SEO

American  

abbreviation

Digital Technology.

1. search-engine optimization: the methods used to boost the ranking or frequency of a website in results returned by a search engine, in an effort to maximize user traffic to the site.

   The first step in SEO is to generate keywords that are relevant to your site's content.

---

SEO British  

abbreviation

1. computing search engine optimization

---

Etymology

Origin of SEO

First recorded in 1995–2000

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

SEO

Diana Baratta, an SEO and communications manager in northern New Jersey, has 28 paid days off a year.

From MarketWatch ● May 13, 2026

"It was similar to SEO, positioning yourself as an expert in these areas and making sure you're giving the LLMs everything they need to provide a thorough and conclusive answer," he says.

From BBC ● Apr. 6, 2026

For two decades, companies have relied on search-engine optimization, or SEO, to battle for customer attention online—tuning keywords and backlinks to climb Google’s rankings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 22, 2026

In traditional SEO, techniques that worked for Google would generally also work for Bing, Yahoo and other search engines, and what worked for sites in one industry would usually work in others.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 22, 2026

For instance, with traditional SEO, getting a single link from a very authoritative site meant more for ranking purposes than hundreds of mentions on other sites.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 22, 2026