SEO glossary and web basics

These are the base terms the rest of this record assumes. Read this first if a later document uses a word without defining it.

Niche and domain terms

• Niche: the topic of a website. Example: niche = wireless mic; types of niches within it = "best wireless mic", "buy wireless mic".
• Domain: the address of a website on the internet, like a nameplate that tells people where to find it. Domain name is the unique name itself (google.com, yahoo.com).
• Keyword: a specific word or phrase people type into a search engine. Example: "best running shoes" is a keyword.
• Search volume: how many times a keyword is searched in a search engine within a period, usually monthly. Not the same thing as search traffic, which is how many visits a website actually gets from search: a keyword or niche has a search volume; a website has search traffic.
• SERP (Search Engine Results Page): the page a search engine shows after a query: websites, pages, images, videos.
• Trend: a general movement in a direction over time (fashion, technology, business, social behaviour). Google Trends shows which niche is trending.
• Keyword difficulty (KD): how hard it is to rank a keyword; it measures the competition you'll face reaching the top results.
• Search intent / user intent: the goal behind a user's search query; understanding it lets a search engine (and a content writer) return the most relevant result.
• Citation: a mention of a website or source, used as a reference or credibility signal (e.g. a search engine or an AI answer citing a page as where an answer came from).

Types of niches (by intent)

1. Knowledge base intent: factual answers (e.g. exam results, admissions).
2. FMA (First Mover Advantage): the edge a business gets from being first to a market.
3. Downloadable intent: users want a file (software, e-book, template, music, image) for offline use. Related: e-commerce intent, users want to buy a product online.
4. Affiliate-based intent: users intend to promote or buy through affiliate links, earning a commission on the sale.
5. Service-based intent: users want to buy or promote a service (consulting, legal, marketing, beauty, cleaning, fitness).
6. Local business intent: users want a nearby business (restaurants, shops, local services).
7. Tool-based intent: users want a specific tool or app to complete a task.
8. Event-based intent: users want information about a time-bound event (conference, concert, sports, wedding).

How a search engine works

"Search engine" is no longer only Google, Bing, and Yahoo; an LLM (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) now also answers search-like questions directly, sometimes citing a page as its source. The mechanics below describe a traditional search engine; a later document covers what changes when the "search engine" is an AI answering directly (see Why SEO matters, and what ranks a page).

A traditional search engine follows three steps to surface relevant pages among billions:

1. Crawling: bots (crawlers/spiders) scan the internet for new and updated pages, following links from page to page.
2. Indexing: a crawled page is stored in a massive database, the index. The engine analyses content, keywords, images and structure; duplicate content or errors can keep a page out of the index.
3. Ranking: when a user searches, the engine ranks indexed pages by relevance and quality.

When the intent isn't clear from the query alone

This subsection is from Class 10, Niche Research with a New Angle, taught by Muhammad Ali.

A query like "Visa Application" doesn't say what the searcher actually wants: which country, which visa type, apply or check status. Google (and a chatbot answering the same query) still has to return something, so it infers the missing intent from how everyone ELSE who searched that same query behaved afterward (which results they clicked, which path they took next) rather than from the three words alone.

Google narrows this further per person, from your own history and location:

• Visit the same site repeatedly after searching, and Google reads that as "this is the one you wanted" and keeps showing it.
• Shown a result you never click, Google stops surfacing it: it reads the lack of a click as a signal that it wasn't wanted.

Networking basics behind every website

• ISP (Internet Service Provider): a company giving individuals and businesses internet access (fiber, DSL, cable, satellite, dial-up, wireless).
• URL (Uniform Resource Locator): the web address used to reach a resource, e.g. https://www.example.com/blog/article.html.
• WWW: an optional subdomain prefix before the main domain.
• DNS (Domain Name System): the internet's phonebook: it translates a domain name (google.com) into an IP address (142.250.130.14) that computers use to identify each other.
• SSL (Secure Sockets Layer): a security protocol that encrypts the connection between a browser and a server, shown as the padlock icon in the address bar.
• Web hosting: a service that stores a website's files on a server so it is reachable when someone types the domain name.
• HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure): the encrypted, secure version of HTTP; it protects data moving between a browser and a website from interception.

File format terms

• APK (Android Package): the file format for an application installed on an Android phone. Every app installed on Android is, underneath, an .apk file.
• IPA: the equivalent file format for an application installed on iPhone/iOS.
• PDF: a file format used to hold and distribute content (documents, guides, forms) independent of the software that created it.