Cache
The cache is the location where information is stored temporarily so that web pages can load up faster. In order to see update changes to a website, you will have to refresh the browser, clear the cache, or clear the cache and do a hard reload.
Cached Page
A cached page is what the page looked like at the time that a search engine bot last crawled the web page.
Canonical URL
A canonical URL is the URL of the best representative page from a group of duplicate pages, according to Google. For example, if you have two URLs for the same page (such as example.com?dress=1234 and example.com/dresses/1234), Google chooses one as canonical.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
CSS stands for cascading style sheets. The file name extension ends in .css and the code within it alters the appearance of a website by assigning what HTML code will look like what. A classic example of this is CSS Zen Garden where you can click on different links to show how a page will look loading up different .css files.
ccTLD
ccTLD stands for Country Code Top Level Domain. An example of this would be .us for the United States, .ca for Canada, .uk for the United Kingdom, .in for India, .au for Australia, and .ru for Russia.
If you want to rank better in a particular country then it is recommended to use a ccTLD that matches the country you want to rank better in.
Citation
In localized marketing citations are the mention of a brand name, address, and phone number. These can be found in niche places online like directories, community profiles, and more to submit your information.
Clickbait
Clickbait is content found online that is used to attract you to click on a link to learn more. Popular in ads.
Click Depth
The number of times (clicks) you have to reach a page of the website from the homepage is the click depth of the link. The more times you have to click (deeper) you have to go to reach your destination page the less authoritative the page will be in Google’s eyes and less likely to get crawled and indexed.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
The CTR is the number of clicks that your ad or organic listing receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown or SERP listing is shown: clicks ÷ impressions = CTR. For example, if you had 5 clicks and 100 impressions, then your CTR would be 5%.
Client-Side Rendering
This means the code of the website runs in the browser of the computer. This is important for technical SEO and you do not want to run code that takes a lot of time to load using client-side rendering. See also, Server-Side Rendering.
Cloaking
Cloaking is a technique that hides the content of a website from people but the search engine bots can still read to try and cheat the rankings of search engines. This is against the Google Webmaster Guidelines and you can be penalized for doing this.
Competition Analysis
This is the act of taking a look at a competitor’s website to help determine how and why they rank better than you. After you find out how and why you apply the same principles to your own website.
Content Management System (CMS)
A CMS is a type of software that is used to update your website. Examples of CMSs are WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Shopify, etc.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is a way of digital marketing where you create content that is searched for often, is popular for your business, etc. where it will be easier to reach your business’s goals and get found online easier.
Co-Citation
Co-citation is defined as the frequency with which two documents are cited together by other documents. If at least one other document cites two documents in common these documents are said to be co-cited. The more co-citations two documents receive, the higher their co-citation strength, and the more likely they are semantically related. This is a factor when search engines categorize websites.
Code-to-Text Ratio
This is the ratio that measures the amount of code to the amount of readable text that is on a page. This ratio does not affect ranking. The higher ratio of text, when compared to code, gives you a higher ratio of UX (user experience) on the page.
Comment Spam
When someone leaves a comment on a blog that does not sincerely have to do with the blog post but instead tries to use it to promote themselves or their products or services is called comment spam. Comment Spam is against Google’s Guidelines and it is possible to get penalized from it.
Content
The information on a web page consists of text, images, and videos. One of the highest-ranking factors of a website is authoritative, high-quality content that is linked (voted) to quite often.
Content is King
This is a phrase first said by Bill Gates that today refers to the idea that content is the most important ranking factor for search engines. Great content that is authoritative is more likely to get links from other pages and be more frequently crawled by search engines which leads to higher rankings. The content becomes authoritative by the number of times it is liked, shared, and linked to.
Conversion
Conversion is a measurement of success when a specific goal is reached like reaching a landing page, signing up for a newsletter, making a phone call, or clicking on an ad. Conversions are calculated by the number of times the goal is reached and is measured in analytics programs for marketing. The steps it takes to reach the goal are called the Funnel. See Funnel for more details.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is the ratio of completing the goal (conversion) of a funnel when compared to the times a goal is not reached. A goal can be clicking on an ad, signing up for a newsletter, making a phone call, etc. This is calculated by dividing the total number of conversions by traffic, then multiplying by 100.
Conversation Rate Optimization (CRO)
CRO is the science of improving the conversion rate for marketing purposes by analyzing the funnel steps to reach a conversion and improving the problem areas to achieve more product purchases, newsletter sign-ups, etc.
Cookie
Cookies are small pieces of data in the form of text files that memorize your username and passwords on websites if you let the browser memorize them for you. Also, cookies are used by websites to memorize specific data about you so that they can show related content specific to you.
Core Update
A core update to Google’s algorithm is done every two months or so and minor updates are done more frequently. A core update signifies a major update that can affect your rankings drastically.
Core Web Vitals
This is a measurement of important factors of your website for UX (user experience) that include page load speed Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), interactivity First Input Delay (FID), visual stability Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). The better the core web vitals the more likely that you will rank better.
Crawl Budget
This is the amount of time allotted for a search engine bot to crawl links in-depth on a website.
Crawl Error
When a search engine bot goes to crawl and index a page but cannot reach it a crawl error is generated. The URLs (web pages) that caused this error can be seen in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Crawler
Also known as a bot is the software used by search engines to discover, crawl, and index the web page to report back to be put into an algorithm to determine its ranking.
Crawler Directives
This is a set of instructions that you tell the search engine bot to use on how to crawl and index your website through the use of your sitemap, meta tags, and other means.
Crawling
The act of a bot or crawler going through your website to collect information to determine its ranking later.
Customer Journey
The steps that a customer takes when visiting your website that is measured by the marketing team to determine how to improve the customer’s experience and improve your business. Some of the steps include Discovery, Learning, Deciding, and Retention.