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Head Terms – Search terms that are short, popular and straightforward; e.g., "helicopter skiing." These short terms are called "head terms" based on a bell-curve distribution of keyword usage that displays the high numbers of most-used terms at the “head” end of the bell curve graph. See also Tail Terms.

Headings - The heading element briefly describes the subject of the section it introduces. Heading elements go from H1 to H6 with the lower numbered headings being most important. You should only use a single H1 element on each page, and may want to use multiple other heading elements to structure a document. An H1 element source would look like: <h1>Your Topic</h1> Heading elements may be styled using CSS. Many content management systems place the same content in the main page heading and the page title, although in many cases it may be preferential to mix them up if possible. 

Hidden Text - SEO technique used to show search engine spiders text that human visitors do not see. While some sites may get away with it for a while, generally the risk to reward ratio is inadequate for most legitimate sites to consider using hidden text.

Home Page

The main page on your website, which is largely responsible for helping develop your brand and setting up the navigational schemes that will be used to help users and search engines navigate your website. As far as SEO goes, a home page is typically going to be one of the easier pages to rank for some of your more competitive terms, largely because it is easy to build links at a home page. You should ensure your homepage stays focused and reinforces your brand though, and do not assume that most of your visitors will come to your site via the home page. If your site is well structured many pages on your site will likely be far more popular and rank better than your home page for relevant queries.

Heading Tags 

The heading tag is used in HTML to define headingsof a page. Headings are defined by <hn> , with “n” being a number between 1 and 6, and determines which position a heading has in the hierarchy of theheading structure. Heading tags have a particularly important function within an HTML structure.

Hits

The request or retrieval of any item located within a web page. For example, if a user enters a web page with 5 pictures on it, it would be counted as 6 “hits.” One hit is counted for the web page itself, and another 5 hits count for the pictures.

Hreflang Tag

Hreflang is an HTML <link> or <link> tag attribute that tells search engines the relationship between pages in different languages on your website. Google uses the attribute to serve the correct regional or language URLs in its search results based on the searcher’s country and language preferences.

H1 Tag / Element

The h1 is an HTML tag that indicates a heading on a website. ... Tag — An HTML tag is a snippet of code that tells your web browser how to display the content. Heading — HTML has six different heading tags —h1, h2, and so on. The h1 is considered the most important tag, and the h6 is the least important.

Head Term

A popular keyword with high search volume that is usually difficult to rank for. Also known as: Head Keyword, Short-Tail

Hidden Text

Any text that can’t be seen by a user that is intended to manipulate search rankings by loading webpages with content-rich keywords and copy. This technique is against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can result in a manual action. For example, adding text that is:

  • Too small to read.
  • The same color as the background.
  • Using CSS to push the text off-screen.

Hilltop Algorithm

Influenced by the HITS Algorithm, and added to Google’s algorithm in 2003, Hilltop assigned “expert” status to certain websites or webpages published about a specific topic that also link to unaffiliated pages about that topic.

Recommended reading:

  • Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents (Krishna Bharat & George Mihaila)

HITS Algorithm

Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search is a link analysis algorithm that assesses a value not just based on content and inbound links (authorities), but also its outbound links (hubs).

Homepage

The default, or introductory webpage, of a website.

.htaccess File

A server configuration file that can be used to rewrite and redirect URLs.

HTML

Stands for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML tags are specific code elements that can be used to improve the effectiveness of SEO for webpages and websites.

HTTP

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is how data is transferred from a computer server to a web browser.

HTTPS

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure uses a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt data transferred between a website and web browser. HTTPS is a minor Google ranking factor.

Hub Page

An authoritative central resource (e.g., page or article), dedicated to a specific topic (keyword), that is continually updated and linked to, and also links out to topically-relevant webpages.

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