SEO Glossary - R

Rank and Rent

A monetisation strategy for lead generation content websites targeting local services niches such as plumbers, electricians, cleaners or any other kind of product or service that is delivered in a local area.

Rank and Rent website owners will work to rank their site for local queries for the product or service and then send all the leads from a certain geographical area to one company in return for a (usually fixed sum rather than lead by lead) monthly rent.

Rank Tracking

Rank Tracking is the process of monitoring how your website is ranking for specific target keywords over time.

The very simplest way to rank track is to manually keep an eye on them yourself, but if you want to do it automated and at scale then there are several rank tracking services and software available.

Ranking Factor

A ranking factor is anything that Google considers when looking to decide what and where a webpage should rank for.

Google have never given a definitive list of what they consider as ranking factors and there is much debate in the SEO community over what is and isn’t a ranking factor, and even those items where there is general consensus that they are a ranking factor the debate will then rage as to how important a factor is compared to others!

Ranking Signal

See Ranking Factor.

Rankings

The rankings is shorthand for Google Search Engine Results Pages.

Reciprocal Link

Where two websites have an agreement to link to each other. Probably best considered GreyHat, if done in excess could lead to a penalty.

Reconsideration Request

If you have received a manual penalty for breaching Google’s Guidelines you can submit a Reconsideration Request in Google Search Console to ask that the penalty be reconsidered.

It is best practice to do this after making changes to your site to reverse whatever had caused the original penalty.

Redirect

If you move or remove a webpage you use a redirect to tell Google and web browsers where to go for the page's new location or its replacement. See 301 redirect and 302 redirect for more details of which redirect to use and when.

Redirect Chain

A Redirect Chain occurs when there are multiple page redirects between initial request and a final served page. For example if page A redirects to page B and page B then redirects to Page C.

Redirect Chains should be avoided where possible as they slow down page loads as each redirect has a loading overhead, long chains of redirects may cause Googlebot to abandon a crawl (5 redirects maximum). Additionally you will also lose a small amount of PageRank for every hop in a chain which compounds the more hops you have.

You can use site crawling software to search for and report on redirect chains so you can resolve them.

Relevancy

Relevancy is a concept based on the idea that links from sites or pages that are more relevant topically to your site or page will carry more weight when it comes to determining ranking than those from sites which are less relevant topically.

Request Indexing

If you have a page that Google hasn’t indexed yet then you can use the Request Indexing feature in Google Search Console to try to speed the process up. Simply search for the URL in Google Search Console and then click the “Request Indexing” button when the results show.

Responsive

Responsive web design is that which allows a webpage to alter depending on the size of the device that is viewing it. Responsive design is good from a user perspective allowing your visitors to get the best view no matter what size of screen they use and is also a factor Google considers.

Reviews

Third party reviews are really important for online marketing in general as your audience will pay attention to them, and in many cases will actively seek them out, so they are worth investing some time in trying to attract reviews and manage any poor reviews you receive.

Sharing positive reviews on your website can help with Conversion Rate Optimisation as adding social proof can really help people get people over the line when it comes to making a purchase decision.

Third party reviews can also be important for SEO. Google Reviews can impact a site's ranking for local queries, so if you have a local business then do aim to get positive Google Reviews.

For sites with a wider audience then we know that for E-E-A-T Google asks its Quality Raters to research third party reviews when trying to establish whether a website is trustworthy, so it can’t be discounted that this may also play into ranking algorithms more generally.

Rich Snippet

When Google shows additional data alongside a search result, most commonly using structured schema data from the webpage listed.

Robots.txt

A website's Robots.txt is a text file that contains instructions to crawlers like Googlebot as to what they should and should not crawl on your website. It also allows you to provide links to a Sitemap.xml file.