A smarter glossary for modern SEO, AI search, and growth systems

AI automation is the use of AI-enabled reasoning inside workflows so systems can understand context, decide next steps, and trigger useful actions.

AI CRM integration is the use of AI inside or alongside a CRM to interpret activity, enrich records, and trigger better next actions across the revenue workflow.

AI Overviews are Google-generated summary answers that synthesize information from multiple sources directly in the search results.

AI SEO is the discipline of improving visibility in search systems that use large language models, answer synthesis, and AI-generated summaries.

Alt text is the descriptive alternative text attached to an image so assistive technology and search engines can interpret its content and purpose.

Analytics is the practice and tooling used to measure digital behavior, performance, and outcomes across a website, campaign, or customer journey.

Anchor text is the words used in a hyperlink, providing context about the destination page.

Assisted conversions are conversions in which a channel or touchpoint contributed to the outcome without receiving all of the final credit.

An attribution model is the framework a business uses to decide how conversion credit is distributed across the channels and touchpoints in a customer journey.

A backlink is an external link pointing from one website to another, often used by search engines as a signal of relevance, trust, and authority.

Broken link building is the process of finding broken external links on other sites and suggesting your page as a relevant replacement.

A canonical tag is an HTML signal that helps search engines understand which URL should represent a page when duplicates or near-duplicates exist.

Consent Mode is a measurement approach that adjusts analytics and advertising tag behavior according to a user's consent state.

Conversion API is a server-side method of sending conversion and event data from a business system to an advertising or analytics platform.

Conversion Rate Optimisation, or CRO, is the discipline of improving how effectively a website turns attention into enquiries, leads, sales, or other desired actions.

Core Web Vitals are Google's real-world performance metrics for loading speed, responsiveness, and visual stability.

CPA, or cost per acquisition, is the amount spent to generate a specific conversion outcome.

CPC, or cost per click, is the price paid each time a user clicks on an ad.

Crawl budget is the practical limit on how much and how often search engines crawl a website within a given period.

CTR, or click-through rate, is the percentage of times users click after seeing a result, ad, or link.

A custom AI agent is an AI-driven system tailored to a defined role, data context, and operational workflow rather than a general-purpose chat tool.

Digital PR is an off-page strategy focused on earning media attention, brand mentions, and backlinks through credible story angles and useful content assets.

A disavow file is a submission to Google asking it not to consider selected backlinks when evaluating a site's link profile.

Domain Authority is a non-Google score created by SEO tools to estimate the comparative ranking strength of a domain.

Domain Rating is a third-party metric from Ahrefs that estimates the backlink strength of a domain.

Duplicate content is substantially similar or repeated content that exists on more than one URL, either within the same site or across different sites.

E-E-A-T describes the signals that help content appear credible, reliable, and worth trusting in search.

An editorial link is a backlink that exists because the linking site decided the destination was worth citing or recommending.

Entity SEO focuses on making the subjects behind your content clearer, more consistent, and easier for search systems to understand as distinct entities.

A featured snippet is a search result format that surfaces a concise answer from a single webpage near the top of the SERP.

First-party data is data collected directly by a business from its own users, customers, and digital properties.

Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO, is the work of improving content so AI-driven answer engines are more likely to surface and reference it.

Google Ads is Google's advertising platform used to run paid campaigns across search results, display inventory, YouTube, and other Google surfaces.

Google Analytics 4, or GA4, is Google's analytics platform built around event-based measurement rather than the older session-and-pageview model alone.

Google Business Profile is the business listing that powers local visibility across Google Maps and many local-intent search results.

Google Maps SEO is the optimization of business visibility inside Google Maps and the map-based local pack results connected to local intent.

Google Search Console is Google's free tool for understanding how a site performs in Google Search and how Google is indexing it.

Google Tag Manager, or GTM, is a container-based system for managing analytics, pixels, and event tracking logic more efficiently.

Indexability is a page's eligibility to be processed and stored in a search engine index so it can appear for relevant queries.

Information architecture is the structural organization of pages, navigation, and content pathways across a website.

Internal linking is the deliberate use of links between pages on the same site to improve navigation, topic relationships, and page discovery.

JavaScript SEO is the discipline of ensuring search engines can properly crawl, render, interpret, and index content generated or affected by JavaScript.

Keyword cannibalization is the self-competition that occurs when multiple pages on the same site target the same query or search intent.

A landing page is a purpose-built page designed to move a visitor toward one clear conversion action.

Link building is the strategic process of earning relevant backlinks that improve authority, trust, and discoverability.

Link equity is the SEO value that a link can help transfer from one page or domain to another.

A local citation is an online listing or mention of a business's name, address, phone number, and related profile information.

The local pack is the group of map-connected business listings Google shows for searches with local intent.

Local schema is structured data markup used to describe business location, contact information, and related local details in machine-readable form.

Local SEO is the work of improving how a business appears for geographically influenced search queries across Google Maps, local packs, and localized organic results.

A location page is a page focused on a specific place or service area to support localized visibility and conversion.

Multi-location SEO is a local-search strategy for businesses that need visibility across multiple real-world locations or service areas.

NAP is the standard shorthand for a business's name, address, and phone number used across local search platforms.

Noindex is an instruction, usually delivered through a meta robots tag or HTTP header, that tells search engines not to index a page.

An orphan page is a URL with no meaningful internal links pointing to it from the rest of the site.

PageRank is a link-based scoring concept that estimates the importance of a page based on the links pointing to it and the value flowing through those links.

Programmatic SEO is a scalable SEO approach that generates many pages from repeatable templates, datasets, and structured content rules.

A reciprocal link is a link relationship where two websites point to each other.

A redirect is a server or browser instruction that automatically forwards a request from one URL to a different destination URL.

Responsive web design is the practice of building websites that adapt layout, content flow, and interface behaviour to different devices and screen sizes.

Retargeting is an advertising tactic that re-engages people who previously visited, clicked, or interacted with the business.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation, or RAG, is a method for grounding an AI response in relevant retrieved information instead of relying only on the model's built-in memory.

Review management is the ongoing practice of generating, monitoring, and responding to customer reviews across important local platforms.

Rich results are search listings enhanced with structured elements that go beyond the standard blue-link result.

ROAS, or return on ad spend, measures how much revenue is produced relative to advertising cost.

Robots.txt is a text file placed at a site's root that gives crawling instructions to search engine bots.

Schema markup is machine-readable structured data that helps search engines interpret the meaning, type, and relationships of page content.

Search intent is the underlying goal a searcher wants to satisfy when they type, speak, or ask a query.

A SERP is the live results page a search engine generates after a user enters a query.

A service area business is a business model in local search where the company travels to the customer instead of relying on a public office or shopfront.

Structured data for AI search is markup that helps search engines and AI systems understand the key entities, page types, and relationships within your content.

Topical authority is the search engine perception that a site covers a subject deeply enough to be trusted across multiple related queries.

Toxic links are backlinks that look low-quality or manipulative enough to raise trust concerns about a site's link profile.

UTM parameters are query-string tags added to URLs so analytics platforms can classify campaign traffic more accurately.

An XML sitemap is a structured file that lists indexable URLs you want search engines to know about and revisit.