Glossary

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One of the winning features of SEOZoom is the ability to perform real-time SEO analysis on all sites, both of your own and competitor ones, gaining so much useful information for your strategy. In addition, all the tables activated by the various tools offer multiple contexts for each data grid, with the possibility of deepening the analysis by clicking on the hamburger menu, which gives access to a series of specific actions related to the keyword, URL or domain we are examining.

Specifically:

• “Keyword Actions” allow you to deepen the latest SERP, analyze the keyword, its search intent, find similar keywords, and set up a new article based on the keyword with the editorial assistant.
• “URL Actions” on the other hand, allow you to browse the site URL, run a specific analysis, analyze the search intent of that individual page, add the page to monitored URLs (if you are within the project), and launch an OnPage SEO analysis.
• In the end, “Domain Actions” focus precisely on information related to the entire site, to launch a full domain or Root Domain analysis, to browse the domain, discover its top keywords, check the backlinks it receives, and make a quick comparison with organic competitors.

Cannibalization

Cannibalization or keyword cannibalization is the presence on the same site of pages that are similar in content and, more importantly, in keywords ranked by Google. This predicament occurs when Google’s algorithms have come difficulties figuring out which URL of a site to rank for a given keyword, finding precisely at least two competing on the same key. Typically, two scenarios occur when this happens: Google alternates between the two pages in its ranking, sometimes favoring one and sometimes the other, or it makes the “wrong” and less efficient one with respect to the desired strategy rank, causing the entire site to lose overall ranking.

Competition

Competition is a value provided by Google Ads and indicates the level of competition present in Ads. The value ranges between 0 and 1 on a decimal basis: where 0 stands for little competition, while 1 represents maximum competition.

Crawl budget

The crawl budget is a parameter that identifies the time and resources Google intends to devote to a website through Googlebot scans, a value that is not unique or numerically definable.

In Google’s view, the crawl budget is the number of URLs that Googlebot can (based on site speed) and will (based on user demand) crawl. Conceptually, then, it is the frequency balanced between Googlebot’s attempts not to overload the server and Google’s general desire to crawl the domain.

Optimizing the crawl budget means, essentially, avoiding wasting server resources and Googlebot time on crawling pages that do not generate results and do not offer added value for users, since this risks missing out on quality site content and important pages (those that convert or attract the most traffic). Taking care of this aspect, in fact, could allow you to increase the speed at which search engine robots visit pages on the site: the more frequent these steps are, the more quickly the Index detects page updates, potentially allowing you to help keep popular content up-to-date and prevent older content from becoming obsolete.

SEOZoom’s Pages Performance section provides a concise, at-a-glance view of URLs that engage and waste the most crawler resources since they do not even have a single keyword ranked on Google and therefore do not contribute to the site’s organic traffic. These pages with zero traffic may be positioned but not relevantly (i.e., they are outside Google’s TOP10) or they are positioned with keywords that have no search volume. Before intervening with any corrections and thinking about removing such pages, however, we always recommend checking the actual returns using Google Search Console and especially Google Analytics (they may be pages that receive traffic from social or other extra-Search channels, for example, which we should therefore not remove).

Follow

Follow, sometimes also referred to as dofollow, is one of the possible values we can set to the rel attribute in the <a> tag of a link to indicate to Google the relationship to the linked page. Actually, the follow attribute does not have to be set manually, because it is inserted by default in every outbounding link.

A follow link tells Google that the linked page should be followed as authoritative and that the link itself should be taken into consideration for the purpose of ranking the site it points toward.

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In Content (IC)

The In Content percentage value indicates how many websites in SERP made use of the Exact Match keyword (spelled exactly as it is) in the text of their web page. The value highlights how obvious the competitors’ attempt to rank for that keyword is.

Branded Keyword

Branded keywords or brand keywords are search queries that include the name of a brand, a variation of a brand or the name of a specific product and trigger a SERP that classically includes the brand’s own website, products and social media accounts. They represent a classic expression of navigational search intent, since they are the terms generally used by people using the search engine to access a specific Web site or Web page.

Examples of branded keyword queries are “McDonalds Menu”, “Oral-B electric toothbrush”, “Samsung smartphone”, “SEOZoom blog.”

The SEO value of branded keywords is very high because they can not only increase a site’s traffic and audience, but can also help direct searches to specific targeted pages to finalize conversions.

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Keyword Difficulty (KD)

Keyword Difficulty is a proprietary metric that indicates the ranking difficulty for a given keyword and estimates the level of competitiveness of a SERP based on the analysis of competitors placed in TOP10 and their Zoom Authority. It is a value from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale – the higher the value, the greater the difficulty of ranking for that keyword since the more competitive and authoritative the competing domains are, with high levels of ZA.

Keyword Opportunity (KO)

Keyword Opportunity is a proprietary metric that estimates the level of opportunity to place a keyword in TOP10 based on the analysis of the level of optimization of page snippets currently in TOP10 and the level of competitiveness of the SERP. It ranges from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale: the higher the value, the easier it is to rank for the analyzed keyword, since the less optimized the results and the less strong the trust of competitors in TOP10 is.

Longtail Keywords

Longtail keywords or long-tail keywords are the keywords typically composed of three or more terms, that are more specific than short-tail keywords (which are instead more general and broad) and, therefore, characterized by significantly lower search volume and traffic than exact match keywords.

However, longtail keywords can have important SEO value, because they are often more easily affordable than the high competitive exact match and, in addition, are closer to spoken language and more specifically intercept users’ search intent, thus bringing a more profiled visitor to the page who is interested in what we are proposing.

Nofollow

The nofollow attribute mirrors the follow one, and allows us to send search engines the instruction “Do not follow links on this page” or “Do not follow this link“. With this attribute we are telling Google that we prefer not to associate our site with the linked page and not to crawl that page from our site.This has not been a directive for some years now, however, and so Google may well disregard the instruction.

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Trend Prediction

“Trend Prediction” is an algorithm that provides accurate information about search volumes in real time, the only one of its kind among SEO tools.

The feature is already integrated within the seasonality chart in keyword analysis and allows everyone to have clear information, but most importantly real data, to understand what is happening to searches in current events, and not on the canonical (and sometimes outdated) historical search volumes.

In technical terms, the new algorithm is able to project the interest shown in the previous 12 months onto today’s real scenario using search trends.

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Page Zoom Authority (PZA)

Page Zoom Authority (PZA) is a proprietary metric that immediately informs about the authority of the individual web page under analysis.

Values are expressed on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100.

Page Zoom Authority is calculated by considering keywords on the first page, potential keywords (those between the second and fifth Google pages), and the estimated traffic volume of the page itself.

PBN

PBNs – Private Blog Networks – are essentially networks of Web sites that can be traced back to a single owner. Although they do not necessarily represent a negative dynamic, historically they have been used for artificial link building, essentially grouping together low-quality domains created exclusively (or primarily) to host paid backlinks in order to force the ranking of linked sites. As such, they openly violate Google’s guidelines because they represent a prohibited technique for manipulating algorithms and influencing ranking on the search engine.

Reports

There are three different types of Reports in SEOZoom, plus monitoring, which you can enable as an option in the Project.

• Reports Management is the section accessible from the side menu (Report -> Reports Management) where you can create, set up and manage custom reports with different widgets and data from the suite.
• Quick Audit (available from Analyze Website) is an auto-generated document with a quick SEO analysis of the site, combining tables and data with textual cues useful for understanding the values shown.
• PDF Report (available from Analyze Site, URL, Keyword) allows you to generate a PDF file that shows table data related to the type of scan performed.
• Project Keywords Monitoring is a function that can be activated from the Project settings, which allows you to receive a weekly summary of the performance of only the monitored keywords via e-mail.

Results (Indexed Pages)

The term “Results” refers to any page indexed by Google and displayed in a SERP, which is precisely the acronym for Search Engine Results Page. Simplifying, the SERP is thus the Web page that each search engine generates in response to a user’s query, consisting (also) of a list of Web pages relevant and related to the query entered.

In our context, we define “Results” as the total number of Web pages indexed in response to a search performed.

Search Intent

The Search Intent represents what is behind every search on Google or any other search engine: it is the reason why, the primary need that prompted a person to use Google and make a search, and in some way it already encapsulates what the person expects to find in the SERPs.

The intent may address different needs and requirements, but for simplicity in the digital marketing and SEO field, the users’ search intent is made to fall into a few macro-categories of queries:

• Navigational (N): The user is looking for information in a specific context or on a particular site.
• Informational (I): The user is interested in information about a particular topic.
• Transactional (T): The user making this search is ready for action and transaction (purchase, but not limited to).
• Commercial (C): The user wants to gather data and information before making a purchase.

Each of these search intents can be associated with different journey experiences, distinct keywords, and often even completely different SERPs. Therefore, modern and effective keyword research needs to analyze the search intent to understand what your target audience and potential customers want and need, but also understand what Google is bringing up in its SERPs, and then plan strategy accordingly and write content that resonates with what people who search online really need.

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SERP Affinity (SA)

SERP Affinity is a value that indicates as a percentage how similar the keyword being examined is considered to be to the Main Keyword by search engines. The value is calculated by an SEOZoom algorithm that analyzes URLs and organic search results.

To make it simple, the SA compares the keyword under analysis with the Main Keyword and indicates in percentage how many TOP10 ranked results are in common between the two SERPs.

SERP Features

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page, and in our context it refers to Google’s results page: while it used to show only 10 blue links that referred to the pages deemed most relevant to the user’s query, today the SERP is composed of boxes, features and various elements that have revolutionized its aesthetics and usability to better respond to the user’s true search intention, personalizing their experience and maximizing their satisfaction.

Today there are about thirty different features in Google’s SERP, and in particular SEOZoom’s crawl allows you to identify the presence of the following SERP Features that are activated for various keywords:

• First visible result after a scroll
• Direct response from Google
• Zero Result
• Google Ads
• Google Ads at the bottom
• Google Knowledge Panel
• Google News Carousel
• Carousel Photos
• Video Carousel
• Google Shopping
• Twitter Carousel
• Frequently Asked Questions Box
• Google Hotel Search
• Google Flight Search
• Google Job Ads
• Google News
• Photo blocks
• Expandable carousels
• Google Bubble Box
• Google Local Pack
• Other Google Boxes
• Mispell
• Knowledge Panel in SERPs
• Google App Bar visible
• Google Images List
• Google News List
• YouTube Video List

Topical Zoom Authority (TZA)

Topical Zoom Authority is a proprietary metric that helps to quickly evaluate sites within individual market niches.

By using this value, set on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100, it is possible to identify the best site for each online industry and find out the level of authority of each site in each vertical niche. Through TZA, SEOZoom is able to precisely rank each site within a topic for which it has keyword rankings on Google, effectively creating a new ranking that goes beyond overall domain value and keyword search volumes.

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Traffic Share

Traffic Share is an original SEOZoom metric that allows you to view the percentage breakdown of the overall traffic generated by a cluster of keywords pertaining to the same intent and thus identify the best content and domain that competes for a specific keyword or with a URL.

This metric appears as a detailed table in Analyze Keyword and as a column with percentage indication in Analyze URL/Competitor, and shows precisely the percentage distribution of the overall traffic of the whole cluster of keywords that refer to the search intent, extending the analysis not only to the main keyword or keyword of interest, but to the whole related set.

Thanks to this metric, it is possible to immediately understand who is the strongest competitor for the topic, the one who has made the most compelling content for Google beyond individual keyword rankings, and also to find out how much “room” there is for competition.

Traffic value

The traffic value field indicates in a nutshell how much you would have to approximately invest on Google Ads to get the same organic traffic as the site you are analyzing with SEOZoom.

The value represents an estimate based on the CPC calculation of each individual page for which the analyzed site has keywords ranked on the first page on Google.

The indication can be useful for you when analyzing competitors and trying to find possible angles to attack through promotional campaigns, or conversely to understand whether it is worthwhile to focus on (on page or off page) SEO work, to improve your site’s ranking. In theory, it can also suggest you how much you could earn through Google Adsense: if there are high CPCs, there are likely to be more display advertisers willing to invest, minding however, to look deeper into the evaluations since ADSense earnings can be very variable depending on the industry.

Volume (Vol)

Volume (abbreviated “Vol”) indicates the average monthly number of searches for a keyword: that is, it roughly corresponds to the number of times users searched for a keyword on Google in a month, on average. The “exact” keyword is taken into account and not its similar variants.

Zoom Authority (ZA)

Zoom Authority is a proprietary metric that estimates the authority of a website, with a numerical value on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100.

The signals considered by Zoom Authority are:

• Traffic from search engines
• Trust (trust shown by Google toward the website in question)
• Stability (how stable the organic ranking of the website is)
• Opportunity (how much the website can grow in the months ahead)

Compared to other common metrics, the ZA does not take into consideration the (assumed) number and quality of backlinks or other “manipulable” signals, but is based on empirical observation of how Google behaves toward a given site.

This does not mean that it is perfect or infallible, but that it certainly offers a fairly reliable and useful snapshot of a site’s value, since it looks at key aspects such as organic traffic, engagement and growth opportunities.

To make the metric more neutral, the ZA is created from simple observation of SERPs and Google’s liking of the site, and it is also constantly evolving and adapting with respect to Google’s algorithmic updates.

Zoom Opportunity (ZO)

The Zoom Opportunity is one of the metrics that make up the ZA and, to be precise, helps identify a website’s opportunities for growth based on organic ranking, with a numerical value ranging from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale.

Specifically, the ZO answers the question, “How likely is the site to improve ranking on a scale of zero to 100?”

To identify opportunities, we analyzed the quantity and quality of keywords not yet on the first page and the likelihood that they might someday reach it.

Every website does indeed get traffic, has a more or less stable ranking based on the keywords it has managed to bring to TOP10, but it also has chances to improve its ranking and traffic over time. We felt it was important to consider this factor as an integral part of Zoom Authority to give a plus to promising websites over those that do not show much chance of improvement.

Zoom Stability (ZS)

Zoom Stability is one of the metrics that make up the ZA and represents the value, expressed numerically from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale, of the stability of the examined site’s organic ranking.

The metric answers a simple question, “How stable is the site’s organic ranking from zero to 100?”

Assessing a website only by its traffic would be superficial and biased, which is why we studied the Zoom Stability, which instead assesses the stability of this traffic.

A website with a stable ranking can rely on many keywords placed on the first page and in high positions: if even a few keywords were to lose ranking, the website’s traffic would not collapse completely, turning out to be literally stable.

On the contrary, a website that also has high traffic, but actually has only a handful of top high-volume keywords in Google’s TOP10, is more exposed to collapse risks since, losing rankings for a strong keyword, it would also see its overall traffic figure drop sharply, which is precisely a sign of poor ranking stability

Zoom Trust (ZT)

Zoom Trust is one of the metrics that make up the ZA and, specifically, it numerically estimates on a logarithmic scale from 0-100 how much Google is trusting the site in question, rewarding its pages with visibility positions over its competitors or, conversely, preferring the content of other sites.

To be precise, then, the ZT value answers the question, “How much does Google trust this site from zero to 100?”

This metric has a strictly analytical basis: to understand how and how much Google is rewarding a website in ranking, we examined the rankings of all domains in our database and compared them with each other, summarizing the answer in a single value, which expresses precisely Google’s “trust.”

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