SEO and growth glossary
S Terms and Definitions
161 plain-English definitions begin with S. Showing page 4 of 5.
S definitions, page 4
- Spam update
- A Google update specifically targeting policy-violating spam patterns.
- Speakable schema
- Structured data marking content as suitable for text-to-speech reading on voice surfaces.
- Speed Index
- A Lighthouse performance metric measuring how quickly content is visually populated during load.
- Speed update
- A 2018 Google update making mobile page speed a ranking factor for the slowest pages.
- Spider
- Another name for a web crawler.
- Spider trap
- A site condition that causes crawlers to follow unbounded URLs, wasting crawl budget.
- Splash page
- An entry page typically displayed before site access, often light on indexable content.
- Sponsored attribute
- A link relation indicating that a backlink was paid for or part of a sponsorship.
- Sponsored link
- A backlink obtained through payment, requiring sponsored or nofollow attribution.
- Sponsored listing
- A paid placement within a search or marketplace results page.
- Sponsored post
- An article published on a third-party site as part of a paid arrangement.
- Spun content
- Content created by automatically rewording existing material, considered low quality and against guidelines.
- SQL
- Common abbreviation for Sales Qualified Lead in a marketing context.
- Squeeze page
- A focused landing page designed to capture a single conversion such as an email signup.
- Srcset attribute
- An HTML attribute specifying multiple image sources for responsive delivery.
- SSG
- Common abbreviation for Static Site Generation.
- SSL certificate
- A digital certificate authenticating a site's identity and enabling encrypted HTTPS connections.
- SSR
- Common abbreviation for Server-Side Rendering.
- Star rating snippet
- A SERP enhancement displaying aggregate star ratings under a result.
- Static site generation
- Building HTML pages at deploy time so each request is served from prebuilt files.
- Static URL
- A URL whose path does not change based on parameters or session state.
- Status code
- Common shorthand for HTTP status code.
- Structured data
- Standardized markup providing machine-readable information about a page's content.
- Structured Data Testing Tool
- A retired Google tool for validating structured data, replaced by the Rich Results Test.
- Style guide
- A document specifying writing, design, or coding conventions for a brand or team.
- Style tag
- The HTML style element used to embed CSS within a page.
- Subcategory page
- A page representing a narrower category beneath a parent category.
- Subdirectory
- A path component within a site that organizes content beneath the root.
- Subdirectory targeting
- Using a subdirectory to host content for a specific country or language.
- Subdomain
- A prefix to a domain name that creates a separate hostname under the same domain.
- Subdomain targeting
- Using a subdomain to host content for a specific country or language.
- Subfolder
- Another name for a subdirectory within a site's URL structure.
- Subheading
- A heading subordinate to the main heading of a section or page.
- Supporting content
- Cluster pages that support a pillar page within a topic cluster.
- Surfaces across Google
- A program exposing structured product data across Google surfaces such as Search and Images.
- Syndicated content
- Content republished on third-party sites under a syndication agreement.
- Synonym keyword
- A keyword that is a synonym of another, often grouped within the same topical cluster.
- Synthesis layer
- The component of an AI search system that composes a generated answer from retrieved sources.
- Synthetic answer
- An answer produced by combining retrieved information into a new generated response.
- Synthetic monitoring
- Performance monitoring through scripted test runs rather than real user data.