Broken Link

A hyperlink that leads to a page that no longer exists, returning a 404 or similar error. Finding broken links on other websites is a proven link-building tactic: you contact the site owner, point out the dead link, and suggest your content as a replacement.

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Related Terms

Backlinks

Hyperlinks on external websites that point to your pages. Search engines interpret each backlink as a vote of confidence, using the quantity, quality, and relevance of your backlink profile to determine where your pages rank. Building high-quality backlinks remains one of the most effective ways to improve organic search visibility.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Microsoft's free platform where site owners can submit sitemaps, inspect URLs, review crawl data, and diagnose issues affecting their Bing search presence. While Google dominates market share, Bing powers a meaningful slice of desktop and voice search traffic.

Bingbot

The automated web crawler Microsoft uses to discover pages, follow links, and feed content into Bing's search index. Bingbot honors robots.txt directives and crawl-delay settings, similar to Googlebot.

Black Hat SEO

Tactics that deliberately break search engine guidelines to gain quick ranking advantages — such as cloaking, private blog networks, or large-scale link spam. Black hat methods carry high risk: once detected, Google can penalize or de-index an entire domain.

Bounce Rate

The share of sessions where a visitor lands on a page and leaves without clicking through to another page or triggering a meaningful event. A high bounce rate often signals a mismatch between search intent and page content.

Branded Content

Content funded or produced by a brand that promotes its products, values, or story. When branded content earns genuine engagement and backlinks from third-party sites, it strengthens both brand awareness and domain authority.