Technical SEO

DOM (Document Object Model)

Quick Definition

The DOM is the browser's internal representation of an HTML page as a tree of nodes, which JavaScript can manipulate.

In context

Google's rendering process builds the DOM and indexes the rendered content, not just the source HTML. This is why JavaScript-rendered content can rank, but with delays and reliability concerns.

Have a question this didn't answer?

Book a free 60-minute strategy call. We'll explain how this concept applies to your specific situation.

Book a Free Call Browse 50+ Detailed Answers

Related terms

CSR (Client-Side Rendering)

CSR ships an empty HTML shell and uses JavaScript in the browser to build the page. It's common in single-page apps.

Mobile Usability

Mobile usability is the bundle of design and technical signals — viewport configuration, tap target size, font legibility, content fitting the screen — that determine whether a page is usable on a phone.

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

AMP was Google's open-source framework for fast-loading mobile pages, popular 2016–2021. Google deprecated AMP requirements in 2021.

Rich Results Test

Google's Rich Results Test is the official tool for validating whether a page's structured data is eligible to display as a rich result in Google Search.

Orphan Page

An orphan page is a page on your site with no internal links pointing to it. Orphan pages are difficult for Google to discover and tend to rank poorly.

Crawl Depth

Crawl depth is the number of clicks from your homepage to a given page. Pages deeper than 3 clicks tend to be crawled less often and rank less well.

Back to all terms