While these dangerous tactics can sometimes work, they are against Google's terms of service and can get a website deindexed (removal of web pages or entire domains from search results). **You should always try to maintain a healthy link profile.**

A healthy link profile is one that indicates to search engines that you're earning your links and authority fairly. Just like you shouldn't lie, cheat, or steal, you should strive to ensure your link profile is honest and earned via good, old-fashioned hard work.

#### Links are earned or editorially placed

Editorial links are links added naturally by sites and pages that want to link to your website.

The foundation of acquiring earned links is almost always through creating high-quality content that people genuinely wish to reference. This is where creating [10X content](/blog/why-good-unique-content-needs-to-die-whiteboard-friday) (a way of describing extremely high-quality content) is essential! If you can provide the best and most interesting resource on the web, people will naturally link to it.

Naturally earned links require no specific action from you, other than the creation of worthy content and the ability to create awareness about it.

### Earned mentions are often unlinked!

When websites are referring to your brand or a specific piece of content you've published, they will often mention it without linking to it. To find these earned mentions, head to Google and do a site: search for your brand, product, name, etc. within quotes and analyze the first few pages of results for opportunities. You can then reach out to those publishers to see if they'll update those mentions with links.

[ Learn more ways to earn backlinks  ](https://moz.com/blog/how-to-get-backlinks)

#### Links are relevant and from topically similar websites

Links from websites within a topic-specific community are generally better than links from websites that aren't relevant to your site. If your website sells dog houses, a link from the Society of Dog Breeders matters much more than one from the Roller Skating Association. Additionally, links from topically irrelevant sources can send confusing signals to search engines regarding what your page is about.

Linking domains don't have to match the topic of your page exactly, but they should be related. Avoid pursuing backlinks from sources that are completely off-topic; there are far better uses of your time.

#### Anchor text is descriptive and relevant, without being spammy

[Anchor text](/learn/seo/anchor-text) helps tell Google what the topic of your page is about. If dozens of links point to a page with a variation of a word or phrase, the page has a higher likelihood of ranking well for those types of phrases. However, proceed with caution! Too many backlinks with the same anchor text could indicate to the search engines that you're trying to manipulate your site's ranking in search results.

Consider this. You ask ten separate friends at separate times how their day was going, and they each responded with the same phrase:

> "Great! I started my day by walking my dog, Peanut, and then had a picante beef Top Ramen for lunch."

That's _strange_ , and you'd be quite suspicious of your friends. The same goes for Google. Describing the content of the target page with the anchor text helps them understand what the page is about, but the same description over and over from multiple sources starts to look suspicious. Aim for relevance; avoid spam.

Use the "Anchor Text" report in [Moz's Link Explorer](/link-explorer) to see what anchor text other websites are using to link to your content.

#### Links send qualified traffic to your site

Link building should never be solely about search engine rankings. Esteemed SEO and link building thought leader [Eric Ward](https://www.ericward.com/) used to say that you should build your links as though Google might disappear tomorrow. In essence, you should focus on acquiring links that will bring qualified traffic to your website — another reason why it's important to acquire links from relevant websites whose audience would find value in your site, as well.

Use the "Referral Traffic" report in Google Analytics to evaluate websites that are currently sending you traffic. How can you continue to build relationships with similar types of websites?

### Link building don'ts & things to avoid

Spammy link profiles are just that: full of links built in unnatural, sneaky, or otherwise low-quality ways. Practices like buying links or engaging in a link exchange might seem like the easy way out, but doing so is dangerous and could put all of your hard work at risk. [Google penalizes sites with spammy link profiles](/blog/rules-of-link-building), so don't give in to temptation.

A guiding principle for your link building efforts is to never try to manipulate a site's ranking in search results.

_But isn't that the entire goal of SEO? To increase a site's ranking in search results?_ And herein lies the confusion. Google wants you to earn links, not build them, but the line between the two is often blurry. To avoid penalties for unnatural links (known as "link spam"), Google has made clear what should be avoided.

#### 🚫 Purchased links

Google and Bing both seek to discount the influence of paid links in their organic search results. While a search engine can't know which links were earned vs. paid for from viewing the link itself, there are clues it uses to detect patterns that indicate foul play. Websites caught buying or selling followed links risk severe penalties that will severely drop their rankings. (By the way, exchanging goods or services for a link is also a form of payment and qualifies as buying links.)

#### 🚫 Link exchanges / reciprocal linking

If you've ever received a "you link to me and I'll link to you" email from someone you have no affiliation with, you've been targeted for a link exchange. Google's quality guidelines caution against "excessive" link exchange and similar partner programs conducted exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, so there is some indication that this type of exchange on a smaller scale might not trigger any link spam alarms.

It is acceptable, and even valuable, to link to people you work with, partner with, or have some other affiliation with and have them link back to you.

It's the exchange of links at mass scale with unaffiliated sites that can warrant penalties.

#### 🚫 Low-quality directory links

These used to be a popular source of manipulation. A large number of pay-for-placement web directories exist to serve this market and pass themselves off as legitimate, with varying degrees of success. These types of sites tend to look very similar, with large lists of websites and their descriptions (typically, the site's critical keyword is used as the anchor text to link back to the submittor's site).

There are [many more manipulative link building tactics](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) that search engines have identified. In most cases, they have found algorithmic methods for reducing their impact. As new spam systems emerge, engineers will continue to fight them with targeted algorithms, human reviews, and the collection of spam reports from webmasters and SEOs. By and large, it isn't worth finding ways around them.

If your site does get a manual penalty, there are [steps you can take to get it lifted](/blog/ultimate-guide-to-google-penalty-removal).

## Links should always:

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-02-earned-editorial.svg?dm=1553128561)

#####

Be earned/editorial

####

##### Be earned/editorial

It's called "earning" links for a reason: they should never be bought, traded, or otherwise self-created.

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-03-authoritative-pages.svg?dm=1553201218)

#####

Come from authoritative pages

####

##### Come from authoritative pages

Try to ensure you earn links from authoritative sources, rather than low-quality ones.

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-04-increase-with-time.svg?dm=1553201366)

#####

Increase with time

####

##### Increase with time

The amount of earned links should increase over time, rather than be created in bulk once and never grown again.

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-05-topically-relevant-sources.svg?dm=1553128893)

#####

Come from topically relevant sources

####

##### Come from topically relevant sources

Try not to earn links from sources that don’t match your page’s topic.

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-06-relevant-anchor-text.svg?dm=1553129055)

#####

Use relevant, natural anchor text

####

##### Use relevant, natural anchor text

It's the rule of law in modern SEO: don't keyword-stuff!

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-07-bring-qualified-traffic.svg?dm=1553129138)

#####

Bring qualified traffic to your site

####

##### Bring qualified traffic to your site

Links exist for people to use, not just search engines. Earn links that will send high-quality visitors to your page, not ones that will sit there and never be clicked.

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-08-mix-of-follow-nofollow.svg?dm=1553201619)

#####

Be a healthy mix of follow and nofollow

####

##### Be a healthy mix of follow and nofollow

Healthy link profiles include both follow links and legitimate nofollow links.

![](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch6-09-strategically-targeted.svg?dm=1553201655)

#####

Be strategically targeted or naturally earned

####

##### Be strategically targeted or naturally earned

Links should be thoughtfully given, not automatically generated.

## Find link building opportunities at scale

**with Moz Link Explorer**

[ Build backlinks with ease ](/link-explorer)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Link-Building.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855256&s=a826947148cebce23a61b6b6f0fee078)

## How to build high-quality backlinks

Link building comes in many shapes and sizes, but one thing is always true: link campaigns should always match your unique goals. With that said, there are some popular methods that tend to work well for most campaigns. This is not an exhaustive list, so visit [Moz's blog posts on link building](/blog/category/link-building) for more detail on this topic.

### Find customer and partner links

If you have partners you work with regularly, or loyal customers that love your brand, there are ways to earn links from them with relative ease. You might send out partnership badges (graphic icons that signify mutual respect), or offer to write up testimonials of their products. Both of those offer things they can display on their website along with links back to you.

### Publish a blog

This content and link building strategy is so popular and valuable that it's one of the few recommended personally by the engineers at Google. Blogs have the unique ability to contribute fresh material on a consistent basis, generate conversations across the web, and earn listings and links from other blogs.

Careful, though — you should avoid low-quality guest posting just for the sake of link building. Google has advised against this and your energy is better spent elsewhere.

### Create unique resources

Creating unique, high-quality resources is no easy task, but it's well worth the effort. High quality content that is promoted in the right ways can be widely shared. It can help to create pieces that have the following traits:

  * Elicits strong emotions (joy, sadness, etc.)
  * Something new, or at least communicated in a new way
  * Visually appealing
  * Addresses a timely need or interest
  * Location-specific (example: [the most searched-for halloween costumes by state](https://frightgeist.withgoogle.com/)).

Creating a resource like this is a great way to attract a lot of links with one page. You could also create a highly-specific resource — without as broad of an appeal — that targeted a handful of websites. You might see a higher rate of success, but that approach isn't as scalable.

Users who see this kind of unique content often want to share it with friends, and bloggers/tech-savvy webmasters who see it will often do so through links. These high-quality, editorially earned votes are invaluable to building trust, authority, and rankings potential.

### Build resource pages

Resource pages are a great way to build links. However, to find them you'll want to know some [advanced Google operators](/learn/seo/search-operators) to make discovering them a bit easier.

For example, if you were doing link building for a company that made pots and pans, you could search for:

    cooking intitle:"resources"

...and see which pages might be good link targets.

This can also give you great ideas for content creation — just think about which types of resources you could create that these pages would all like to reference and link to.

### Use advanced search operators in Google

From content research to plagiarism checks to technical audits and beyond, using advanced Google search operators can power up your SEO research.

[ Learn more  ](/learn/seo/search-operators)

### Get involved in your local community

For a local business (one that meets its customers in person), community outreach can result in some of the most valuable and influential links.

  * Engage in sponsorships and scholarships
  * Host or participate in community events, seminars, workshops, and organizations
  * Donate to worthy local causes and join local business associations
  * Post jobs and offer internships
  * Promote loyalty programs
  * Run a local competition
  * Develop real-world relationships with related local businesses to discover how you can team up to improve the health of your local economy

All of these smart and authentic strategies provide good local link opportunities.

### Link building for local SEO

Building linked unstructured citations — references to a business' contact information on a non-directory platform, like a blog or a news site — is important for moving the ranking needle for local SEO. It's also a great way to earn valuable links when you're marketing a local business. Learn more in our guide:

[ Follow the tutorial  ](/blog/linked-unstructured-citations)

### Refurbish top content

You likely already know which of your site's content earns the most traffic, converts the most customers, or retains visitors for the longest amount of time.

Take that content and [refurbish it for other platforms](/blog/refurbishing-top-content-whiteboard-friday) (Slideshare, YouTube, Instagram, Quora, etc.) to expand your acquisition funnel beyond Google.

You can also dust off, update, and simply republish older content on the same platform. If you discover that a few trusted industry websites all linked to a popular resource that's gone stale, update it and let those industry websites know — you may just earn a good link.

You can also [do this with images](/blog/image-link-building). Reach out to websites that are using your images and not citing you or linking back to you and ask if they'd mind including a link.

### Be newsworthy

Earning the attention of the press, bloggers, and news media is an effective, time-honored way to earn links. Sometimes this is as simple as giving something away for free, releasing a great new product, or stating something controversial. Since so much of SEO is about creating a digital representation of your brand in the real world, to succeed in SEO, you have to be a great brand.

### Be personal and genuine

The most common mistake new SEOs make when trying to build links is not taking the time to craft a custom, personal, and valuable initial outreach email. You know as well as anyone how annoying spammy emails can be, so make sure yours doesn't make people roll their eyes.

Your goal for an initial outreach email is simply to get a response. These tips can help:

  * Make it personal by mentioning something the person is working on, where they went to school, their dog, etc.
  * Provide value. Let them know about a broken link on their website or a page that isn't working on mobile.
  * Keep it short.
  * Ask one simple question (typically not for a link; you'll likely want to build a rapport first).

### Earning links is resource-intensive, so measure your success to prove value

Metrics for link building should match up with the site's overall KPIs. These might be sales, email subscriptions, page views, etc. You should also evaluate Domain Authority and/or Page Authority scores, the ranking of desired keywords, and the amount of traffic to your content. We'll talk more about measuring the success of your SEO campaigns [in Chapter 7](/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success).

## Measuring and improving your link efforts

So far, we've gone over the importance of earning quality links to your site over time, as well as some common tactics for doing so. Now, we’ll cover ways to measure the returns on your link building investment and strategies for sustaining quality backlink growth over time.

### Total number of links

The most direct way to measure your link building efforts is by tracking the growth of total links to your site or page. Moz’s [Link Explorer](/link-explorer) is a great tool for doing that. For example, say you recently published a blog post that received a lot of attention and you want to track total links that resource earned.

Pop the URL into Link Explorer…

![A screenshot of the Link Explorer main page.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-42.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554097927&s=d713a52a5b2354e4a7b604f3b2e93926)

And then select "linking domains" from the "metrics over time" section to see month-over-month link growth.

![A screenshot of the Metrics Over Time graph in Link Explorer.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-43.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554097963&s=4b09d939a06ae7d55ef6dbb4f6457edd)

You could also do this with a root domain, subdomain, or a specific page.

### A note on link cleanup

Some SEOs not only need to build good links, but need to get rid of bad ones as well. If you’re performing link cleanup while simultaneously building good links, just keep in mind that a stagnating or declining "linking domains over time" graph is completely normal. You might also want to check out Link Explorer’s "Discovered and Lost" tool to keep track of exactly which links you’ve gained and lost.

[ See your discovered and lost links  ](/link-explorer)

If you didn’t see the number of backlinks come in that you were aiming for, all hope is not lost! Each link building campaign is something you can learn from. If you want to improve the total links you earn for your next campaign, consider these questions:

#### Did you create content that was 10x better than anything else out there?

It’s possible that the reason your link building efforts fell flat is that your content wasn’t substantially more valuable than anything else like it. Take a look back at the pages ranking for that term you’re targeting and see if there’s anything else you could do to improve.

#### Did you promote your content? How?

Promotion is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of link building, but letting people know about your content and convincing them to link to you is what’s really going to move the needle. For great tips on content promotion, visit [Chapter 7 of our Beginner's Guide to Content Marketing](/beginners-guide-to-content-marketing/content-promotion).

#### How many links do you actually need?

Consider how many backlinks you might actually need to rank for the keyword you were targeting. In Keyword Explorer’s "SERP Analysis" report, you can view the pages that are ranking for the term you're targeting, as well as how many backlinks those URLs have. This will give you a good benchmark for determining how many links you actually need in order to compete and which websites might be a good link target.

#### What was the quality of the links you received?

One link from a very authoritative source is more valuable than ten from low-quality sites, so keep in mind that quantity isn’t everything. When targeting sites for backlinks, you can prioritize by how authoritative they are using Domain Authority and Page Authority metrics.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Will-Critchlow-Try-Link-Explorer.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760466404&s=323838f945b2817cd403c9615a32073a)](/link-explorer)

## Beyond links: How awareness, amplification, and sentiment impact authority

A lot of the methods you'd use to build links will also indirectly build your brand. In fact, you can view link building as a great way to increase awareness of your brand, the topics on which you're an authority, and the products or services you offer. We know that brands matter online _and_ in the real world, but it can be a challenge to untangle the relationship between the value of a brand and search engine results. Google defines “quality backlink” based on a site’s content, the content creator’s expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness, and the company or people behind it. Fortunately, you can measure the strength of your brand with the Moz metric [Brand Authority](https://moz.com/learn/seo/brand-authority)™. This metric will provide you with insight into the authority of your brand, your competitive landscape, and potential growth opportunities.

## How strong is your brand?

**Calculate your Brand Authority with precision in Moz Pro**

[ Show my Brand Authority ](/checkout/freetrial/signup/pro_medium/monthly)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Brand-Authority.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855247&s=2c27f56ed1dc6bff92f3e0d86467f8d7)

## Why Should SEOs Measure Brand? - Whiteboard Friday

![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/04xba5hb0g/swatch)

Learn about why SEOs should measure brand in Tom Capper's Whiteboard Friday.

Once your target audience is familiar with you and you have valuable content to share, let your audience know about it! Sharing your content on social platforms will not only make your audience aware of your content, but it can also encourage them to amplify that awareness to their own networks, thereby extending your own reach.

Are social shares the same as links? No. But shares to the right people can result in links. Social shares can also promote an increase in traffic and new visitors to your website, which can grow brand awareness, and with a growth in brand awareness can come a growth in trust and links. The connection between social signals and rankings seems indirect, but even indirect correlations can be helpful for informing strategy.

### Trustworthiness goes a long way

For search engines, trust is largely determined by the quality and quantity of the links your domain has earned, but that's not to say that there aren't other factors at play that can influence your site's authority. Think about all the different ways you come to trust a brand:

  * Awareness (you know they exist)
  * Helpfulness (they provide answers to your questions)
  * Integrity (they do what they say they will)
  * Quality (their product or service provides value, possibly more than others you've tried)
  * Continued value (they continue to provide value even after you've gotten what you needed)
  * Voice (they communicate in unique, memorable ways)
  * Sentiment (others have good things to say about their experience with the brand)

That last point is what we're going to focus on here. Reviews of your brand, its products, or its services can make or break a business.

In your effort to establish authority from reviews, follow these review rules of thumb:

  * Never pay any individual or agency to create a fake positive review for your business or a fake negative review of a competitor.
  * Don't review your own business or the businesses of your competitors. Don't have your staff do so, either.
  * Never offer incentives of any kind in exchange for reviews.
  * All reviews must be left directly by customers in their own accounts; never post reviews on behalf of a customer or employ an agency to do so.
  * Don't set up a review station/kiosk in your place of business; many reviews stemming from the same IP can be viewed as spam.
  * Read the guidelines of each review platform where you're hoping to earn reviews.

Be aware that review spam is a problem that's taken on global proportions, and that violation of governmental truth-in-advertising guidelines has led to legal prosecution and heavy fines. It's just too dangerous to be worth it. Playing by the rules and offering exceptional customer experiences is the winning combination for building both trust and authority over time.

Authority is built when brands are doing great things in the real-world, making customers happy, creating and sharing great content, and earning links from reputable sources.

## Try Link Explorer free

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Lily-Ray-Try-Link-Explorer-1.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760466668&s=7403b3485dd1e79742d4f456dfb0c81c)](/link-explorer)

#####

In the next and final section, you'll learn how to measure the success of all your efforts, as well as tactics for iterating and improving upon them. To [Chapter 7 (Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO)](/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success)!

* * *

Written by [Britney Muller](/community/users/514135) and the Moz Staff.

* * *

#### Scale revenue from SEO with Moz Pro

Get started with the all-in-one SEO tool marketers trust

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path: references-moz/on-page-seo.txt
content: #### Table of Contents:

[1\. Introduction](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo) [2\. Quick Start Guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide) [3\. SEO 101](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary) [4\. How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate) [5\. Keyword Research](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research)

[6\. On-Page SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo)

[7\. Technical SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo) [8\. Link Building & Establishing Authority](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links) [9\. Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO Success](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success) [10\. SEO Glossary of Terms](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

##### Share

  *   *   *   * Copied!

## On-Page SEO

### Use your research to craft your message

Now that you know how your target market is searching, it’s time to dive into on-page SEO, the practice of crafting web pages that answer searcher’s questions. On-page SEO is multifaceted, and extends beyond content into other things like [schema](/learn/seo/schema-structured-data) and [meta tags](/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-meta-tags), which we’ll discuss more at length in the next chapter on [technical optimization](/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo#index). For now, put on your wordsmithing hats — it’s time to create your content!

### What's that word mean?

There are bound to be a few stumpers in this hefty chapter on on-page optimization — be prepared for unknown terms with our SEO glossary!

[ See Chapter 4 definitions  ](/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary#chapter4)

## Creating your content

### Applying your keyword research

In the [last chapter](/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research#index), we learned methods for discovering how your target audience is searching for your content. Now, it’s time to put that research into practice. Here is a simple outline to follow for applying your keyword research:

  1. Survey your keywords and group those with similar topics and intent. Those groups will be your pages, rather than creating individual pages for every keyword variation.
  2. If you haven’t done so already, evaluate the SERP for each keyword or group of keywords to determine what type and format your content should be. Some characteristics of ranking pages to take note of:
    1. Are they image- or video-heavy?
    2. Is the content long-form or short and concise?
    3. Is the content formatted in lists, bullets, or paragraphs?
  3. Ask yourself, “What unique value could I offer to make my page better than the pages that are currently ranking for my keyword?”

On-page SEO allows you to turn your research into content your audience will love. Just make sure to avoid falling into the trap of low-value tactics that could hurt more than help!

## Try Moz Pro, Free!

Moz Pro offers robust page optimization tools to help you improve both user experience and rankings. Try it free for and see why so many marketers trust our SEO tools!

[ Start my free trial ](/checkout/freetrial)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Competitive-Research.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855249&s=0d98edb7c84b3459b7e8461c51ef4201)

### Low-value tactics to avoid

Your web content should exist to answer searchers’ questions, to guide them through your site, and to help them understand your site’s purpose. Content should not be created for the purpose of ranking highly in search alone. Ranking is a means to an end, the end being to help searchers. If we put the cart before the horse, we risk falling into the trap of low-value content tactics.

Some of these tactics were introduced in [Chapter 2](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate), but by way of review, let’s take a deeper dive into some low-value tactics you should avoid when crafting search engine optimized content.

#### Thin content

While it’s common for a website to have unique pages on different topics, an older content strategy was to create a page for every single iteration of your keywords in order to rank on page 1 for those highly specific queries.

For example, if you were selling bridal dresses, you might have created individual pages for bridal gowns, bridal dresses, wedding gowns, and wedding dresses, even if each page was essentially saying the same thing. A similar tactic for local businesses was to create multiple pages of content for each city or region from which they wanted clients. These “geo pages” often had the same or very similar content, with the location name being the only unique factor.

Tactics like these clearly weren’t helpful for users, so why did publishers do it? Google wasn’t always as good as it is today at understanding the relationships between words and phrases (or semantics). So, if you wanted to rank on page 1 for “bridal gowns” but you only had a page on “wedding dresses,” that may not have cut it.

This practice created tons of thin, low-quality content across the web, which Google addressed specifically with its 2011 update known as [Panda](/learn/seo/google-panda). This algorithm update penalized low-quality pages, which resulted in more quality pages taking the top spots of the SERPs. Google continues to iterate on this process of demoting low-quality content and promoting high-quality content today.

Google is clear that you should have a comprehensive page on a topic instead of multiple, weaker pages for each variation of a keyword.

![A depiction of four pages targeting similar keywords with a red X over them, and one page targeting multiple keyword variants with a green checkmark.](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch4-01-outlines-01.svg?dm=1554155331)

#### Duplicate content

Like it sounds, “[duplicate content](https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content)” refers to content that is shared between domains or between multiple pages of a single domain. “Scraped” content goes a step further, and entails the blatant and unauthorized use of content from other sites. This can include taking content and republishing as-is, or modifying it slightly before republishing, without adding any original content or value.

![A depiction of two pages with the exact same content, barring specific location information.](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch4-02-2-outlines-01.svg?dm=1554155395)

There are plenty of legitimate reasons for internal or cross-domain duplicate content, so Google encourages the use of a [rel=canonical tag](/learn/seo/canonicalization) to point to the original version of the web content. While you don’t need to know about this tag just yet, the main thing to note for now is that your content should be unique in word and in value.

### Debunking the "duplicate content penalty" myth

There is no Google penalty for duplicate content. That is to say, for example, if you take an article from the Associated Press and post it on your blog, you won’t get penalized with something like a Manual Action from Google. Google does, however, filter duplicate versions of content from their search results. If two or more pieces of content are substantially similar, Google will choose a canonical (source) URL to display in its search results and hide the duplicate versions. That’s not a penalty. That’s Google filtering to show only one version of a piece of content to improve the searcher’s experience.

[ Learn more about canonicalization  ](/learn/seo/canonicalization)

#### Cloaking

A basic tenet of search engine guidelines is to show the same content to the engine's crawlers that you'd show to a human visitor. This means that you should never hide text in the HTML code of your website that a normal visitor can't see.

When this guideline is broken, search engines call it "cloaking" and take action to prevent these pages from ranking in search results. Cloaking can be accomplished in any number of ways and for a variety of reasons, both positive and negative. Below is an example of an instance where [Spotify](https://www.sistrix.com/blog/case-study-spotify-com-violates-google-webmaster-guidelines%E2%80%A8/) showed different content to users than to Google.

![](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-33.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096589&s=64a4bddaa3f1bc34512e3668a4affc1a)

Users were presented with a login screen in Spotify when searching for the National Philharmonic orchestra.

![](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-34.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096609&s=5a8f6df6074a3be9968c54c6d416f347)

Viewing Google's cached version of the page shows the content Spotify provided to the search engine.

In some cases, Google may let practices that are technically cloaking pass because they contribute to a positive user experience. For more on the subject of hidden content and how Google handles it, see our Whiteboard Friday entitled [How Does Google Handle CSS + Javascript "Hidden" Text?](/blog/google-css-javascript-hidden-text)

#### Keyword stuffing

If you’ve ever been told, “You need to include {critical keyword} on this page X times,” you’ve seen the confusion over keyword usage in action. Many people mistakenly think that if you just include a keyword within your page’s content X times, you will automatically rank for it. The truth is, although Google looks for mentions of keywords and related concepts on your site’s pages, the page itself has to add value outside of pure keyword usage. If a page is going to be valuable to users, it won’t sound like it was written by a robot, so incorporate your keywords and phrases naturally in a way that is understandable to your readers.

Below is an example of a keyword-stuffed page of content that also uses another old method: bolding all your targeted keywords. Oy.

![](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-30.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096640&s=cdde2f0bfbe736ab6cd8a4fb073af4af)

An example of a keyword-stuffed paragraph, bolding all the target keywords.

#### Auto-generated content

Arguably one of the most offensive forms of low-quality content is the kind that is auto-generated, or created programmatically with the intent of manipulating search rankings and not helping users. You may recognize some auto-generated content by how little it makes sense when read — they are technically words, but strung together by a program rather than a human being.

It is worth noting that advancements in machine learning have contributed to more sophisticated auto-generated content that will only get better over time. This is likely why in [Google’s quality guidelines on automatically generated content](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721306?hl=en&ref_topic=6001971), Google specifically calls out the brand of auto-generated content that attempts to manipulate search rankings, rather than any-and-all auto-generated content.

### What to do instead: 10x it!

There is no “secret sauce” to ranking in search results. Google ranks pages highly because it has determined they are the best answers to the searcher’s questions. In today’s search engine, it’s not enough that your page [isn’t duplicate](/blog/why-good-unique-content-needs-to-die-whiteboard-friday), spamming, or broken. Your page has to provide value to searchers and be better than any other page Google is currently serving as the answer to a particular query. Here’s a simple formula for content creation:

  * Search the keyword(s) you want your page to rank for
  * Identify which pages are ranking highly for those keywords
  * Determine what qualities those pages possess
  * Create content that’s better than that

We like to call this [10x content](/blog/how-to-create-10x-content-whiteboard-friday). If you create a page on a keyword that is 10x better than the pages being shown in search results (for that keyword), Google will reward you for it, and better yet, you’ll naturally get people linking to it! Creating 10x content is hard work, but will pay dividends in organic traffic.

### A competitor analysis can help!

When you're researching how to 10x your content, performing an in-depth competitive analysis is your edge. Luckily, we've got _another_ guide devoted to just that! ;-)

[ Read the Guide to SEO Competitor Analysis  ](/seo-competitor-analysis)

Just remember, there’s no magic number when it comes to words on a page. What we should be aiming for is whatever sufficiently satisfies user intent. Some queries can be answered thoroughly and accurately in 300 words while others might require 1,000 words!

### Don’t reinvent the wheel!

If you already have content on your website, save yourself time by evaluating which of those pages are already bringing in good amounts of organic traffic and converting well. Refurbish that content on different platforms to help get more visibility to your site. On the other side of the coin, evaluate what existing content isn’t performing as well and adjust it, rather than starting from square one with all new content.

[ Learn more about refurbishing your top content  ](/blog/refurbishing-top-content-whiteboard-friday)

### NAP: A note for local businesses

If you’re a business that makes in-person contact with your customers, be sure to include your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) prominently, accurately, and consistently throughout your site’s content. This information is often displayed in the footer or header of a local business website, as well as on any "contact us" pages. You’ll also want to mark up this information using [local business schema](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/local-business). Schema and structured data are discussed more at length in the “Other optimizations” section of this chapter.

If you are a multi-location business, it’s best to build unique, optimized pages for each location. For example, a business that has locations in Seattle, Tacoma, and Bellevue should consider having a page for each:

    example.com/
    seattleexample.com/
    tacomaexample.com/
    bellevueexample.com/

Each page should be uniquely optimized for that location, so the Seattle page would have unique content discussing the Seattle location, list the Seattle NAP, and even testimonials specifically from Seattle customers. If there are dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of locations, a [store locator widget](/blog/getting-local-store-locator-seo-right) could be employed to help you scale.

#### Local vs national vs international

Just remember that not all businesses operate at the local level and perform what we call “[local SEO](/learn/seo/local).” Some businesses want to attract customers on a national level (ex: the entire United States) and others want to attract customers from multiple countries (“[international SEO](/learn/seo/international-seo)”). Take Moz, for example. Our product (SEO software) is not tied to a specific location, whereas a coffee shop’s is, since customers have to travel to the location to get their caffeine fix.

In this scenario, the coffee shop should optimize their website for their physical location, whereas Moz would target “SEO software” without a location-specific modifier like “Seattle.”

How you choose to optimize your site depends largely on your audience, so make sure you have them in mind when crafting your website content.

Hope you still have some energy left after handling the difficult-yet-rewarding task of putting together a page that is 10x better than your [competitors](https://moz.com/seo-competitor-analysis)’ pages, because there are just a few more things needed before your page is complete! In the next sections, we’ll talk about the other on-page optimizations your pages need, as well as naming and organizing your content.

## Beyond content: Other optimizations your pages need

_Can I just bump up the font size to create paragraph headings?_

_How can I control what title and description show up for my page in search results?_

After reading this section, you’ll understand other important on-page elements that help search engines understand the 10x content you just created, so let’s dive in!

## Identify opportunities to improve your pages

Use Moz Pro to see which pages are well-optimized, which have room to grow, and what changes will have the most impact. Take a free trial and start optimizing today:

[ Start my free trial ](/checkout/freetrial)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Search-Intent.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855262&s=2e2c5838e6c7b5e4d71545b66c66290a)

### Header tags

Header tags are an HTML element used to designate headings on your page. The main header tag, called an H1, is typically reserved for the title of the page. It looks like this:

    <h1>Page Title</h1>

There are also sub-headings that go from H2 to H6 tags, although using all of these on a page is not required. The hierarchy of header tags goes from H1 to H6 in descending order of importance.

Each page should have a unique H1 that describes the main topic of the page, this is often automatically created from the title of a page. As the main descriptive title of the page, the H1 should contain that page’s primary keyword or phrase. You should avoid using header tags to mark up non-heading elements, such as navigational buttons and phone numbers. Use header tags to introduce what the following content will discuss.

Take this page about touring Copenhagen, for example:

    <h1>Copenhagen Travel Guide</h1>
    <h2>Copenhagen by the Seasons</h2>
    <h3>Visiting in Winter</h3>
    <h3>Visiting in Spring</h3>

The main topic of the page is introduced in the main <h1> heading, and each additional heading is used to introduce a new sub-topic. In this example, the <h2> is more specific than the <h1>, and the <h3> tags are more specific than the <h2>. This is just an example of a structure you could use.

Although what you choose to put in your header tags can be used by search engines to evaluate and rank your page, it’s important to avoid inflating their importance. Header tags are one among many on-page SEO factors, and typically would not move the needle like quality backlinks and content would, so focus on your site visitors when crafting your headings.

### Internal links

In Chapter 2, we discussed the importance of having a crawlable website. Part of a website’s crawlability lies in its [internal linking](/learn/seo/internal-link) structure. When you link to other pages on your website, you ensure that search engine crawlers can find all your site’s pages, you pass link equity (ranking power) to other pages on your site, and you help visitors navigate your site.

For example, if we wanted to emphasize the importance of our newly [updated SEO Beginner's Guide](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo#internal-links), we'd simply add a link like that! (and it's a really good guide)

The importance of internal linking is well established, but there can be confusion over how this looks in practice.

#### Link accessibility

Links that require a click (like a navigation drop-down to view) are often hidden from search engine crawlers, so if the only links to internal pages on your website are through these types of links, you may have trouble getting those pages indexed. Opt instead for links that are directly accessible on the page.

#### Anchor text

[Anchor text](/learn/seo/anchor-text) is the text with which you link to pages. Below, you can see an example of what a hyperlink without anchor text and a hyperlink with anchor text would look like in the HTML.

    <a href="http://www.example.com/"></a>
    <a href="http://www.example.com/" title="Keyword Text">Keyword Text</a>

On live view, that would look like this:

> <http://www.example.com/>

> [Keyword Text](http://www.example.com/)

The anchor text sends signals to search engines regarding the content of the destination page. For example, if I link to a page on my site using the anchor text “learn SEO,” that’s a good indicator to search engines that the targeted page is one at which people can learn about SEO. Be careful not to overdo it, though. Too many internal links using the same, keyword-stuffed anchor text can appear to search engines that you’re trying to manipulate a page’s ranking. It’s best to make anchor text natural rather than formulaic.

#### Link volume

In Google’s [General Webmaster Guidelines](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en), they say to “limit the number of links on a page to a reasonable number (a few thousand at most).” This is part of Google’s technical guidelines, rather than the quality guideline section, so having too many internal links isn’t something that on its own is going to get you penalized, but it does affect how Google finds and evaluates your pages.

The more links on a page, the less equity each link can pass to its destination page. A page only has so much equity to go around.

So it’s safe to say that you should only link when you mean it! You can [learn more about link equity](/learn/seo/what-is-link-equity) from our SEO Learning Center.

Aside from passing authority between pages, a link is also a way to help users navigate to other pages on your site. This is a case where doing what’s best for search engines is also doing what’s best for searchers. Too many links not only dilute the authority of each link, but they can also be unhelpful and overwhelming. Consider how a searcher might feel landing on a page that looks like this:

> Welcome to our [gardening website](http://www.example.com/)! We have many [articles on gardening](http://www.example.com/), [how to garden](http://www.example.com/), and [helpful tips](http://www.example.com/) on [herbs](http://www.example.com/), [fruits](http://www.example.com/), [vegetables](http://www.example.com/), [perennials](http://www.example.com/), and [annuals](http://www.example.com/). Learn more about [gardening](http://www.example.com/) from our [gardening blog](http://www.example.com/).

_Whew!_ Not only is that a lot of links to process, but it also reads pretty unnaturally and doesn’t contain much substance (which could be considered “thin content” by Google). Focus on quality and helping your users navigate your site, and you likely won’t have to worry about too many links.

#### Redirection

Removing and renaming pages is a common practice, but in the event that you do move a page, make sure to update the links to that old URL! At the very least, you should make sure to [redirect the URL](https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection) to its new location, but if possible, update all internal links to that URL at the source so that users and crawlers don’t have to pass through redirects to arrive at the destination page. If you choose to redirect only, be careful to avoid redirect chains that are too long ([Google says](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033086?hl=en), "Avoid chaining redirects... keep the number of redirects in the chain low, ideally no more than 3 and fewer than 5.")

Example of a redirect chain:

    (original location of content) example.com/location1 →
    example.com/location2 →
    (current location of content) example.com/location3

Better:

    example.com/location1 → example.com/location3

![A depiction of 301 redirecting an old page to a new page.](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch5-03-outlines-01.svg?dm=1554154778)

### Image optimization

Images are the biggest culprits of slow web pages! The best way to solve for this is to compress your images. While there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to image compression, testing various options like "save for web," image sizing, and compression tools like [Optimizilla](https://imagecompressor.com/) or [ImageOptim](https://imageoptim.com/mac) for Mac (or [Windows alternatives](https://imageoptim.com/versions.html)), as well as evaluating what works best is the way to go.

Another way to help optimize your images (and improve your page speed) is by choosing the right image format.

#### How to choose which image format to use:

  * If your image requires animation, use a GIF.
  * If you don’t need to preserve high image resolution, use JPEG (and test out different compression settings).
  * If you do need to preserve high image resolution, use PNG.
    * If your image has a lot of colors, use PNG-24.
    * If your image doesn’t have a lot of colors, use PNG-8.

Learn more about choosing image formats in [Google's image optimization guide](https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/optimizing-content-efficiency/image-optimization).

There are different ways to keep visitors on a semi-slow loading page by using images that produce a colored box or a very blurry/low resolution version while rendering to help visitors feel as if things are loading faster. We'll discuss these options in more detail in Chapter 5.

### Don’t forget about thumbnails!

Thumbnails (_especially_ for e-commerce sites) can be a huge page speed slow down. Optimize thumbnails properly to avoid slow pages and to help retain more qualified visitors.

#### Alt text

[Alt text](/learn/seo/alt-text) (alternative text) within images is a principle of web accessibility, and is used to describe images to the visually impaired via screen readers. It’s important to have alt text descriptions so that any visually impaired person can understand what the pictures on your website depict.

Search engine bots also crawl alt text to better understand your images, which gives you the added benefit of providing better image context to search engines. Just ensure that your alt descriptions reads naturally for people, and avoid stuffing keywords for search engines.

Bad:

    <img src="grumpycat.gif" alt="grumpy cat, cat is grumpy, grumpy cat gif">

Good:

    <img src="grumpycat.gif" alt="A black cat looking very grumpy at a big spotted dog">

### Web accessibility and SEO

There's a great deal of intersection between web accessibility and SEO. Much of our work can help or harm online experiences for non-sighted Internet users. Be sure to check out our blog post series on this important topic — we have the opportunity to help make the web a better place for everyone!

[ Learn more about accessibility and SEO  ](/blog/accessibility-seo-1)

### Submit an image sitemap

To ensure that Google can crawl and index your images, [submit an image sitemap](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636) in your Google Search Console account. This helps Google discover images they may have otherwise missed.

### Formatting for readability & featured snippets

Your page could contain the best content ever written on a subject, but if it’s formatted improperly, your audience might never read it! While we can never guarantee that visitors will read our content, there are some principles that can promote readability, including:

  * **Text size and color -** Avoid fonts that are too tiny. Google recommends 16-point font and above to minimize the need for “pinching and zooming” on mobile. The text color in relation to the page’s background color should also promote readability. Additional information on text can be found in the [website accessibility guidelines](https://www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/chap5toolkit.htm) and via [Google’s web accessibility fundamentals](https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/accessibility/).
  * **Headings -** Breaking up your content with helpful headings can help readers navigate the page. This is especially useful on long pages where a reader might be looking only for information from a particular section.
  * **Bullet points -** Great for lists, bullet points can help readers skim and more quickly find the information they need.
  * **Paragraph breaks -** Avoiding walls of text can help prevent page abandonment and encourage site visitors to read more of your page.
  * **Supporting media -** When appropriate, include images, videos, and widgets that would complement your content.
  * **Bold and italics for emphasis -** Putting words in bold or italics can add emphasis, so they should be the exception, not the rule. Appropriate use of these formatting options can call out important points you want to communicate.

Formatting can also affect your page’s ability to show up in featured snippets, those “position 0” results that appear above the rest of organic results.

![](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-27.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096711&s=9360a8f50aaad73479ef73b49a23881f)

An example of a featured snippet, appearing in "position 0" at the top of a SERP.

There is no special code that you can add to your page to show up here, nor can you pay for this placement, but taking note of the query intent can help you better [structure your content for featured snippets](/blog/target-featured-snippet-opportunities). For example, if you’re trying to rank for “cake vs. pie,” it might make sense to include a table in your content, with the benefits of cake in one column and the benefits of pie in the other. Or if you’re trying to rank for “best restaurants to try in Portland,” that could indicate Google wants a list, so formatting your content in bullets could help.

## Take SEO on the go with MozBar Premium

Get page optimization tips and content suggestions as you browse your website with our Chrome browser extension, the [MozBar SEO toolbar](https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar). See what's possible with a free trial of Moz Pro:

[ Start my free trial ](/checkout/freetrial)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Domain-Authority.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855251&s=6ed9313fb099b155b64ed31e408cb970)

### Title tags

A page’s [title tag](/learn/seo/title-tag) is a descriptive, HTML element that specifies the title of a particular web page. They are nested within the head tag of each page and look like this:

    <head> <title>Example Title</title></head>

Each page on your website should have a unique, descriptive title tag. What you input into your title tag field will show up here in search results, although in some cases Google may adjust how your title tag appears in search results.

![A screenshot of how a page title appears in the SERPs.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-36.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096752&s=3b4867e1cff9ae38736c5dc1a228cf9d)

It can also show up in web browsers…

![A screenshot of how a page title appears in a browser tab.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-35.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096781&s=440f35d0971a52cb542e1e676e01b126)

Or when you share the link to your page on certain external websites…

![A screenshot of how a page title looks when shared on an external site, like Facebook.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-37.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096816&s=776d60756690fc317976d39149a14bcf)

Your title tag has a big role to play in people’s first impression of your website, and it’s an incredibly effective tool for drawing searchers to your page over any other result on the SERP. The more compelling your title tag, combined with high rankings in search results, the more visitors you’ll attract to your website. This underscores that SEO is not only about search engines, but rather the entire user experience.

#### What makes an effective title tag?

  * **Keyword usage:** Having your target keyword in the title can help both users and search engines understand what your page is about. Also, the closer to the front of the title tag your keywords are, the more likely a user will be to read them (and hopefully click) and the more helpful they can be for ranking.
  * **Length:** On average, search engines display the first 50–60 characters (~512 pixels) of a title tag in search results. If your title tag exceeds the characters allowed on that SERP, an ellipsis "..." will appear where the title was cut off. While sticking to 50–60 characters is safe, never sacrifice quality for strict character counts. If you can’t get your title tag down to 60 characters without harming its readability, go longer (within reason).
  * **Branding:** At Moz, we love to end our title tags with a brand name mention because it promotes brand awareness and creates a higher click-through rate among people who are familiar with Moz. Sometimes it makes sense to place your brand at the beginning of the title tag, such as on your homepage, but be mindful of what you're trying to rank for and place those words closer toward the beginning of your title tag.

### Meta descriptions

Like title tags, [meta descriptions](/learn/seo/meta-description) are HTML elements that describe the contents of the page that they’re on. They are also nested in the head tag, and look like this:

    <head>
    <meta name=”description” content=”Description of page here.”/>
    </head>

What you input into the description field will show up here in search results:

### Title tag tips for better traffic

While there are no shortcuts in SEO, there are absolutely a ton of tips and tricks that can boost a page title's clickability and attractiveness in the SERPs. Check out our Whiteboard Friday on the subject!

[ Watch the video  ](/blog/title-tag-hacks-whiteboard-friday)

![A screenshot of how a meta description looks in the SERPs.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-31.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096867&s=b39feaa047b41c1aaa42c19d87d3743b)

For example, if you search “find backlinks,” Google will provide this meta description as it deems it more relevant to the specific search:

![A screenshot of the meta description for the query 'find backlinks' in the SERPs.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-29.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096931&s=fa5bdf044d6a34beb5811ec258b36f73)

While the actual meta description is:

![A screenshot of the source code for the actual meta description on the page, which differs from what the SERP shows above.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-28.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096974&s=0a5ce5cb7202b7024582684d4e0ff858)

This often helps to improve your meta descriptions for unique searches. However, don’t let this deter you from writing a default page meta description — they're still extremely valuable.

#### What makes an effective meta description?

The qualities that make an effective title tag also apply to effective meta descriptions. Although Google says that meta descriptions are not a ranking factor, like title tags, they are incredibly important for click-through rate.

  * **Relevance:** Meta descriptions should be highly relevant to the content of your page, so it should summarize your key concept in some form. You should give the searcher enough information to know they've found a page relevant enough to answer their question, without giving away so much information that it eliminates the need to click through to your web page.
  * **Length:** Search engines tend to truncate meta descriptions to around 155 characters. It’s best to write meta descriptions between 150–300 characters in length. On some SERPs, you’ll notice that Google gives much more real estate to the descriptions of some pages. This usually happens for web pages ranking right below a featured snippet.

## URL structure: Naming and organizing your pages

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. URLs are the locations or addresses for individual pieces of content on the web. Like title tags and meta descriptions, search engines display URLs on the SERPs, so URL naming and format can impact click-through rates. Not only do searchers use them to make decisions about which web pages to click on, but URLs are also used by search engines in evaluating and ranking pages.

### Clear page naming

Search engines require unique URLs for each page on your website so they can display your pages in search results, but clear URL structure and naming is also helpful for people who are trying to understand what a specific URL is about. For example, which URL is clearer?

    example.com/desserts/chocolate-pie

or

    example.com/asdf/453?=recipe-23432-1123

Searchers are more likely to click on URLs that reinforce and clarify what information is contained on that page, and less likely to click on URLs that confuse them.

The URL is a minor ranking signal, but you cannot expect to rank on the basis of the words in your domain/page names alone (see [Google EMD update](https://searchengineland.com/low-quality-exact-match-domains-are-googles-next-target-134889)). When naming your pages or selecting a domain name, have your audience in mind first.

### Page organization

If you discuss multiple topics on your website, you should also make sure to avoid nesting pages under irrelevant folders. For example:

    example.com/commercial-litigation/alimony

It would have been better for this fictional multi-practice law firm website to nest alimony under “/family-law/” than to host it under the irrelevant "/commercial-litigation/" section of the website.

The folders in which you locate your content can also send signals about the type, not just the topic, of your content. For example, dated URLs can indicate time-sensitive content. While appropriate for news-based websites, dated URLs for evergreen content can actually turn searchers away because the information seems outdated. For example:

    example.com/2015/april/what-is-seo/

vs.

    example.com/what-is-seo/

Since the topic “What is SEO?” isn’t confined to a specific date, it’s best to host on a non-dated URL structure or else risk your information appearing stale.

As you can see, what you name your pages, and in what folders you choose to organize your pages, is an important way to clarify the topic of your page to users and search engines.

### URL length

While it is not necessary to have a completely flat URL structure, many click-through rate studies indicate that, when given the choice between a URL and a shorter URL, searchers often prefer shorter URLs. Like title tags and meta descriptions that are too long, too-long URLs will also be cut off with an ellipsis. Just remember, having a descriptive URL is just as important, so don’t cut down on URL length if it means sacrificing the URL's descriptiveness.

    example.com/services/plumbing/plumbing-repair/toilets/leaks/

vs.

    example.com/plumbing-repair/toilets/

Minimizing length, both by including fewer words in your page names and removing unnecessary subfolders, makes your URLs easier to copy and paste, as well as more clickable.

### Keywords in URL

If your page is targeting a specific term or phrase, make sure to include it in the URL. However, don't go overboard by trying to stuff in multiple keywords for purely SEO purposes. It’s also important to watch out for repeat keywords in different subfolders. For example, you may have naturally incorporated a keyword into a page name, but if located within other folders that are also optimized with that keyword, the URL could begin to appear keyword-stuffed.

Example:

    example.com/seattle-dentist/dental-services/dental-crowns/

Keyword overuse in URLs can appear spammy and manipulative. If you aren’t sure whether your keyword usage is too aggressive, just read your URL through the eyes of a searcher and ask, “Does this look natural? Would I click on this?”

### Static URLs

The best URLs are those that can easily be read by humans, so you should avoid the overuse of parameters, numbers, and symbols. Using technologies like mod_rewrite for Apache and ISAPI_rewrite for Microsoft, you can easily transform dynamic URLs like this:

    http://moz.com/blog?id=123

into a more readable static version like this:

    https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

### Hyphens for word separation

Not all web applications accurately interpret separators like underscores (_), plus signs (+), or spaces (%20). Search engines also do not understand how to separate words in URLs when they run together without a separator (example.com/optimizefeaturedsnippets/). Instead, use the hyphen character (-) to separate words in a URL.

### Case sensitivity

Sites should avoid case sensitive URLs. Instead of example.com/desserts/Chocolate-Pie-Recipe it would be better to use example.com/desserts/chocolate-pie-recipe. If the site you're working on has lots of mixed-case URLs indexed, don't fret — your developers can help. Ask them about adding a rewrite formula to something known as the .htaccess file to automatically make any uppercase URLs lowercase.

### Geographic modifiers in URLs

Some local business owners omit geographic terms that describe their physical location or service area because they believe that search engines can figure this out on their own. On the contrary, it’s vital that local business websites’ content, URLs, and other on-site assets make specific mention of city names, neighborhood names, and other regional descriptors. Let both consumers and search engines know exactly where you are and where you serve, rather than relying on your physical location alone.

### Protocols: HTTP vs HTTPS

A protocol is that “http” or “https” preceding your domain name. Google recommends that all websites have a secure protocol (the “s” in “https” stands for “secure”). To ensure that your URLs are using the https:// protocol instead of http://, you must obtain an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. SSL certificates are used to encrypt data. They ensure that any data passed between the web server and browser of the searcher remains private. As of July 2018, Google Chrome displays “not secure” for all HTTP sites, which could cause these sites to appear untrustworthy to visitors and result in them leaving the site.

![A screenshot of how a non-secure website appears in a browser tab.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-32.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554097049&s=003d694f347715f909fa4d04086636e5)

### Try HTTP/2 for improved efficiency

HTTP/2 is an improvement to the traditional HTTP network protocol and makes sending your resources from your server to your browser more efficient. This update improves the "fetch and load" part of your critical rendering path (discussed more at length in Chapter 5), helps increase the security of your website, and [can help improve performance](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K0NykTXBbbbTlv60t5MyJvXjqKGsCVNYHyLEXIxYMv0/edit). You must be on HTTPS to migrate to HTTP/2.

#####

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations on surpassing the halfway point of the Beginner’s Guide to SEO! So far, we’ve learned how search engines crawl, index, and rank content, how to find keyword opportunities to target, and now, you know the on-page SEO strategies that can help your pages get found. Next, buckle up, because we’ll be diving into the exciting world of technical SEO in [Chapter 5](/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo#index3)!

* * *

Written by [Britney Muller](/community/users/514135) and the Moz staff.

* * *

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path: references-moz/seo-glossary.txt
content: #### Table of Contents:

[1\. Introduction](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo) [2\. Quick Start Guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide) [3\. SEO 101](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary) [4\. How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate) [5\. Keyword Research](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research) [6\. On-Page SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo) [7\. Technical SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo) [8\. Link Building & Establishing Authority](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links) [9\. Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO Success](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success)

[10\. SEO Glossary of Terms](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

##### Share

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## SEO Terms & Meanings

If you've been reading [our starter guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo#terms) and found yourself confused by some of the terms you've seen, no worries! We know learning all the ins and outs of SEO vocabulary and jargon can feel like learning another language. To help you get a handle on all the new terms we're throwing at you, we've compiled a chapter-by-chapter SEO glossary with definitions and helpful links. You might want to bookmark this page for future reference!

## Try Moz Pro, free!

Moz Pro helps you achieve your search goals, whether you need better keywords, quality links, technical SEO help, or all of the above and more. Try it free and see why so many marketers trust our SEO tools!

[ Start my free trial ](/checkout/freetrial)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Topic-Clustering.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855265&s=9b3d69587bd8910d30992b4038578bb5)

## Chapter 1: SEO 101

**10 blue links:** The format search engines used to display search results; ten organic results all appearing in the same format.

**Black hat:** Search engine optimization practices that violate Google’s quality guidelines.

**Crawling:** The process by which search engines discover your web pages.

**De-indexed:** Refers to a page or group of pages being removed from Google’s index.

**Featured snippets:** Organic answer boxes that appear at the top of SERPs for certain queries.

**Google My Business listing:** A free listing available to local businesses.

**Image carousels:** Image results in some SERPs that are scrollable from left to right.

**Indexing:** The storing and organizing of content found during crawling.

**Intent:** In the context of SEO, intent refers to what users really want from the words they typed into the search bar.

**KPI:** A “key performance indicator” is a measurable value that indicates how well an activity is achieving a goal.

**Local pack:** A pack of typically three local business listings that appear for local-intent searches such as “oil change near me.”

**Organic:** Earned placement in search results, as opposed to paid advertisements.

**People Also Ask boxes:** A box in some SERPs featuring a list of questions related to the query and their answers.

**Query:** Words typed into the search bar.

**Ranking:** Ordering search results by relevance to the query.

**Search engine:** An information retrieval program that searches for items in a database that match the request input by the user. Examples: Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

**SERP features:** Results displayed in a non-standard format.

**SERP:** Stands for “search engine results page” — the page you see after conducting a search.

**Traffic:** Visits to a website.

[**URL**](/learn/seo/url)**:** Uniform Resource Locators are the locations or addresses for individual pieces of content on the web.

**Webmaster guidelines:** Guidelines published by search engines like Google and Bing for the purpose of helping site owners create content that will be found, indexed, and perform well in search results.

**White hat:** Search engine optimization practices that comply with Google’s quality guidelines.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Josh-Stricklin-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760464890&s=eacd99407daefbc78ebb6cec3a1c505b)](/checkout/freetrial)

## Chapter 2: How Search Engines Work – Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking

**2xx status codes:** A class of status codes that indicate the request for a page has succeeded.

**4xx status codes:** A class of status codes that indicate the request for a page resulted in error.

**5xx status codes:** A class of status codes that indicate the server’s inability to perform the request.

**Advanced search operators:** Special characters and commands you can type into the search bar to further specify your query.

**Algorithms:** A process or formula by which stored information is retrieved and ordered in meaningful ways.

**[Backlinks](/learn/seo/external-link): **Or "inbound links" are links from other websites that point to your website.

**Bots:** Also known as “crawlers” or “spiders,” these are what scour the Internet to find content.

**Caching:** A saved version of your web page.

**Caffeine:** Google’s web indexing system. Caffeine is the index, or collection of web content, whereas Googlebot is the crawler that goes out and finds the content.

**[Citations](/learn/seo/local-citations):** Also known as a “business listing,” a citation is a web-based reference to a local business' name, address, and phone number (NAP).

**Cloaking:** Showing different content to search engines than you show to human visitors.

**Crawl budget:** The average number of pages a search engine bot will crawl on your site

**[Crawler directives](/learn/seo/robots-meta-directives): **Instructions to the crawler regarding what you want it to crawl and index on your site.

**Distance:** In the context of the local pack, distance refers to proximity, or the location of the searcher and/or the location specified in the query.

**Engagement:** Data that represents how searchers interact with your site from search results.

**Google Quality Guidelines:** Published guidelines from Google detailing tactics that are forbidden because they are malicious and/or intended to manipulate search results.

**Google Search Console:** A free program provided by Google that allows site owners to monitor how their site is doing in search.

**HTML:** Hypertext markup language is the language used to create web pages.

**Index Coverage report:** A report in Google Search Console that shows you the indexation status of your site’s pages.

**Index:** A huge database of all the content search engine crawlers have discovered and deem good enough to serve up to searchers.

**[Internal links](/learn/seo/internal-link):** Links on your own site that point to your other pages on the same site.

**JavaScript:** A programming language that adds dynamic elements to static web pages.

**Login forms:** Refers to pages that require login authentication before a visitor can access the content.

**Manual penalty:** Refers to a Google “Manual Action” where a human reviewer has determined certain pages on your site violate Google’s quality guidelines.

**Meta robots tag:** Pieces of code that provide crawlers instructions for how to crawl or index web page content.

**Navigation:** A list of links that help visitors navigate to other pages on your site. Often, these appear in a list at the top of your website (“top navigation”), on the side column of your website (“side navigation”), or at the bottom of your website (“footer navigation”).

**NoIndex tag:** A meta tag that instructions a search engine not to index the page it’s on.

**PageRank:** A component of Google's core algorithm. It is a link analysis program that estimates the importance of a web page by measuring the quality and quantity of links pointing to it.

**Personalization:** Refers to the way a search engine will modify a person’s results on factors unique to them, such as their location and search history.

**Prominence:** In the context of the local pack, prominence refers to businesses that are well-known and well-liked in the real world.

**RankBrain:** the machine learning component of Google’s core algorithm that adjusts ranking by promoting the most relevant, helpful results.

**Relevance:** In the context of the local pack, relevance is how well a local business matches what the searcher is looking for

**[Robots.txt](/learn/seo/robotstxt): **Files that suggest which parts of your site search engines should and shouldn't crawl.

**Search forms:** Refers to search functions or search bars on a website that help users find pages on that website.

**Search Quality Rater Guidelines:** Guidelines for human raters that work for Google to determine the quality of real web pages.

**Sitemap:** A list of URLs on your site that crawlers can use to discover and index your content.

**Spammy tactics:** Like “black hat,” spammy tactics are those that violate search engine quality guidelines.

**[URL folders](/learn/seo/url):** Sections of a website occurring after the TLD (“.com”), separated by slashes (“/”). For example, in “moz.com/blog” we could say “/blog” is a folder.

**URL parameters:** Information following a question mark that is appended to a URL to change the page’s content (active parameter) or track information (passive parameter).

**X-robots-tag:** Like meta robots tags, this tag provides crawlers instructions for how to crawl or index web page content.

## Chapter 3: Keyword Research

**Ambiguous intent:** Refers to a search phrase where the goal of the searcher is unclear and requires further specification.

**Commercial investigation queries:** A query in which the searcher wants to compare products to find the one that best suits them.

[**Informational queries**](/learn/seo/informational-keywords)**:** A query in which the searcher is looking for information, such as the answer to a question.

**Keyword Difficulty:** At Moz, Keyword Difficulty is an estimate, in the form of a numerical score, of how difficult it is for a site to outrank their competitors.

[**Keyword Explorer**](/explorer)**:** A Moz tool for in-depth keyword research and discovery.

**Local queries:** A query in which the searcher is looking for something in a specific location, such as “coffee shops near me” or “gyms in Brooklyn.”

**Long-tail keywords:** Longer queries, typically those containing more than three words. Indicative of their length, they are often more specific than short-tail queries.

**Navigational queries:** A query in which the searcher is trying to get to a certain location, such as the Moz blog (query = “Moz blog”).

**Regional keywords:** Refers to keywords unique to a specific locale. Use Google Trends, for example, to see whether “pop” or “soda” is the more popular term in Kansas.

**Search volume:** The number of times a keyword was searched. Many keyword research tools show an estimated monthly search volume.

**Seasonal trends:** Refers to the popularity of keywords over time, such as “Halloween costumes” being most popular the week before October 31.

**Seed keywords:** The term we use to describe the primary words that describe the product or service you provide.

[**Transactional queries**](/learn/seo/transactional-keywords)**:** The searcher wants to take an action, such as buy something. If keyword types sat in the marketing funnel, transactional queries would be at the bottom.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Lily-Ray-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760469108&s=6561e9bf182f53d75a1cdeceb7c98b1c)](/checkout/freetrial)

## Chapter 4: On-Site Optimization

**[Alt text](/learn/seo/alt-text): **Alternative text is the text in HTML code that describes the images on web pages.

**[Anchor text](/learn/seo/anchor-text): **The text with which you link to pages.

**Auto-generated content:** Content that is created programmatically, not written by humans.

**[Duplicate content](/learn/seo/duplicate-content):** Content that is shared between domains or between multiple pages of a single domain.

**Geographic modifiers:** Terms that describe a physical location or service area. For example, “pizza” is not geo-modified, but “pizza in Seattle” is.

**Header tags:** An HTML element used to designate headings on your page.

**Image compression:** The act of speeding up web pages by making image file sizes smaller without degrading the image’s quality.

**Image sitemap:** A sitemap containing only the image URLs on a website.

**Keyword stuffing:** A spammy tactic involving the overuse of important keywords and their variants in your content and links.

**Link accessibility:** The ease with which a link can be found by human visitors or crawlers.

**Link equity:** The value or authority a link can pass to its destination.

**Link volume:** The quantity of links on a page.

**Local business schema:** Structured data markup placed on a web page that helps search engines understand information about a business.

**[Meta descriptions](/learn/seo/meta-description):** HTML elements that describe the contents of the page that they’re on. Google sometimes uses these as the description line in search result snippets.

**Panda:** A Google algorithm update that targeted low-quality content.

**Protocol:** The “http” or “https” preceding your domain name. This governs how data is relayed between the server and browser.

**[Redirection](/learn/seo/redirection):** When a URL is moved from one location to another. Most often, redirection is permanent (301 redirect).

**[Rel=canonical](/learn/seo/canonicalization): **A tag that allows site owners to tell Google which version of a web page is the original and which are the duplicates.

**Scraped content:** Taking content from websites that you do not own and republishing it without permission on your own site.

**SSL certificate:** A “Secure Sockets Layer” is used to encrypt data passed between the web server and browser of the searcher.

**Thin content:** Content that adds little-to-no value to the visitor.

**Thumbnails:** Image thumbnails are a smaller version of a larger image.

**[Title tag](/learn/seo/title-tag): **An HTML element that specifies the title of a web page.

## Chapter 5: Technical Optimization

**AMP:** Often described as “diet HTML,” accelerated mobile pages (AMP) are designed to make the viewing experience lightning fast for mobile visitors.

**Async:** Short for “asynchronous,” async means that the browser doesn’t have to wait for a task to finish before moving onto the next one while assembling your web page.

**Browser:** A web browser, like Chrome or Firefox, is software that allows you to access information on the web. When you make a request in your browser (ex: “google.com”), you’re instructing your browser to retrieve the resources necessary to render that page on your device.

**Bundling:** To combine multiple resources into a single resource.

**[ccTLD](/learn/seo/cctlds): **Short for “country code top level domain,” ccTLD refers to domains associated with countries. For example, .ru is the recognized ccTLD for Russia.

**Client-side & server-side rendering: **Client-side and server-side rendering refer to where the code runs. Client-side means the file is executed in the browser. Server-side means the files are executed at the server and the server sends them to the browser in their fully rendered state.

**Critical rendering path:** The sequence of steps a browser goes through to convert HTML, CSS and JavaScript into a viewable web page.

**CSS:** A Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) is the code that makes a website look a certain way (ex: fonts and colors).

**DNS:** A Domain Name Server (DNS) allows domain names (ex: “moz.com”) to be linked to IP addresses (ex: “127.0.0.1”). DNS essentially translates domain names into IP addresses so that browsers can load the page’s resources.

**DOM:** The Document Object Model (DOM) is the structure of an HTML document — it defines how that document can be accessed and changed by things like JavaScript.

**Domain name registrar:** A company that manages the reservation of internet domain names. Example: GoDaddy.

**Faceted navigation:** Often used on e-commerce websites, faceted navigations offer a number of sorting and filtering options to help visitors more easily locate the URL they’re looking for out of a stack of thousands or even millions of URLs. For example, you could sort a clothing page by price: low to high, or filter the page to view only size: small.

**Fetch and Render tool:** A tool available in Google Search Console that allows you to see a web page how Google sees it.

**File compression:** The process of encoding information using fewer bits; reducing the size of the file. There are many different compression techniques.

**[Hreflang](/learn/seo/hreflang-tag):** A tag that indicates to Google which language the content is in. This helps Google serve the appropriate language version of your page to people searching in that language.

**IP address:** An internet protocol (IP) address is a string of numbers that’s unique to each specific website. We assign domain names to IP addresses because they’re easier for humans to remember (ex: “moz.com”) but the internet needs these numbers to find websites.

**JSON-LD:** JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data (JSON-LD) is a format for structuring your data. For example, schema.org can be implemented in a number of different formats, JSON-LD is just one of them, but it is the format preferred by Google.

**Lazy loading:** A way of deferring the loading of an object until it’s needed. This method is often used to improve page speed.

**Minification:** To minify something means to remove as many unnecessary characters from the source code as possible without altering functionality. Whereas compression makes something smaller, minification actually removes things.

**Mobile-first indexing:** Google began progressively moving websites over to mobile first indexing in 2018. This change means that Google crawls and indexes your pages based on their mobile version rather than their desktop version.

**Pagination:** A website owner can opt to split a page into multiple parts in a sequence, similar to pages in the book. This can be especially helpful on very large pages. The hallmarks of a paginated page are the rel=”next” and rel=”prev” tags, indicating where each page falls in the greater sequence. These tags help Google understand that the pages should have consolidated link properties and that searchers should be sent to the first page in the sequence.

**Programming language:** Writing instructions in a way a computer can understand. For example, JavaScript is a programming language that adds dynamic (not-static) elements to a web page.

**Rendering:** The process of a browser turning a website’s code into a viewable page.

**Render-blocking scripts:** A script that forces your browser to wait to be fetched before the page can be rendered. Render-blocking scripts can add extra round trips before your browser can fully render a page.

**Responsive design:** Google’s preferred design pattern for mobile-friendly websites, responsive design allows the website to adapt to fit whatever device it’s being viewed on.

**Rich snippet:** A snippet is the title and description preview that Google and other search engines show of URLs on its results page. A “rich” snippet, therefore, is an enhanced version of the standard snippet. Some rich snippets can be encouraged by the use of structured data markup, like review markup displaying as rating stars next to those URLs in the search results.

**[Schema.org](/learn/seo/schema-structured-data):** Code that “wraps around” elements of your web page to provide additional information about it to the search engine. Data using schema.org is referred to as “structured” as opposed to “unstructured” — in other words, organized rather than unorganized.

**SRCSET:** Like responsive design for images, SRCSET indicates which version of the image to show for different situations.

**Structured Data:** Another way to say “organized” data (as opposed to unorganized). Schema.org is a way to structure your data, for example, by labeling it with additional information that helps the search engine understand it.

## Chapter 6: Link Building & Establishing Authority

**10x content:** Coined by Rand Fishkin to describe content that is “10x better” than anything else on the web for that same topic.

**Amplification:** Sharing or spreading the word about your brand; often used in the context of social media, paid advertisements, and influencer marketing.

[**Brand Authority**](https://moz.com/learn/seo/brand-authority): Brand Authority™ is a score (1-100) developed by Moz that measures the total strength of a brand. With Brand Authority, Moz makes the elusive but powerful idea of brand into concrete and actionable data.

[**DA**](/learn/seo/domain-authority)**:** Domain Authority (DA) is a Moz metric used to predict a domain’s ranking ability; best used as a comparative metric (ex: comparing a website’s DA score to that of its [direct competitors](https://moz.com/competitive-research)).

**Deindexed:** When a URL, section of URLs, or an entire domain has been removed from a search engine index. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as when a website receives a manual penalty for violating [Google’s quality guidelines](https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/6001971?hl=en&ref_topic=6001981).

**Directory links:** “Directory” in the context of local SEO is an aggregate list of local businesses, usually including each business’s name, address, phone number (NAP) and other information like their website. “Directory” can also refer to a type of unnatural link that violates Google’s guidelines: “low-quality directory or bookmark site links.”

**Editorial links:** When links are earned naturally and given out of an author’s own volition (rather than paid for or coerced), they are considered editorial.

**Follow:** The default state of a link, “follow” links pass PageRank.

**Google Analytics:** A free (with an option to pay for upgraded features) tool that helps website owners get insight into how people are engaging with their website. Some examples of reports you can see in Google Analytics include acquisition reports that show what channels your visitors are coming from, and conversion reports that show the rate at which people are completing goals (ex: form fills) on your website.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Brandon-Doyle-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760481097&s=9384ea0f6a26270a76e84f3007c1e849)](/checkout/freetrial)

**Google search operators:** Special text that can be appended to your query to further specify what types of results you’re looking for. For example, adding “site:” before a domain name can return a list of all (or many) indexed pages on said domain.

**Guest blogging:** Often used as a link building strategy, guest blogging involves pitching an article (or idea for an article) to a publication in the hopes that they will feature your content and allow you to include a link back to your website. Just be careful though. Large-scale guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links are a violation of Google’s quality guidelines.

[**Link building**](/learn/seo/links-link-building)**:** While “building” sounds like this activity involves creating links to your website yourself, link building actually describes the process of earning links to your site for the purpose of building your site’s authority in search engines.

**Link exchange:** Also known as reciprocal linking, link exchanges involve “you link to me and I’ll link to you” tactics. Excessive link exchanges are a violation of Google’s quality guidelines.

[**Link Explorer**](/link-explorer)**:** Moz’s tool for link discovery and analysis.

**Link profile:** A term used to describe all the inbound links to a select domain, subdomain, or URL.

**Linked unstructured citations:** References to a business’ complete or partial contact information on a non-directory platform (like online news, blogs, best-of lists, etc.)

**MozBar:** A [plugin](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mozbar/eakacpaijcpapndcfffdgphdiccmpknp?hl=en) available for the Chrome browser that allows you to easily view metrics for the selected page, like DA, PA, title tag, and more.

**NoFollow:** Links marked up with rel=”nofollow” do not pass PageRank. Google encourages the use of these in some situations, like when a link has been paid for.

**PA:** Similar to DA, Page Authority (PA) predicts an individual page’s ranking ability.

**Purchased links:** Exchanging money, or something else of value, for a link. If a link is purchased, it constitutes an advertisement and should be treated with a nofollow tag so that it does not pass PageRank.

**Qualified traffic:** When traffic is “qualified,” it usually means that the visit is relevant to the intended topic of the page, and therefore the visitor is more likely to find the content useful and convert.

**Referral Traffic:** Traffic sent to a website from another website. For example, if your website is receiving visits from people clicking on your site from a link on Facebook, Google Analytics will attribute that traffic as “facebook.com / referral” in the Source/Medium report.

**Resource pages:** Commonly used for the purpose of link building, resource pages typically contain a list of helpful links to other websites. If your business sells email marketing software, for example, you could look up marketing intitle:"resources" and reach out to the owners of said sites to see if they would include a link to your website on their page.

**Sentiment:** How people feel about your brand.

[**Spam Score:**](/help/link-explorer/link-building/spam-score) A Moz metric used to quantify a domain’s relative risk of penalization by using a series of flags that are highly correlated with penalized sites.

**Unnatural links:** Google describes unnatural links as “creating links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page.” This is a violation of their guidelines and could warrant a penalty against the offending website.

## Chapter 7: Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO

**API:** An application programming interface (API) allows for the creation of applications by accessing the features or data of another service like an operating system or application.

**Bounce rate:** The percentage of total visits that did not result in a secondary action on your site. For example, if someone visited your home page and then left before viewing any other pages, that would be a bounced session.

**Channel:** The different vehicles by which you can get attention and acquire traffic, such as organic search and social media.

**Click-through rate:** The ratio of impressions to clicks on your URLs.

**Conversion rate:** The ratio of visits to conversions. Conversion rate answers _how many of my website visitors are filling out my forms, calling, signing up for my newsletter, etc.?_

**Qualified lead:** If you use your website to encourage potential customers to contact you via phone call or form, a “lead” is every contact you receive. Not all of those leads will become customers, but “qualified” leads are relevant prospects that have a high likelihood of becoming paying customers.

**Google Analytics goals:** What actions are you hoping people take on your website? Whatever your answer, you can set those up as goals in Google Analytics to track your conversion rate.

**Google Tag Manager:** A single hub for managing multiple website tracking codes.

**Googlebot / Bingbot:** How major search engines like Google and Bing crawl the web; their “crawlers” or “spiders.”

**Kanban:** A scheduling system.

**Pages per session:** Also referred to as “page depth,” pages per session describes the average number of pages people view of your website in a single session.

**Page speed:** Page speed is made up of a number of equally important qualities, such as first contentful/meaningful paint and time to interactive.

**Pruning:** In an SEO context, pruning typically refers to removing low-quality pages in order to increase the quality of the site overall.

**Scroll depth:** A method of tracking how far visitors are scrolling down your pages.

**Scrum board:** A method of keeping track of tasks that need to be completed to accomplish a larger goal.

**Search traffic:** Visits sent to your websites from search engines like Google.

**Time on page:** The amount of time someone spent on your page before clicking to the next page. Because Google Analytics tracks time on page by when someone clicks your next page, bounced sessions will clock a time on page of 0.

**UTM code:** An urchin tracking module (UTM) is a simple code that you can append to the end of your URL to track additional details about the click, such as its source, medium, and campaign name.

##### Try Moz Pro free

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Jason-Nurmi-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760481297&s=9bc9576bd72c4141499d452c64370501)](/checkout/freetrial)

* * *

#### Scale revenue from SEO with Moz Pro

Get started with the all-in-one SEO tool marketers trust

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path: references-moz/INDEX.md
content: # Moz Beginner's Guide to SEO — 索引

> 来源：Moz 官方 Beginner's Guide to SEO（10章）
> 定位：按需补充，默认不使用（优先用 Google 官方文档）

## 综合总结

- [MOZ-LEARNING-SUMMARY.md](MOZ-LEARNING-SUMMARY.md) — 10 章核心要点总结（推荐阅读）

## 逐章原文

| # | 章节 | 文件 | 大小 |
|---|------|------|------|
| 1 | Introduction | [introduction.txt](introduction.txt) | ~9 KB |
| 2 | How Search Engines Operate | [how-search-engines-operate.txt](how-search-engines-operate.txt) | ~51 KB |
| 3 | Keyword Research | [keyword-research.txt](keyword-research.txt) | ~21 KB |
| 4 | On-Page SEO | [on-page-seo.txt](on-page-seo.txt) | ~44 KB |
| 5 | Technical SEO | [technical-seo.txt](technical-seo.txt) | ~34 KB |
| 6 | Growing Popularity and Links | [growing-popularity-and-links.txt](growing-popularity-and-links.txt) | ~35 KB |
| 7 | Why Search Engine Marketing Is Necessary | [why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary.txt](why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary.txt) | ~20 KB |
| 8 | Measuring and Tracking Success | [measuring-and-tracking-success.txt](measuring-and-tracking-success.txt) | ~24 KB |
| 9 | SEO Glossary | [seo-glossary.txt](seo-glossary.txt) | ~30 KB |
| 10 | Quick Start Guide | [quick-start-guide.txt](quick-start-guide.txt) | ~34 KB |


path: references-moz/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary.txt
content: #### Table of Contents:

[1\. Introduction](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo) [2\. Quick Start Guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide)

[3\. SEO 101](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary)

[4\. How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate) [5\. Keyword Research](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research) [6\. On-Page SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo) [7\. Technical SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo) [8\. Link Building & Establishing Authority](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links) [9\. Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO Success](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success) [10\. SEO Glossary of Terms](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

##### Share

  *   *   *   * Copied!

## SEO 101

### What is it, and why is it important?

Welcome! We’re excited that you’re here!

If you already have a solid understanding of SEO and why it's important, you can skip to [Chapter 2](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate) (though we'd still recommend skimming the best practices from Google and Bing at the end of this chapter; they're useful refreshers).

For everyone else, this chapter will help build your foundational SEO knowledge and confidence as you move forward.

## What is SEO?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand, through non-paid (also known as "organic") search engine results.

_Despite the acronym, SEO is as much about people as it is about search engines themselves._ It’s about understanding what people are searching for online, the answers they are seeking, the words they’re using, and the type of content they wish to consume. Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to connect to the people who are searching online for the solutions you offer.

If knowing your audience’s intent is one side of the SEO coin, delivering it in a way search engine crawlers can find and understand is the other. In this guide, expect to learn how to do both.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Laura-Simis-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760464910&s=fd254189cd07c74553b5f4228a2e720e)](/checkout/freetrial)

### What's that word mean?

If you're having trouble with any of the definitions in this chapter, be sure to open up our SEO glossary for reference!

[ Check out the SEO glossary  ](/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

## Search engine basics

Search engines are answer machines. They scour billions of pieces of content and evaluate thousands of factors to determine which content is most likely to answer your query.

Search engines do all of this by discovering and cataloguing all available content on the Internet (web pages, PDFs, images, videos, etc.) via a process known as “crawling and indexing,” and then ordering it by how well it matches the query in a process we refer to as “ranking.” We’ll cover crawling, indexing, and ranking in more detail in the next chapter.

### Which search results are "organic"?

As we said earlier, organic search results are the ones that are earned through effective SEO, not paid for (i.e. not advertising). These used to be easy to spot - the ads were clearly labeled as such and the remaining results typically took the form of "10 blue links" listed below them. But with the way search has changed, how can we spot organic results today?

Today, search engine results pages — often referred to as “SERPs” — are filled with both more advertising and more dynamic organic results formats (called “SERP features”) than we've ever seen before. Some examples of SERP features are featured snippets (or answer boxes), People Also Ask boxes, image carousels, etc. New SERP features continue to emerge, driven largely by what people are seeking.

For example, if you search for "Denver weather," you’ll see a weather forecast for the city of Denver directly in the SERP instead of a link to a site that might have that forecast. And, if you search for “pizza Denver,” you’ll see a “local pack” result made up of Denver pizza places. Convenient, right?

It’s important to remember that search engines make money from advertising. Their goal is to better solve searcher’s queries (within SERPs), to keep searchers coming back, and to keep them on the SERPs longer.

Some SERP features on Google are organic and can be influenced by SEO. These include featured snippets (a promoted organic result that displays an answer inside a box) and related questions (a.k.a. "People Also Ask" boxes).

It's worth noting that there are many other search features that, even though they aren't paid advertising, can't typically be influenced by SEO. These features often have data acquired from proprietary data sources, such as Wikipedia, WebMD, and IMDb.

## Why SEO is important

While paid advertising, social media, and other online platforms can generate traffic to websites, the majority of online traffic is driven by search engines.

Organic search results cover more digital real estate, appear more credible to savvy searchers, and receive way more clicks than paid advertisements. For example, [of all US searches, only ~2.8%](/rand/seo-opportunity-growing-shrinking/) of people click on paid advertisements.

In a nutshell: [SEO has ~20X more traffic opportunity than PPC on both mobile and desktop.](/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed)

SEO is also one of the only online marketing channels that, when set up correctly, can continue to pay dividends over time. If you provide a solid piece of content that deserves to rank for the right keywords, your traffic can snowball over time, whereas advertising needs continuous funding to send traffic to your site.

Search engines are getting smarter, but they still need our help.

Optimizing your site will help deliver better information to search engines so that your content can be properly indexed and displayed within search results.

Check out this Whiteboard Friday by Larry Waddell on [How to Explain the Value of SEO to Executives](https://moz.com/blog/explain-seo-value-whiteboard-friday)!

![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/xb9w5eeshy/swatch)

### Should I hire an SEO professional, consultant, or agency?

Depending on your bandwidth, willingness to learn, and the complexity of your website(s), you could perform some basic SEO yourself. Or, you might discover that you would prefer the help of an expert. Either way is okay!

If you end up looking for expert help, it's important to know that many agencies and consultants "provide SEO services," but can vary widely in quality. [Knowing how to choose a good SEO company](https://cms.moz.com/blog/how-to-choose-seo-company-whiteboard-friday) can save you a lot of time and money, as the wrong SEO techniques can actually harm your site more than they will help.

We also maintain a [recommended list of agency partners](https://moz.com/community/recommended), all of whom use [Moz SEO tools](https://moz.com/products) to power their work on your behalf!

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Alex-Bruner-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760465575&s=b6df7d89e7184ab658ab2bd7bd2383e5)](/checkout/freetrial)

### White hat vs black hat SEO

"White hat SEO" refers to SEO techniques, best practices, and strategies that abide by search engine rule, its primary focus to provide more value to people.

"Black hat SEO" refers to techniques and strategies that attempt to spam/fool search engines. While black hat SEO can work, it puts websites at tremendous risk of being penalized and/or de-indexed (removed from search results) and has ethical implications.

Penalized websites have bankrupted businesses. It's just another reason to be very careful when choosing an SEO expert or agency.

### Search engines share similar goals with the SEO industry

Search engines want to help you succeed. In fact, Google even has a Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, much like [our own SEO Beginner’s Guide](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo#guide)! They're also quite supportive of efforts by the SEO community. Digital marketing conferences — such as Unbounce, MNsearch, SearchLove, and Moz's own [MozCon](https://moz.com/mozcon) — regularly attract engineers and representatives from major search engines.

Google assists webmasters and SEOs through their [Webmaster Central Help Forum](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/webmasters) and [Google SEO Office Hours](https://developers.google.com/search/help/office-hours)[.](https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/office-hours) (Bing, unfortunately, shut down their Webmaster Forums in 2014.)

While webmaster guidelines vary from search engine to search engine, the underlying principles stay the same: Don’t try to trick search engines. Instead, provide your visitors with a great online experience. To do that, follow search engine guidelines and fulfill user intent.

### Google Webmaster Guidelines

#### Basic principles:

  * Make pages primarily for users, not search engines.
  * Don't deceive your users.
  * Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
  * Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging.

#### Things to avoid:

  * Automatically generated content
  * Participating in link schemes
  * Creating pages with little or no original content (i.e. copied from somewhere else)
  * Cloaking — the practice of showing search engine crawlers different content than visitors.
  * Hidden text and links
  * Doorway pages — pages created to rank well for specific searches to funnel traffic to your website.

#### Things to avoid:

  * Thin content, pages showing mostly ads or affiliate links, or that otherwise redirect visitors away to other sites will not rank well.
  * Abusive link tactics that aim to inflate the number and nature of inbound links such as buying links, participating in link schemes, can lead to de-indexing.
  * Ensure clean, concise, keyword-inclusive URL structures are in place. Dynamic parameters can dirty up your URLs and cause duplicate content issues.
  * Make your URLs descriptive, short, keyword rich when possible, and avoid non-letter characters.
  * Burying links in Javascript/Flash/Silverlight; keep content out of these as well.
  * Duplicate content
  * Keyword stuffing
  * Cloaking — the practice of showing search engine crawlers different content than visitors.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Lily-Ray-Try-Link-Explorer-1.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760466668&s=7403b3485dd1e79742d4f456dfb0c81c)](/link-explorer)

### Guidelines for representing your local business on Google

If the business for which you perform SEO work operates locally, either out of a storefront or drives to customers’ locations to perform service, it qualifies for a Google My Business listing. For local businesses like these, Google has guidelines that govern what you should and shouldn’t do in creating and managing these listings.

#### Basic principles:

  * Be sure you’re eligible for inclusion in the Google My Business index; you must have a physical address, even if it’s your home address, and you must serve customers face-to-face, either at your location (like a retail store) or at theirs (like a plumber)
  * Honestly and accurately represent all aspects of your local business data, including its name, address, phone number, website address, business categories, hours of operation, and other features.

#### Things to avoid

  * Creation of Google My Business listings for entities that aren’t eligible
  * Misrepresentation of any of your core business information, including “stuffing” your business name with geographic or service keywords, or creating listings for fake addresses
  * Use of PO boxes or virtual offices instead of authentic street addresses
  * Abuse of the review portion of the Google My Business listing, via fake positive reviews of your business or fake negative ones of your competitors
  * Costly, novice mistakes stemming from failure to [read the fine details of Google’s guidelines](https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en)

It's good to be very familiar with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Make time to get to know them.

[ See the full Google Webmaster Guidelines here  ](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en)

### Local, national, or international SEO?

Local businesses will often want to rank for local-intent keywords such as “[service] + [near me]” or “[service] + [city]” in order to capture potential customers searching for products or services in the specific locale in which they offer them. However, not all businesses operate locally. Many websites do not represent a location-based business, but instead target audiences on a national or even an international level. Be on the lookout for more on the topic of local, national, and international SEO in [Chapter 4](/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo)!

### Bing Webmaster Guidelines

#### Basic principles:

  * Provide clear, deep, engaging, and easy-to-find content on your site.
  * Keep page titles clear and relevant.
  * Links are regarded as a signal of popularity and Bing rewards links that have grown organically.
  * Social influence and social shares are positive signals and can have an impact on how you rank organically in the long run.
  * Page speed is important, along with a positive, useful user experience.
  * Use alt attributes to describe images, so that Bing can better understand the content.

### Fulfilling user intent

Instead of violating these guidelines in an attempt to trick search engines into ranking you higher, focus on understanding and fulfilling user intent. When a person searches for something, they have a desired outcome. Whether it’s an answer, concert tickets, or a cat photo, that desired content is their “[user intent.](https://moz.com/learn/seo/search-intent)”

If a person performs a search for “bands," is their intent to find musical bands, wedding bands, band saws, or something else?

Your job as an SEO is to quickly provide users with the content they desire in the format in which they desire it.

Common user intent types:

> [**Informational**](https://moz.com/learn/seo/informational-keywords)**:** Searching for information. Example: “What is the best type of laptop for photography?”

> [**Navigational**](https://moz.com/learn/seo/navigational-keywords)**:** Searching for a specific website. Example: “Apple”

> [**Transactional**](https://moz.com/learn/seo/transactional-keywords)**:** Searching to buy something. Example: “good deals on MacBook Pros”

You can get a glimpse of user intent by Googling your desired keyword(s) and evaluating the current SERP. For example, if there's a photo carousel, it’s very likely that people searching for that keyword search for photos.

Also evaluate what content your top-ranking competitors are providing that you currently aren’t. How can you provide 10X the value on your website?

Providing relevant, high-quality content on your website will help you rank higher in search results, and more importantly, it will establish credibility and trust with your online audience.

Before you do any of that, you have to first understand your website’s goals to execute a strategic SEO plan.

If you'll be focusing on ranking in the Bing search engine, get to know their guidelines, as well. It's only polite (and good sense!)

[ See the full Bing Webmaster Guidelines here  ](https://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a)

What will your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) be to measure the return on SEO investment? More simply, what is your barometer to measure the success of your organic search efforts? You'll want to have it documented, even if it's this simple:

> For the website ____________, my primary SEO KPI is ____________.

Here are a few common KPIs to get you started:

  * Sales
  * Downloads
  * Email signups
  * Contact form submissions
  * Phone calls

And if your business has a local component, you’ll want to define KPIs for your Google My Business listings, as well. These might include:

  * Clicks-to-call
  * Clicks-to-website
  * Clicks-for-driving-directions

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Will-Critchlow-Try-Link-Explorer.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760466404&s=323838f945b2817cd403c9615a32073a)](/link-explorer)

You may have noticed that things like “ranking” and “traffic” weren’t on the KPIs list, and that’s intentional.

“But wait a minute!” You say. “I came here to learn about SEO because I heard it could help me rank and get traffic, and you’re telling me those aren’t important goals?”

Not at all! You’ve heard correctly. SEO can help your website rank higher in search results and consequently drive more traffic to your website, it’s just that ranking and traffic are a means to an end. There’s little use in ranking if no one is clicking through to your site, and there’s little use in increasing your traffic if that traffic isn’t accomplishing a larger business objective.

For example, if you run a lead generation site, would you rather have:

  * 1,000 monthly visitors and 3 people fill out a contact form? Or...
  * 300 monthly visitors and 40 people fill out a contact form?

If you’re using SEO to drive traffic to your site for the purpose of conversions, we hope you’d pick the latter! Before embarking on SEO, make sure you’ve laid out your business goals, then use SEO to help you accomplish them — not the other way around.

SEO accomplishes so much more than vanity metrics. When done well, it helps real businesses achieve real goals for their success.

Setting (and eventually achieving) the right goals is one of the most important things you can do as an SEO. We even have a handy Whiteboard Friday all about how to set smart, measurable goals for your clients!

[ Watch the Whiteboard Friday  ](/blog/smart-seo-goals)

#####

This guide will help you become more data-driven in your SEO efforts. Rather than haphazardly throwing arrows all over the place (and getting lucky every once in a while), you'll put more wood behind fewer arrows.

Grab a bow (and some coffee); let's dive into [Chapter 2 (How Search Engines Work – Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking)](/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate).

* * *

Written by [Britney Muller](/community/users/514135) and the Moz staff.

## Deliver the right content for every stage of your buyer’s journey

**with Keyword Explorer**

[ Analyze search intent ](/checkout/freetrial/signup/pro_medium/monthly)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Search-Intent.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855262&s=2e2c5838e6c7b5e4d71545b66c66290a)

### Know your website/client’s goals

Every website is different, so take the time to [really understand a specific site’s business goals](/blog/seo-value-for-clients). This will not only help you determine which areas of SEO you should focus on, where to track conversions, and how to set benchmarks, but it will also help you create talking points for negotiating SEO projects with clients, bosses, etc.

Learn more about determining strategy and setting business, marketing, and SEO goals in the first installment of the One-Hour Guide to SEO, hosted by the one and only Rand Fishkin!

[ Watch the video  ](https://moz.com/learn/seo/one-hour-guide-to-seo)

* * *

#### Scale revenue from SEO with Moz Pro

Get started with the all-in-one SEO tool marketers trust

[ Start your free trial ](/checkout/freetrial/signup/pro_medium/monthly?utm_campaign=scalerevenue&utm_content=yellow_cta_button)

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path: references-moz/keyword-research.txt
content: #### Table of Contents:

[1\. Introduction](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo) [2\. Quick Start Guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide) [3\. SEO 101](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary) [4\. How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate)

[5\. Keyword Research](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research)

[6\. On-Page SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo) [7\. Technical SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo) [8\. Link Building & Establishing Authority](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links) [9\. Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO Success](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success) [10\. SEO Glossary of Terms](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

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## Keyword Research

### Understand what your audience wants to find

Now that you’ve learned how to show up in search results, let’s determine which strategic keywords to target in your website’s content, and how to craft that content to satisfy both users and search engines.

The power of keyword research lies in better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products.

Keyword research provides you with specific search data that can help you answer questions like:

  * What are people searching for?
  * How many people are searching for it?
  * In what format do they want that information?

In this chapter, you'll get tools and strategies for uncovering that information, as well as learn tactics that'll help you avoid keyword research foibles and build strong content. Once you uncover how your target audience is searching for your content, you begin to uncover a whole new world of strategic SEO!

### We've got a tool for that

Moz has a free tool that can help you discover and analyze keywords. When you're ready to get your hands dirty with keyword research, give it a try!

[ Try Keyword Explorer  ](/explorer)

## Before keyword research, ask questions

Before you can help a business grow through search engine optimization, you first have to understand who they are, who their customers are, and their goals.

This is where corners are often cut. Too many people bypass this crucial planning step because keyword research takes time, and why spend the time when you already know what you want to rank for?

The answer is that what you want to rank for and what your audience actually wants are often two wildly different things. Focusing on your audience and then using keyword data to hone those insights will make for much more successful campaigns than focusing on arbitrary keywords.

Here’s an example. Frankie & Jo’s (a Seattle-based vegan, gluten-free ice cream shop) is seeking digital marketing advice to improve how often their pages appear in organic search results in order to bring in more online traffic, more in-store traffic, and more paying customers. In order to help them, you need to first understand a little more about who their customers are. To do so, you might ask questions such as:

  * What types of ice cream, desserts, snacks, etc. are people searching for?
  * Who is searching for these terms?
  * When are people searching for ice cream, snacks, desserts, etc.?
    * Are there seasonality trends throughout the year?
  * How are people searching for ice cream?
    * What words do they use?
    * What questions do they ask?
    * Are more searches performed on mobile devices?
  * Why are people seeking ice cream?
    * Are individuals looking for health-conscious ice cream specifically or just looking to satisfy a sweet tooth?
  * Where are potential customers located — locally, nationally, or internationally?

And finally — here's the kicker — how can you help provide the best content about ice cream to cultivate a community and fulfill what all those people are searching for? Asking these questions is a crucial planning step that will guide your keyword research and help you craft better content.

## Discover what keywords you're already ranking for

Keyword Explorer can show you which keywords your pages are ranking for, their search volume, difficulty, and more.

[ See my ranking keywords ](/explorer)

![](https://moz.com/images/assets/CTAs/Illustrations/Keyword-Research.png?w=290&h=200&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1733855252&s=a0f13ab27cde45208f08d8269288c98d)

## What terms are people searching for?

You may have a way of describing what you do, but how does your audience search for the product, service, or information you provide? Answering this question is a crucial first step in the keyword research process.

### Discovering keywords

You likely have a few keywords in mind for which you would like to rank. These will be things like your products, services, or other topics your website addresses, and they are great seed keywords for your research, so start there! You can enter those keywords into a [keyword research tool](/explorer) to discover the average monthly search volume and similar keywords. We’ll get into search volume in greater depth in the next section, but during the discovery phase, it can help you determine which variations of your keywords are most popular amongst searchers.

Once you enter your seed keywords into a keyword research tool, you will begin to discover other keywords, common questions, and topics for your content that you might have otherwise missed.

Let’s use the example of a florist that specializes in weddings.

Typing “wedding” and “florist” into a keyword research tool, you may discover highly relevant, highly searched-for related terms such as:

  * Wedding bouquets
  * Bridal flowers
  * Wedding flower shop

In the process of discovering relevant keywords for your content, you will likely notice that the search volume of those keywords varies greatly. While you definitely want to target terms that your audience is searching for, in some cases, it may be more advantageous to target terms with lower search volume because they're far less competitive.

Since both high- and low-competition keywords can be advantageous for your website, learning more about search volume can help you prioritize keywords and pick the ones that will give your website the biggest strategic advantage.

### Diversify!

It’s important to note that entire websites don’t rank for keywords — _pages_ do. With big brands, we often see the homepage ranking for many keywords, but for most websites this isn’t usually the case. Many websites receive more organic traffic to pages other than the homepage, which is why it’s so important to diversify your website’s pages by optimizing each for uniquely valuable keywords.

[ Learn more about optimizing a single page for multiple keywords  ](/blog/target-multiple-keywords-next-level)

## How often are those terms searched?

### Uncovering search volume

The higher the search volume for a given keyword or keyword phrase, the more work is typically required to achieve higher rankings. This is often referred to as keyword difficulty and occasionally incorporates SERP features; for example, if many SERP features (like featured snippets, knowledge graph, carousels, etc) are clogging up a keyword’s result page, difficulty will increase. Big brands often take up the top 10 results for high-volume keywords, so if you’re just starting out on the web and going after the same keywords, the uphill battle for ranking can take years of effort.

Typically, the higher the search volume, the greater the competition and effort required to achieve organic ranking success. Go too low, though, and you risk not drawing any searchers to your site. In many cases, it may be most advantageous to target highly specific, lower competition search terms. In SEO, we call those long-tail keywords.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Tom-Capper-Try-Keyword-Explorer.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760470406&s=01109bad966ca1a1b6c952d1bcabd105)](/explorer)

### Understanding the long tail

It would be great to rank #1 for the keyword "shoes"... or would it?

It's wonderful to deal with keywords that have 50,000 searches a month, or even 5,000 searches a month, but in reality, these popular search terms only make up a fraction of all searches performed on the web. In fact, keywords with very high search volumes may even indicate ambiguous intent, which, if you target these terms, it could put you at risk for drawing visitors to your site whose goals don't match the content your page provides.

![](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-23.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554095877&s=acb94158150c707845e7256d31e5d48b)

Does the searcher want to know the nutritional value of pizza? Order a pizza? Find a restaurant to take their family? Google doesn’t know, so they offer these features to help you refine. Targeting “pizza” means that you’re likely casting too wide a net.

![](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-16.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554095902&s=578f735abf89e7321d84f193c9260287)

If you're searching for "pizza," Google thinks you may also be interested in "cheese." They're not wrong...

![](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-18.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554095934&s=42d7126cd8517c17db120651162b6f54)

Was your intent to find a pizza place for lunch? The "Discover more places" SERP feature has that covered.

The remaining 75% lie in the "chunky middle" and "long tail" of search.

![A depiction of the search demand curve, showing the 'fat head' \(top keywords with high traffic and competition\), the 'chunky middle' \(medium keywords with medium traffic and competition\), and the 'long tail' \(less popular and longer keyword phrases with less traffic and lower competition\)](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Moz-BGSEO-Ch3-02-v2-outlines-01.svg?dm=1554155731)

Don’t underestimate these less popular keywords. Long tail keywords with lower search volume often convert better, because searchers are more specific and intentional in their searches. For example, a person searching for "shoes" is probably just browsing. On the other hand, someone searching for "best price red womens size 7 running shoe" practically has their wallet out!

### Do you know the 4 main types of search intent?

Understanding how Google and other search engines understand intent can help you create the right type of content for your audience

[ Learn more about search intent  ](/learn/seo/search-intent)

### Questions are SEO gold!

Discovering what questions people are asking in your space — and adding those questions and their answers to an FAQ page — can yield incredible organic traffic for your website.

[ Learn more about how to target the long tail of search  ](/blog/diving-for-pearls-guide-long-tail-keywords-next-level)

## Getting strategic with search volume

Now that you’ve discovered relevant search terms for your site and their corresponding search volumes, you can get even more strategic by looking at your competitors and figuring out how searches might differ by season or location.

### Keywords by competitor

You’ll likely compile a lot of keywords. How do you know which to tackle first? It could be a good idea to prioritize high-volume keywords that your competitors are not currently ranking for. On the flip side, you could also see which keywords from your list your competitors are already ranking for and prioritize those. The former is great when you want to take advantage of your competitors’ missed opportunities, while the latter is an aggressive strategy that sets you up to compete for keywords your competitors are already performing well for.

### Keywords by season

Knowing about seasonal trends can be advantageous in setting a content strategy. For example, if you know that [“christmas box” starts to spike in October through December](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=christmas%20box) in the United Kingdom, you can prepare content months in advance and give it a big push around those months.

### Keywords by region

You can more strategically target a specific location by narrowing down your keyword research to specific towns, counties, or states in the [Google Keyword Planner](http://adwords.google.com/keywordplanner), or evaluate "interest by subregion" in [Google Trends](https://trends.google.com/trends). Geo-specific research can help make your content more relevant to your target audience. For example, you might find out that in Texas, the preferred term for a large truck is “big rig,” while in New York, “tractor trailer” is the preferred terminology.

If you're enjoying this chapter so far, be sure to check out the keyword research episode of our One-Hour Guide to SEO video series!

[ Watch the video  ](/blog/one-hour-seo-guide-part-2-keyword-research)

## Which format best suits the searcher's intent?

In Chapter 2, we learned about SERP features. That background is going to help us understand how searchers want to consume information for a particular keyword. The format in which Google chooses to display search results depends on intent, and every query has a unique one. Google describes these intents in their [Quality Rater Guidelines](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf) as either “know” (find information), “do” (accomplish a goal), “website” (find a specific website), or “visit-in-person” (visit a local business).

While there are thousands of possible search types, let’s take a closer look at five major categories of intent:

**1.** **Informational queries:** The searcher needs information, such as the name of a band or the height of the Empire State Building.

![A screenshot of the SERP feature result for the query 'who sings Sweet Caroline' \(the answer is Neil Diamond.\)](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-25.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554095973&s=b50c65f4858e61b6021f41a82cf9d4fd)

**2.[Navigational queries](/learn/seo/navigational-keywords): **The searcher wants to go to a particular place on the Internet, such as Facebook or the homepage of the NFL.

![A screenshot of the query 'moz blog' and resulting SERP.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-22.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096012&s=b7ba3fcf25ee2a66d9b490a464f06e8b)

**3\. Transactional queries:** The searcher wants to do something, such as buy a plane ticket or listen to a song.

![A screenshot of the query 'plane tickets to seattle' and resulting SERP.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-26.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096047&s=3c4c9b9af48ec2a03334e98a23573ef2)

**4\. Commercial investigation:** The searcher wants to compare products and find the best one for their specific needs.

![A screenshot of the query 'ps4 vs ps4 pro' and resulting SERP.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-17.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096075&s=1b02a48bbcfdff4e91946fa7ad627f16)

**5\. Local queries:** The searcher wants to find something locally, such as a nearby coffee shop, doctor, or music venue.

![A screenshot of the query 'coffee shop near me' and resulting SERP with local results.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-21.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096106&s=fb4c06abdcee6dff131073712578f623)

An important step in the keyword research process is surveying the SERP landscape for the keyword you want to target in order to get a better gauge of searcher intent. If you want to know what type of content your target audience wants, look to the SERPs!

Google has closely evaluated the behavior of trillions of searches in an attempt to provide the most desired content for each specific keyword search.

Take the search “dresses,” for example:

![A screenshot of the query 'dresses' and resulting carousel.](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-19.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096133&s=be5cf06bedabfa674d5e6581f9502a73)

By the shopping carousel, you can infer that Google has determined many people who search for “dresses” want to shop for dresses online.

![A screenshot of the local results for the query 'dresses.'](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-20.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096159&s=e4f7ded41ef8745d8ac6bac3ea7e85ed)

There is also a Local Pack feature for this keyword, indicating Google’s desire to help searchers who may be looking for local dress retailers.

![A screenshot of the Refine By results for the query 'dresses.'](https://moz.com/images/learn/guides/BGSEOAsset-24.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1554096185&s=03549ad1f261ea90c602089df05a172d)

If the query is ambiguous, Google will also sometimes include the “refine by” feature to help searchers specify what they’re looking for further. By doing so, the search engine can provide results that better help the searcher accomplish their task.

Google has a wide array of result types it can serve up depending on the query, so if you’re going to target a keyword, look to the SERP to understand what type of content you need to create.

Learn more about user intent in Rejoice Ojiaku's Whiteboard Friday: [Map Your Keywords to the Buyer's Journey and User Intent](https://moz.com/blog/buyers-journey-and-user-intent-whiteboard-friday):

![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/d09pw4wat8/swatch)

### Download our free template!

Keyword research can yield a _ton_ of data. Stay organized by downloading our free keyword research template. Customize the template to fit your unique needs. Happy keyword researching!

[ Download the template  ](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j_rqwa-kNh-uCaVngM7Bfv8SM5tT09qvezDTclhbhrI/copy)

## Tools for determining the value of a keyword

How much value would a keyword add to your website? These tools can help you answer that question, so they’d make great additions to your keyword research arsenal:

  * [Moz Keyword Explorer](/explorer#index2) \- Input a keyword in Keyword Explorer and get information like monthly search volume and SERP features (like local packs or featured snippets) that are ranking for that term. The tool extracts accurate search volume data by using live clickstream data. To learn more about how we're producing our keyword data, check out [Announcing Keyword Explorer](/blog/announcing-keyword-explorer-mozs-new-keyword-research-tool).

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Lily-Ray-Try-Keyword-Explorer.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760470662&s=bd53ef21920bb5b3305d7627904cccca)](/explorer)

  * **Bonus!** Keyword Explorer’s "Difficulty" score can also help you narrow down your keyword options to the phrases you have the best shot at ranking for. The higher a keyword’s score, the more difficult it would be to rank for that term. [More about Keyword Difficulty](https://moz.com/help/keyword-explorer/keyword-metrics/difficulty).
  * [Google Keyword Planner](http://adwords.google.com/keywordplanner) \- Google's AdWords Keyword Planner has historically been the most common starting point for SEO keyword research. However, Keyword Planner does restrict search volume data by lumping keywords together into large search volume range buckets. To learn more, check out [Google Keyword Planner’s Dirty Secrets](/blog/google-keyword-planner-dirty-secrets).
  * [Google Trends](https://www.google.com/trends/) \- Google’s keyword trend tool is great for finding seasonal keyword fluctuations. For example, “funny halloween costume ideas” will peak in the weeks before Halloween.
  * [AnswerThePublic](http://answerthepublic.com/) \- This free tool populates commonly searched for questions around a specific keyword. Bonus! You can use this tool in tandem with another free tool, [Keywords Everywhere](https://keywordseverywhere.com/), to prioritize ATP’s suggestions by search volume.
  * [SpyFu Keyword Research Tool](https://www.spyfu.com/) \- Provides some really neat competitive keyword data.

### Hungry for more keyword research?

We've got a whole _'nother_ guide for that. When you're ready, check out our new **Keyword Research Master Guide** to seriously level-up your skills.

[ Check out the guide  ](/keyword-research-guide)

#####

Now that you know how to uncover what your target audience is searching for and how often, it’s time to move onto the next step: crafting pages in a way that users will love and search engines can understand. Head to [Chapter 4 (On-Site Optimization)](/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo#index)!

* * *

Written by [Britney Muller](/community/users/514135) and the Moz staff.

* * *

#### Scale revenue from SEO with Moz Pro

Get started with the all-in-one SEO tool marketers trust

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path: references-moz/introduction.txt
content: #### Table of Contents:

[1\. Introduction](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo)

[2\. Quick Start Guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide) [3\. SEO 101](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary) [4\. How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate) [5\. Keyword Research](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research) [6\. On-Page SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo) [7\. Technical SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo) [8\. Link Building & Establishing Authority](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links) [9\. Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO Success](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success) [10\. SEO Glossary of Terms](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

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## Introduction

### Welcome to your SEO learning journey!

You'll get the most out of this guide if your desire to learn **search engine optimization** (SEO) is exceeded only by your willingness to execute and test concepts.

This guide is designed to describe all major aspects of SEO, from finding the terms and phrases ([keywords](/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research#index)) that can generate qualified traffic to your website, to making your site [friendly to search engines](/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo#index), to [building links](/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links#index) and marketing the unique value of your site.

The world of search engine optimization is complex and ever-changing, but you can easily understand the basics, and even a small amount of SEO knowledge can make a big difference. Free SEO education is also widely available on the web, including in guides like this! (Woohoo!)

Combine this information with some practice and you are well on your way to becoming a savvy SEO.

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Josh-Stricklin-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760464890&s=eacd99407daefbc78ebb6cec3a1c505b)](/checkout/freetrial)

## The basics of search engine optimization

Ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It's a theory of psychology that prioritizes the most fundamental human needs (like air, water, and physical safety) over more advanced needs (like esteem and social belonging). The theory is that you can't achieve the needs at the top without ensuring the more fundamental needs are met first. Love doesn't matter if you don't have food.

Our founder, Rand Fishkin, made a similar pyramid to explain the way folks should go about SEO, and we've affectionately dubbed it "_Moz_ low's hierarchy of SEO needs."

Here's what it looks like:

![Guide to SEO Basics](https://moz.com/files/learn/guides/Mozlows-01-outline.svg?dm=1554154345)

As you can see, the foundation of good SEO begins with ensuring crawl accessibility, and moves up from there.

Using this beginner's guide, we can follow these seven steps to successful SEO:

  1. Crawl accessibility so engines can read your website
  2. Compelling content that answers the searcher’s query
  3. Keyword optimized to attract searchers & engines
  4. Great user experience including a fast load speed and compelling UX
  5. Share-worthy content that earns links, citations, and amplification
  6. Title, URL, & description to draw high click-through-rate (CTR) in the rankings
  7. Snippet/schema markup to stand out in SERPs

We'll spend time on each of these areas throughout this guide, but we wanted to introduce it here because it offers a look at how we structured the guide as a whole.

Explore the chapters:

##### [Chapter 0: Quick Start Guide to SEO](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide)

 _Speed up to catch up_

Go from zero to hero with our step-by-step refresh on the core fundamentals for setting your site up for SEO success.

#####

##### [Chapter 1: SEO 101](/beginners-guide-to-seo/why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary)

_What is it, and why is it important?_

For true beginners. Learn what search engine optimization is, why it matters, and all the need-to-know basics to start yourself off right. Download your free Quick Start Worksheet.

#####

##### [Chapter 2: How Search Engines Work – Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking](/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate)

_First, you need to show up._

If search engines literally can't find you, none of the rest of your work matters. This chapter shows you how their robots crawl the Internet to find your site and add it to their indexes.

#####

##### [Chapter 3: Keyword Research](/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research)

_Understand what your audience wants to find._

Our approach targets users first because that's what search engines reward. This chapter covers keyword research and other methods to determine what your audience is seeking.

#####

##### [Chapter 4: On-Page SEO](/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo)

 _Use your research to craft your message._

This is a hefty chapter, covering optimized design, user experience, information architecture, and all the ways you can adjust how you publish content to maximize its visibility and resonance with your audience.

#####

##### [Chapter 5: Technical SEO](/beginners-guide-to-seo/technical-seo)

_Basic technical knowledge will help you optimize your site for search engines and establish credibility with developers._

By implementing responsive design, robot directives, and other technical elements like structured data and meta tags, you can tell Google (a robot itself) what your site is all about. This helps it rank for the right things.

#####

##### [Chapter 6: Link Building & Establishing Authority](/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links)

_Turn up the volume._

Once you've got everything in place, it's time to expand your influence by earning attention and links from other sites and influencers.

#####

##### [Chapter 7: Measuring, Prioritizing, & Executing SEO Success](/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success)

 _Set yourself up for success._

An essential part of SEO is knowing what's working (and what isn't), adjusting your approach as you go along.

#####

##### [Chapter 8: SEO Glossary of Terms](/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary)

 _Understand key terms and phrases._

Learning SEO can sometimes feel like learning another language, with all the jargon and industry terms you're expected to know. This chapter-by-chapter glossary will help you get a handle on all the new words.

### Moz Academy SEO Essentials Certification

Organize your learning with Moz's SEO Essentials Certification. Learn with on-demand videos and task lessons, test your knowledge with exams at the end of each section, and top it all off with shiny new credentials to share with your professional network.

[ Get Certified  ](https://academy.moz.com/path/seo-essentials-moz-certification)

## How much of this guide do I need to read?

If you're serious about improving search traffic we do recommend reading the Beginner's Guide to SEO front-to-back. We've tried to make it as concise and easy to understand as possible, and learning the basics of SEO is a vital first step in achieving your online business goals.

Go through at the pace that suits you best, and be sure to take note of the dozens of resources we link to throughout the chapters — they're also worthy of your attention.

If you want to take a more guided approach to learning SEO or training your entire team, check out the [Moz Academy SEO Essentials Certification](https://academy.moz.com/path/seo-essentials-moz-certification). We've consolidated all the resources you need to learn SEO fundamentals alongside unique learning methods, task lessons and quizzes to test your knowledge. You can also display your knowledge with your Linkedin Moz SEO Essentials certification badge.

Getting excited yet? You should be! Without further ado, let's launch into [Chapter 0: Quick Start Guide](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/quick-start-guide).

[![](https://moz.com/images/learn/Learn-CTAs/Sam-Callender-start-free-trial.png?w=1920&h=500&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1760464903&s=d9556bcd3f33a7ab773a7577a769f469)](/checkout/freetrial)

* * *

#### Scale revenue from SEO with Moz Pro

Get started with the all-in-one SEO tool marketers trust

[ Start your free trial ](/checkout/freetrial/signup/pro_medium/monthly?utm_campaign=scalerevenue&utm_content=yellow_cta_button)

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path: references-moz/MOZ-LEARNING-SUMMARY.md
content: # Moz SEO Beginners Guide 学习总结

> 学习时间：2026-04-22
> 以 Google SEO 指南为准，Moz 作为参考补充

---

## 第1章 Introduction（简介）

### Moz SEO 需求金字塔

从底层到顶层：

1. **Crawl Accessibility** — 搜索引擎能爬取
2. **Compelling Content** — 内容能回答用户问题
3. **Keyword Optimized** — 关键词吸引搜索者
4. **Great User Experience** — 快速加载、优秀UX
5. **Share-worthy Content** — 值得分享、获得链接
6. **Title/URL/Description** — 高CTR
7. **Snippet/Schema Markup** — SERP中脱颖而出

**与Google指南对比：** Google没有这种金字塔模型，这是一个很好的思考框架。

---

## 第2章 Quick Start Guide（快速入门）

### 7步快速SEO清单

1. **Gather SEO Data**
   - 安装 Google Analytics
   - 注册 Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools
   - 运行站点爬取（Moz Pro / Screaming Frog / Sitebulb）

2. **Check Indexation**
   - `site:yourdomain.com` 检查索引状态
   - 检查 robots.txt、meta robots、sitemap、重复内容

3. **Target Keywords**
   - 发现已有排名关键词
   - 找相关关键词（搜索量、难度、相关性）
   - 在页面中自然使用关键词

4. **Optimize Search Appearance**
   - Title Tag：50-60字符、唯一、含关键词
   - Meta Description：150-160字符、吸引点击
   - Structured Data：Article/Product schema
   - Breadcrumbs：结构化数据标记
   - Favicon：移动端显示

5. **Create Content**
   - 从用户意图出发
   - 使用 H1/H2/H3 层级结构
   - 图片加 alt text、优化尺寸
   - 保持内容新鲜度

6. **Internal Links & Site Architecture**
   - 清晰的导航
   - 所有重要页面有内链（无孤立页面）
   - 描述性锚文本
   - 逻辑化 URL 结构

7. **Link Building**
   - 查看已有外链
   - 分析竞品外链
   - 避免付费链接/作弊链接
   - 推广优质内容获取自然链接

**与Google指南对比：** Google没有这种"速查清单"，非常实用。Google更强调原则，Moz给出具体操作步骤。

---

## 第3章 SEO 101（SEO基础）

### 核心概念

- **SEO定义：** 提高网站在搜索引擎中非付费结果的质量和数量
- **Organic vs Paid：** 美国搜索仅~2.8%点击广告，SEO流量是PPC的20倍
- **SERP Features：** Featured Snippets、People Also Ask、Local Pack、Image Carousels

### White Hat vs Black Hat

| White Hat | Black Hat |
|-----------|-----------|
| 遵守搜索引擎规则 | 尝试欺骗搜索引擎 |
| 提供真实价值 | 关键词堆砌、隐藏文本 |
| 长期可持续 | 有被惩罚/移除索引风险 |

### Google Webmaster Guidelines 要点

**基本原则：**
- 为用户创建页面，而非搜索引擎
- 不欺骗用户
- 避免操纵排名的技巧
- 思考网站独特价值

**避免：**
- 自动生成内容
- 参与链接计划
- 薄内容、重复内容
- Cloaking（对搜索引擎显示不同内容）
- 隐藏文本和链接
- Doorway Pages

### 用户意图类型

1. **Informational** — 寻找信息
2. **Navigational** — 寻找特定网站
3. **Transactional** — 想要购买
4. **Commercial Investigation** — 产品比较

### KPI设置

**好的KPI：**
- 销售额、下载量、邮件注册、表单提交、电话

**不好的KPI：**
- 单纯追求排名、流量（这只是手段，不是目的）

**与Google指南对比：** Google的Essentials章节更详细。Moz的KPI理念与Google一致——转化才是目标。

---

## 第4章 How Search Engines Work（搜索引擎工作原理）

### 三个核心功能

1. **Crawling** — 发现内容
2. **Indexing** — 存储和组织内容
3. **Ranking** — 按相关性排序返回结果

### Crawling 要点

- **Googlebot** 从URL出发，跟随链接发现新页面
- **Caffeine** — Google的索引数据库
- **Robots.txt** — 告诉爬虫哪些不爬
- **Crawl Budget** — 爬虫在离开前会爬取的平均URL数，大型网站需优化

### Indexing 要点

- **site:yourdomain.com** 检查索引状态
- **Google Search Console** — Index Coverage Report
- **Meta Robots Tag** — noindex/noarchive/nofollow
- **X-Robots-Tag** — HTTP header中的指令

### Ranking 要点

- **PageRank** — 基于链接质量和数量的重要性评估
- **RankBrain** — 机器学习组件，根据用户行为调整排名
- **Engagement Metrics** — 点击、停留时间、跳出率、pogo-sticking

### 本地搜索三要素

1. **Relevance** — 与搜索意图匹配
2. **Distance** — 搜索者距离
3. **Prominence** — 知名度（评论、引用、有机排名）

**与Google指南对比：** Moz的crawling/indexing章节比Google更详细，尤其是crawl budget、engagement metrics等概念。Google官方文档更技术化，Moz更适合入门理解。

---

## 第5章 Keyword Research（关键词研究）

### 关键词研究流程

1. **Discover Keywords**
   - 从种子关键词出发
   - 使用关键词工具发现相关词
   - 考虑搜索量和竞争度

2. **Long Tail Keywords**
   - 长尾词占搜索总量的75%
   - 搜索量低但转化率高
   - 竞争度低，更容易排名

3. **Search Intent 分析**
   - Informational → Featured Snippet
   - Navigational → Sitelinks
   - Transactional → Shopping Results
   - Commercial Investigation → 比较表格
   - Local → Map Pack

### 关键词策略

- **按季节规划** — 提前几个月准备内容
- **按地域规划** — 不同地区用词习惯不同
- **竞品分析** — 找竞品有排名但自己没有的词

**与Google指南对比：** Google没有专门的关键词研究章节。Moz这部分是重要补充，提供了实用的关键词策略框架。

---

## 第6章 On-Page SEO（页面SEO）

### 内容质量

- **避免薄内容** — 不要为每个关键词变体创建单独页面
- **避免重复内容** — 使用 canonical 标签
- **10X Content** — 内容要比排名第一的页面好10倍

### 页面元素优化

| 元素 | 最佳实践 |
|------|----------|
| H1 | 每页唯一，包含主关键词 |
| H2-H6 | 层级分明，帮助理解内容结构 |
| Internal Links | 锚文本自然，链接数量合理 |
| Images | 压缩、alt text、正确格式 |

### Title Tag

- 50-60字符（约512像素）
- 关键词靠前
- 品牌名可放在末尾

### Meta Description

- 150-160字符
- 包含关键词（会被高亮）
- 吸引用户点击

### URL Structure

- 简短、描述性
- 用连字符分隔单词
- 包含关键词
- 全小写
- HTTPS

**与Google指南对比：** Google的appearance章节更详细（尤其是structured data），Moz的On-Page SEO更全面覆盖了内容创作和页面元素。两者互补。

---

## 第7章 Technical SEO（技术SEO）

### 网站工作原理

1. 域名购买 → DNS解析 → IP地址
2. 浏览器请求 → 服务器响应 → 渲染页面

### HTML/CSS/JavaScript

- **HTML** — 页面说什么
- **CSS** — 页面长什么样
- **JavaScript** — 页面如何行为

**JavaScript SEO问题：**
- 客户端渲染可能导致内容不被索引
- Google会"二次索引"JS内容
- 使用 GSC URL Inspection 检查Google看到的页面

### Schema Markup

- **JSON-LD** — Google推荐的格式
- 结构化数据可触发 Rich Snippets
- 不要标记不可见内容

### Canonicalization

- `rel="canonical"` 指定规范URL
- 自引用canonical防止重复内容问题
- 没有重复内容惩罚，但会被过滤

### Page Speed

- 图片压缩是关键
- SRCSET 响应式图片
- Lazy Loading
- Minification + Bundling

### Mobile-First Indexing

- Google使用移动版本索引
- 确保移动版本内容完整

**与Google指南对比：** Google的技术SEO文档更深入（JavaScript SEO、Core Web Vitals），Moz更适合入门者理解技术概念。

---

## 第8章 Link Building（链接建设）

### E-E-A-T

**Experience + Expertise + Authoritativeness + Trustworthiness**

- Google质量评估员指南的核心概念
- 链接来自高E-E-A-T网站更有价值

### Followed vs Nofollowed

```html
<!-- Followed link -->
<a href="https://example.com">Keyword</a>

<!-- Nofollowed link -->
<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Keyword</a>
```

- Nofollow不传递权重，但可能带来流量
- 健康的链接配置应包含两种链接

### 健康链接配置特征

1. **Earned/Editorial** — 自然获得，非购买
2. **来自权威页面** — DA/PA高
3. **随时间增长** — 持续获得，非一次性大量
4. **主题相关** — 相关领域的网站
5. **自然锚文本** — 多样化，非关键词堆砌
6. **带来流量** — 真实用户点击

### 避免的链接做法

- 购买链接
- 链接交换（大规模）
- 低质量目录链接

### 正确的链接建设方法

1. **客户/合作伙伴链接**
2. **博客** — 持续发布优质内容
3. **独特资源** — 数据、研究、工具
4. **Resource Pages** — 找资源页面请求链接
5. **社区参与** — 赞助、活动、本地商业
6. **内容翻新** — 更新旧内容、重新推广

**与Google指南对比：** Google的link building文档更简短，强调避免spam。Moz提供了具体的link building策略，是重要补充。

---

## 第9章 Measuring SEO Success（衡量SEO成功）

### 目标设定

- **Measurable** — 可衡量
- **Specific** — 具体
- **Shared** — 与他人分享

### 参与度指标

| 指标 | 含义 |
|------|------|
| Conversion Rate | 转化次数/访问次数 |
| Time on Page | 用户在页面停留时间 |
| Pages per Visit | 每次访问浏览页数 |
| Bounce Rate | 单页访问比例（不是坏指标，要看意图） |
| Scroll Depth | 用户滚动深度 |

### SEO审计工具

- Google Search Console
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Lighthouse Audit
- PageSpeed Insights
- Mobile-Friendly Test
- Structured Data Testing Tool

### 优先级矩阵

| | Urgent | Not Urgent |
|---|--------|------------|
| **Important** | 主要页面问题、高流量问题 | 非主要页面、中等流量问题 |
| **Not Important** | 与目标无关的报告 | Video sitemaps、meta keywords |

**与Google指南对比：** Google的monitor-debug章节侧重工具使用，Moz提供了更完整的KPI框架和优先级方法论。

---

## 第10章 SEO Glossary（SEO术语表）

### 核心术语速查

**基础：**
- SERP — 搜索结果页
- Organic — 非付费结果
- CTR — 点击率
- DA/PA — 域名/页面权威度（Moz指标）

**技术：**
- Crawling — 爬取
- Indexing — 索引
- Canonical — 规范URL
- Robots.txt — 爬虫指令文件
- Schema — 结构化数据

**链接：**
- Backlinks — 反向链接
- Anchor Text — 锚文本
- Nofollow — 不传递权重的链接
- Link Equity — 链接权重

**本地SEO：**
- NAP — 名称、地址、电话
- Citations — 商业引用
- Local Pack — 本地搜索结果包

---

## Moz vs Google SEO 指南对比

| 维度 | Google SEO Guide | Moz Beginners Guide |
|------|------------------|---------------------|
| **权威性** | 官方文档，最权威 | 第三方解读，有经验总结 |
| **深度** | 技术细节深 | 入门友好，概念清晰 |
| **关键词研究** | 无专门章节 | 完整关键词策略 |
| **Link Building** | 强调避免spam | 具体建设策略 |
| **工具推荐** | Google自家工具 | 多种第三方工具 |
| **实用框架** | 较少 | 金字塔模型、优先级矩阵 |
| **更新频率** | 持续更新 | 定期更新 |

### 学习建议

1. **以Google指南为权威标准** — 遇到冲突以Google为准
2. **用Moz补充实战策略** — 关键词研究、链接建设、KPI框架
3. **两者结合使用** — Google提供"做什么"，Moz提供"怎么做"

---

## 文件清单

- `introduction.txt` — 第1章原文
- `quick-start-guide.txt` — 第2章原文
- `why-search-engine-marketing-is-necessary.txt` — 第3章原文
- `how-search-engines-operate.txt` — 第4章原文
- `keyword-research.txt` — 第5章原文
- `on-page-seo.txt` — 第6章原文
- `technical-seo.txt` — 第7章原文
- `growing-popularity-and-links.txt` — 第8章原文
- `measuring-and-tracking-success.txt` — 第9章原文
- `seo-glossary.txt` — 第10章原文
- `MOZ-LEARNING-SUMMARY.md` — 本总结文档


path: references-google/faceted-navigation.md
content: # 分面导航（Faceted Navigation）管理

> 来源：Google Search Central

---

** Crawling infrastructure **

  ** Home  **
  ** Docs  **

  **Intro**
  **About Google's web crawling**
  * How to...

  **Verify requests from Google**
  **Reduce Google's crawl rate**
  * Use robots.txt to manage crawling

    **Create and submit a robots.txt file**
    **How Google interprets the robots.txt specification**
    **Update your robots.txt file**
    **List of useful robots.txt rules**

  * Optimize crawling performance

    **Optimize your crawl budget**
    **Myths about crawling**
    **Improve crawling of faceted navigation URLs**

  * Reference

  **Common crawlers**
  **Special case crawlers**
  **User-triggered fetchers**
  * Specific crawlers and user-triggered fetchers

    **APIs-Google**
    **Feedfetcher**
    **Googlebot**
    **Google Read Aloud**

  * Troubleshooting

  **HTTP status codes**
  **Network and DNS errors**
  * What's new

  **Changelog**

  ** Home **
  ** Crawling infrastructure **
  ** Docs **

Send feedback  Stay organized with collections  Save and categorize content based on your preferences. 

# Managing crawling of faceted navigation URLs

Faceted navigation is a common feature of websites that allows its visitors to change how items (for example, products, articles, or events) are displayed on a page. It's a popular and useful feature, however its most common implementation, which is based on URL parameters, can generate infinite URL spaces which harms the website in a couple ways: 

  * Overcrawling: Because the URLs created for the faceted navigation seem to be novel and crawlers can't determine whether the URLs are going to be useful without crawling first, the crawlers will typically access a very large number of faceted navigation URLs before the crawlers' processes determine the URLs are in fact useless. 
  * Slower discovery crawls: Stemming from the previous point, if crawling is spent on useless URLs, the crawlers have less time to spend on new, useful URLs. 

A typical faceted navigation URL may contain various parameters in the query string related to the properties of items they filter for. For example: 
    
    
    https://example.com/items.shtm?products=fish&color;=radioactive_green&size;=tiny

Changing any of the URL parameters `products`, `color`, and `size` would show a different set of items on the underlying page. This often means a very large number of possible combinations of filters, which translates to a very large number of possible URLs. To save your resources, we recommend dealing with these URLs one of the following ways: 

  * If you don't need the faceted navigation URLs potentially indexed, prevent crawling of these URLs. 
  * If you need the faceted navigation URLs potentially indexed, ensure that the URLs follow our best practices outlined in the following section. Keep in mind that crawling faceted URLs tends to cost sites large amounts of computing resources due to the sheer amount of URLs and operations needed to render those pages. 

## Prevent crawling of faceted navigation URLs

If you want to save server resources and you don't need your faceted navigation URLs to show up in Google Search or other Google products, you can prevent crawling of these URLs with one of the following ways. 

  * Use [robots.txt](/crawling/docs/robots-txt/create-robots-txt) to disallow crawling of faceted navigation URLs. Oftentimes there's no good reason to allow crawling of filtered items, as it consumes server resources for no or negligible benefit; instead, allow crawling of just the individual items' pages along with a dedicated listing page that shows all products without filters applied. 
    
        user-agent: Googlebot
    disallow: /*?*products=
    disallow: /*?*color=
    disallow: /*?*size=
    allow: /*?products=all$
    

  * Use URL fragments to specify filters. [Google Search generally doesn't support URL fragments in crawling and indexing](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/url-structure#fragments). If your filtering mechanism is based on URL fragments, it will have no impact on crawling (positive or negative). For example, instead of URL parameters, use URL fragments: 
    
        https://example.com/items.shtm#products=fish&color;=radioactive_green&size;=tiny

Other ways to signal a preference of which faceted navigation URLs (not) to crawl is using `rel="canonical"` `link` element and the `rel="nofollow"` anchor attribute. However, these methods are generally less effective in the long term than the previously mentioned methods. 

  * Using [`rel="canonical"`](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls#rel-canonical-link-method) to specify which URL is the canonical version of a faceted navigation URL may, over time, decrease the crawl volume of non-canonical versions of those URLs. For example, if you have 3 filtered page types, consider pointing the `rel="canonical"` to the unfiltered version: `https://example.com/items.shtm?products=fish&color;=radioactive_green&size;=tiny` specifies `<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/items.shtm?products=fish" >`. 
  * Using [`rel="nofollow"`](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/qualify-outbound-links#nofollow) attributes on anchors pointing to filtered results pages may be beneficial, however keep in mind that every anchor pointing to a specific URL must have the `rel="nofollow"` attribute in order for it to be effective. 

## Ensure the faceted navigation URLs are optimal for the web

If you need your faceted navigation URLs to be potentially crawled and indexed, ensure you're following these best practices to minimize the negative effects of crawling the large number of potential URLs on your site: 

Keep in mind that having these URLs crawled means an increased resource usage on your server and, potentially, slower discovery of new URLs on your site. 

  1. Use the industry standard URL parameter separator '`&`'. Characters like comma (`,`), semicolon (`;`), and brackets (`[` and `]`) are hard for crawlers to detect as parameter separators (because most often they're not separators). 
  2. If you're encoding filters in the URL path, such as `/products/fish/green/tiny`, ensure that the logical order of the filters always stays the same and that no duplicate filters can exist. 
  3. Return an HTTP `404` status code when a filter combination doesn't return results. If there are no green fish in the site's inventory, users as well as crawlers should receive a "not found" error with the proper HTTP status code (`404`). This should also be the case if the URL contains duplicate filters or otherwise nonsensical filter combinations, and nonexistent pagination URLs. Similarly, if a filter combination has no results, don't redirect to a common "not found" error page. Instead, serve a "not found" error with the `404` HTTP status code under the URL where it was encountered.  If [you have a single-page app](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/javascript/javascript-seo-basics#avoid-soft-404s) this might not be possible. Follow the best practices for single page apps. 

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path: references/seo-principles.md
content: # SEO 核心原则与常见误区

## 核心原则

1. **用户意图优先** — 满足用户需求，而非堆砌关键词
2. **内容为王** — 有趣、有用的内容对排名的影响力超过任何其他因素（Google 官方声明）
3. **E-E-A-T 是评估框架，不是排名因素** — 确保内容专业、可信、有实际经验支撑
4. **移动优先** — Google 以移动端为主要索引
5. **数据驱动** — 优化建议应基于实际数据，而非猜测
6. **长期主义** — 避免黑帽技巧，专注可持续的白帽 SEO

## 常见误区辟谣

| 误区 | 官方结论 |
|------|---------|
| Meta keywords 有助于排名 | ❌ Google 完全不使用该标签 |
| 关键词堆砌有效 | ❌ 违反垃圾政策，可能导致降权 |
| 域名含关键词=高排名 | ❌ 几乎无影响 |
| 必须有特定内容字数 | ❌ 无魔法字数，写充分即可 |
| robots.txt 能阻止页面被索引 | ❌ 只控制爬取，不控制索引（用 noindex）|
| 外链越多越好 | ❌ 质量 > 数量；付费链接违反垃圾政策 |
| 结构化数据 = 排名提升 | ❌ 不直接影响排名，但可能带来富媒体展示 |
| AMP 页面排名更高 | ❌ AMP 本身不是排名因素 |


path: references/seo-tools.md
content: # SEO 常用工具

| 工具 | 用途 | 费用 |
|------|------|------|
| Google Search Console | 索引状态、搜索表现 | 免费 |
| Google Analytics 4 | 流量分析 | 免费 |
| Ahrefs / Semrush | 关键词、外链分析 | 付费 |
| Screaming Frog | 技术SEO爬取 | 免费/付费 |
| PageSpeed Insights | 页面速度检测 | 免费 |
| Rich Results Test | 结构化数据验证 | 免费 |
| Schema Markup Validator | 结构化数据验证 | 免费 |
| Google Trends | 关键词趋势 | 免费 |


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