The search glossary
Plain definitions for the terms that run modern search — SEO, AEO, GEO, analytics, technical, and off-site. Filter to what you need; click any term for the full page.
60 terms
- Agentic searchAgentic search is when an AI agent autonomously browses, queries, and acts across sources to complete a task, rather than returning results for a person to click.GEO
- AI citationAn AI citation is when an answer engine names or links to your content as a source in its generated response — the AI-era equivalent of a ranking.AEO · GEO
- Answer engineAn answer engine is a search system that responds to a query with a direct, synthesized answer instead of only a list of links.AEO
- Answer Engine OptimizationAnswer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so answer engines — Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity — can extract it and cite it directly.AEO
- AttributionAttribution is how credit for a conversion is assigned across the channels and touchpoints a user encountered on the way to converting.Analytics
- Average positionAverage position is the mean ranking your pages held across the searches where they appeared, reported by Google Search Console from real results.Analytics
- BacklinkA backlink is a link from another website to yours, which search engines treat as a signal of trust and authority when ranking pages.Off-site
- CanonicalizationCanonicalization tells search engines which URL is the authoritative version of a page when duplicates or near-duplicates exist, consolidating ranking signals onto one URL.Technical · SEO
- Click-through rate (CTR)Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions — the share of searches where your result appeared and the user actually clicked it.Analytics
- ClicksClicks are the number of times users clicked through from a search result to your site, the clearest sign a listing earned the visit.Analytics
- Conversion rateConversion rate is the share of visits that complete a desired action — a purchase, lead, or signup — turning traffic into business outcomes.Analytics
- Core Web VitalsCore Web Vitals are Google's three field metrics for loading, interactivity, and visual stability — LCP, INP, and CLS — measured from real users.Technical
- Crawl budgetCrawl budget is the number of URLs a search engine will crawl on a site in a given period, set by its crawl capacity and how much it wants your pages.Technical
- Digital PRDigital PR is earning authoritative editorial links and brand coverage by creating newsworthy stories, data, and assets that publications want to feature.Off-site
- Domain rating / authorityDomain rating (or authority) is a third-party score estimating a site's backlink strength; it is a useful comparative proxy, not a Google ranking factor.Off-site
- Duplicate contentDuplicate content is the same or very similar content available at multiple URLs, which splits ranking signals and forces search engines to pick one.SEO · Technical
- E-E-A-TE-E-A-T is Google's framework for content quality — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust — used by raters to judge whether content is credible.SEO · AEO
- EntityAn entity is a distinct, well-defined thing — a person, place, brand, or concept — that search and AI systems recognize and connect to other entities.AEO · SEO
- Faceted navigationFaceted navigation is the filter-and-sort system on a category page that lets users narrow results by attributes like size, color, brand, or price.SEO · Technical
- Featured snippetA featured snippet is an answer Google extracts from a ranking page and displays in a box at the top of results, directly answering the query.SEO · AEO
- Generative Engine OptimizationGenerative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of earning visibility inside generative AI answers, where a model synthesizes a response and may cite your content as a source.GEO
- Google AI OverviewsGoogle AI Overviews are AI-generated answers shown at the top of search results, synthesized from multiple sources and displacing traditional organic links.AEO · GEO
- Google Search ConsoleGoogle Search Console (GSC) is Google's free tool for monitoring how a site performs in Search — impressions, clicks, rankings, indexing status, and technical health.Analytics · Technical
- HreflangHreflang is an HTML annotation that tells search engines which language and region a page targets, so the right version is served to the right users.Technical
- HTTP status codesHTTP status codes are the three-digit responses a server returns for each request, telling crawlers whether a URL is live, moved, missing, or broken.Technical
- Hub pageA hub page is a landing page that unifies a topic's transactional and informational content under one architectural parent, concentrating authority and links.SEO
- ImpressionsAn impression is counted each time a page from your site appears in a search results set for a query, whether or not the searcher scrolls to see it.Analytics
- Index coverage (Page indexing)Index coverage is the status of which of a site's URLs Google has indexed and, for those it hasn't, the reason why — reported in Search Console.Technical · Analytics
- Information architectureInformation architecture is how a site's content is organized and interconnected — the categories, hierarchy, and links that define how pages relate.SEO
- Internal linkingInternal linking connects pages within the same site using hyperlinks, spreading ranking signals and helping search engines discover and understand each page.SEO
- JavaScript rendering (SSR vs CSR)JavaScript rendering is how a page's content is produced — on the server (SSR) or in the browser (CSR) — which decides whether crawlers reliably see it.Technical
- Keyword cannibalizationKeyword cannibalization happens when multiple pages on one site compete for the same query, splitting ranking signals so no single page ranks as well as it could.SEO
- Keyword researchKeyword research is the process of finding and prioritizing the queries a target audience searches, using demand, difficulty, and intent to decide which pages to create.SEO
- Knowledge graphA knowledge graph is a database of entities and the relationships between them that search engines use to understand the world and answer factual queries.AEO · SEO
- Large language model (LLM)A large language model is an AI system trained on vast text to predict and generate language, and it powers the answer engines reshaping search.AEO · GEO
- Link attributes (nofollow, sponsored, ugc)Link attributes are rel values — nofollow, sponsored, ugc — that qualify a link, telling search engines how much ranking credit, if any, to pass through it.Off-site · Technical
- Link buildingLink building is the practice of earning inbound links from other sites to raise a site's authority, relevance, and rankings.Off-site
- Link disavowDisavowing is telling Google to ignore specific inbound links when assessing your site, a rarely-needed tool for genuinely harmful or manual-action links.Off-site
- llms.txtllms.txt is a proposed plain-text file, placed at a site's root, that points AI systems to a site's most important, LLM-friendly content.AEO · Technical
- Log file analysisLog file analysis examines a server's access logs to see exactly how search engine crawlers request a site's URLs, revealing real crawl behavior rather than estimates.Technical
- Meta descriptionA meta description is the HTML tag that summarizes a page; it can appear as the SERP snippet and influences click-through rate but is not a ranking factor.SEO
- Meta robots tagThe meta robots tag is a page-level HTML directive that tells search engines whether to index a page and whether to follow its links.Technical
- Mobile-first indexingMobile-first indexing means Google uses the mobile version of a page for indexing and ranking, so whatever the mobile crawler sees is what counts.Technical
- Orphan pageAn orphan page is a page with no internal links pointing to it, leaving it hard for crawlers to discover and starved of internal link equity.Technical · SEO
- PaginationPagination divides a large collection of content into a numbered sequence of separate pages, such as product listings or blog archives, each with its own URL.Technical
- Passage indexingPassage indexing is Google's ability to rank an individual passage within a page for a query, even when the page overall isn't the best match.AEO
- Redirects (301 and 302)A redirect sends a request for one URL to another; a 301 signals a permanent move that transfers ranking signals, while a 302 signals a temporary one.Technical · SEO
- Referring domainA referring domain is a unique website that links to yours; the count of distinct referring domains is a stronger signal than raw backlink volume.Off-site
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Retrieval-augmented generation is the technique behind AI answers: a system retrieves relevant passages from an index, then a model generates a response grounded in them.AEO · GEO
- Robots.txtRobots.txt is a text file at a site's root that tells crawlers which URLs they may or may not request, controlling crawling but not indexing.Technical
- Search intentSearch intent is the goal behind a query, usually classed as informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional, which a page must match to rank and satisfy searchers.SEO
- Semantic chunkingSemantic chunking is splitting content into self-contained, meaningful blocks that answer engines can retrieve and reuse independently of the full page.AEO
- SERP (search engine results page)A SERP is the page a search engine returns for a query, made up of organic results plus features like ads, snippets, AI answers, and packs.SEO
- Site migrationA site migration is any significant change to a site's URLs, platform, domain, or design, each of which carries real risk to search and AI visibility.SEO · Technical
- Structured data (schema)Structured data is standardized markup, usually schema.org in JSON-LD, that labels a page's content so search and answer engines can understand and reuse it.Technical · AEO
- Thin contentThin content is a page that offers little unique value to users, and at scale it can drag down how search engines judge a whole section or site.SEO
- Title tagA title tag is the HTML title element that names a page; it sets the clickable headline in search results and is a direct ranking signal.SEO
- URL structureURL structure is how a site's web addresses are formed and organized — their readability, hierarchy, and stability — which affects crawling and clarity.Technical · SEO
- XML sitemapAn XML sitemap is a machine-readable file listing a site's important URLs so search engines can discover and prioritize them for crawling.Technical
- Zero-click searchA zero-click search is a query the user resolves on the results page itself — via a snippet, AI Overview, or knowledge panel — without clicking any result.SEO · Analytics
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