Technical Definition
DOM is the programming interface for web documents, representing page structure as a tree of objects. In SEO: the DOM after JavaScript execution is what Google indexes (not just source HTML). View source shows initial HTML; inspect element shows DOM. Dynamic content exists in DOM but may not be in source HTML. Google renders pages to build the DOM.
Simple Explanation (ELI13)
The DOM is the live version of your webpage after all the JavaScript has run. It's different from the source code you see when you 'view source.' Some content only appears in the DOM because JavaScript creates it. Google looks at the DOM, which is why JavaScript SEO matters.
Related Terms
JavaScript SEO, Rendering, Source Code, Inspection
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