Glossary
SEO and AEO Glossary: Search and Ads Terms, Explained
Plain definitions of 55 terms we use every day in SEO, answer engine optimization (AEO), AI search, Google Ads and Meta Ads. Each one says what the term means and why it matters for your site.
AEO & AI search (12) · SEO (14) · Technical SEO (14) · Paid ads (10) · Analytics & tracking (5)
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301 redirect
Technical SEO
A 301 redirect is a permanent server-side redirect that sends users and search engines from one URL to another. Search engines pass the old URL's ranking signals to the new one and eventually swap it into results. It is the standard choice for site migrations, URL changes and merging duplicate pages, and any redirect chains should be cut down to a single hop.
Our technical SEO servicesA
Advantage+ (Meta)
Paid ads
Advantage+ is Meta's name for its AI-driven automation in Ads Manager, covering options such as Advantage+ audience, Advantage+ placements and Advantage+ creative. Advantage+ campaigns, such as Advantage+ sales campaigns (formerly Advantage+ shopping campaigns), turn on these automations together so Meta's system handles targeting, placements and budget allocation with fewer manual settings. Advertisers still control the inputs that matter most: the conversion event, budget, creative and the accuracy of Pixel and Conversions API data.
Our Meta Ads managementAEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
AEO & AI search
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of shaping content so that answer engines and AI assistants can pull it out, quote it and cite it as a direct answer to a question. Day to day, that means writing tight question-and-answer passages, keeping your business facts identical across the web, and building pages machines can parse without guesswork. It overlaps heavily with SEO, because most AI answers still draw on pages that search engines have already crawled and indexed.
Our AEO & AI SEO servicesAI Mode
AEO & AI search
AI Mode is a conversational search experience in Google Search where users get an AI-written answer and can ask follow-up questions, with links to supporting web pages. Google says it uses a query fan-out technique, running many related searches behind the scenes to build one answer. For site owners, this means pages can be surfaced for sub-questions they never targeted directly, so depth on a topic matters.
Read: AI Overviews and SEOAI Overviews
AEO & AI search
AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the web pages the summary draws on. They tend to appear for informational and multi-part questions. Because they answer part of the query on the results page, they can lower clicks to ranking pages, which makes being one of the linked sources more valuable.
Read: AI Overviews and SEOAI SEO
AEO & AI search
AI SEO is search optimization that targets visibility in AI-driven results, such as Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and chat assistants, alongside the traditional blue links. The term is also sometimes used for using AI tools to do SEO work, so it helps to confirm which meaning someone has in mind. For a business, the goal is to be the source an AI answer cites when buyers research the problem you solve.
Our AEO & AI SEO servicesAnchor text
SEO
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. Search engines use it as a clue to what the linked page is about. Descriptive anchors such as "technical SEO audit checklist" help users and crawlers, while generic anchors like "read more" carry little meaning, and heavy use of exact-match anchors in backlinks can look manipulative.
Answer engine
AEO & AI search
An answer engine is a search tool that responds to a question with a direct, written answer, usually alongside a few source links. Perplexity, ChatGPT search, Google's AI Mode and voice assistants all work this way. Since each answer cites only a handful of sources, the competition is for those few citation slots instead of a full page of rankings.
B
Backlink
SEO
A backlink is a link from another website to a page on your site. Search engines treat relevant backlinks from credible sites as a signal that your content is trustworthy and worth ranking. Quality and relevance count for far more than volume, and buying links or using link schemes breaks Google's spam policies.
Branded search
SEO
A branded search is a query that includes a company's name or one of its product names. Branded queries usually convert well because the searcher already knows the business. Growth in branded search volume is a useful sign that marketing elsewhere (ads, PR, AI mentions) is building awareness, and many advertisers run branded paid search to protect that traffic from competitors.
C
Canonical tag
Technical SEO
A canonical tag (rel="canonical") is an HTML element that tells search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page when similar or duplicate versions exist. It consolidates ranking signals from the duplicates onto one URL. Google treats it as a strong hint rather than a directive, so it works best when internal links, sitemaps and redirects all point to the same URL.
Our technical SEO servicesCitation (in AI answers)
AEO & AI search
A citation in an AI answer is a link or named source that an AI tool shows as the basis for part of its response. Citations are how AI search sends traffic and credibility back to websites. Tracking which of your pages get cited, and for which questions, is the closest AI-search equivalent to tracking rankings.
Free AI visibility checkCLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
Technical SEO
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures how much visible content moves around unexpectedly while a page loads and is used. Google considers a CLS score of 0.1 or less good. Setting width and height on images, reserving space for ads and embeds, and avoiding late-loading banners are the usual fixes.
Consent Mode
Analytics & tracking
Consent Mode is a Google feature that adjusts how Google tags behave based on a visitor's cookie consent choices, passed from a consent banner through signals such as ad_storage, analytics_storage, ad_user_data and ad_personalization. Since March 2024, advertisers need Consent Mode v2 in place to keep using measurement and personalization features for users in the European Economic Area. In advanced mode, Google can use cookieless pings from non-consenting users to model conversions that would otherwise go unrecorded.
Conversion tracking
Analytics & tracking
Conversion tracking is the setup that records when a user completes a valuable action after interacting with an ad or website, such as a purchase, form submission or call. Ad platforms use this data both for reporting and to train their automated bidding. Tracking the wrong action, or counting the same conversion twice, leads bidding algorithms to optimize toward the wrong result.
Our Google Ads managementCore Web Vitals
Technical SEO
Core Web Vitals are three Google metrics that measure real-user page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Google uses them as part of its page experience signals, and the data comes from real Chrome users. They rarely outweigh relevance, but slow or jumpy pages hurt conversions as well as rankings.
Our technical SEO servicesCPA / Cost per lead
Paid ads
CPA (Cost per Acquisition) is the average ad spend needed to get one conversion, such as a sale, sign-up or qualified lead; when the conversion is a lead it is often called cost per lead (CPL). It is calculated as total spend divided by the number of conversions. CPA is only as reliable as the conversion tracking behind it, so it pays to count real leads instead of every form view or button click.
Our paid advertising servicesCPC (Cost per Click)
Paid ads
CPC (Cost per Click) is the amount an advertiser pays for each click on an ad. In Google Ads it is set through an auction that weighs your bid, ad quality and the expected impact of assets, so the price you pay often sits below your maximum bid. A cheap click is worth nothing if it never turns into a lead or sale at a cost the business can live with.
Our Google Ads managementCrawl budget
Technical SEO
Crawl budget is the number of URLs a search engine is able and willing to crawl on a site in a given period. Most small sites never need to think about it; it becomes a real concern for large or fast-changing sites, such as an online store with tens of thousands of products. When crawlers spend time on parameter URLs, redirect chains and low-value pages, the pages that actually need to rank can take longer to be discovered.
Read: technical SEO audit prioritiesD
Demand Gen
Paid ads
Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign type built for visual, social-style ads that reach people on YouTube (including Shorts), Discover, Gmail and other Google visual surfaces. It replaced Discovery campaigns and supports image, video and carousel formats, along with lookalike segments built from your first-party data. Advertisers typically use it to create interest earlier in the buying cycle, before people search for a product by name.
Our Google Ads managementE
E-E-A-T
SEO
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness, the qualities Google's search quality rater guidelines use to judge content quality. It is a framework that human raters apply, and Google has said it is not a single ranking factor. It still points to real signals: named authors with relevant experience, first-hand detail, accurate sourcing and a transparent business behind the site.
Entity
AEO & AI search
An entity is a distinct, well-defined thing that search engines and AI models can recognize, such as a company, person, product, place or concept. Search systems connect entities through their attributes and relationships, which lets them work out meaning beyond the exact keywords on a page. A plumbing company that lists the same name, address, services and founder on its site, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles is much easier for machines to identify correctly.
F
FAQ schema
Technical SEO
FAQ schema is structured data (the FAQPage type) that marks up a list of questions and answers on a page. Since August 2023 Google has shown FAQ rich results only for well-known, authoritative government and health websites, so most businesses will not see the expandable FAQ display in search. The markup can still help machines read question-and-answer content, provided the same questions and answers are visible on the page.
Featured snippet
SEO
A featured snippet is a highlighted excerpt from a web page that Google shows near the top of the results to answer a query directly. Snippets often take the form of a paragraph, list or table, with a link to the source page. Pages that answer a question in a short, self-contained passage right after a matching heading are more likely to be chosen.
G
GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
Analytics & tracking
GA4 (Google Analytics 4) is Google's current analytics platform, which records website and app activity as events, from page views to purchases. Universal Analytics stopped processing standard data in July 2023, so GA4 is now the default Google Analytics product. Its value depends on a clean setup: key events defined correctly, internal traffic filtered and the property linked to Google Ads and Search Console.
gclid
Analytics & tracking
The gclid (Google Click Identifier) is a unique parameter that Google Ads adds to landing page URLs when auto-tagging is turned on, so each ad click can be tied to later conversions. It links Google Ads data with GA4 and makes offline conversion imports possible, for example when a lead closes in a CRM weeks later. Redirects or site setups that strip URL parameters can drop the gclid and break attribution.
Our Google Ads managementGEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
AEO & AI search
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the work of improving how often and how accurately a brand appears in answers written by generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features. Classic SEO measures success by where a link ranks; GEO measures whether the brand gets named or cited inside the generated answer at all. Many of the same signals apply, including crawlable pages, clearly defined entities, credible third-party sources and specific, quotable content.
Read: SEO vs GEOGoogle Business Profile
SEO
Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is Google's free listing for a business, shown in Google Search and Maps with details like address, hours, phone, photos and reviews. It is the main source of data for the local pack. Keeping categories, hours and services accurate, and responding to reviews, directly affects local visibility and calls.
Our local SEO servicesGoogle Merchant Center
Paid ads
Google Merchant Center is the Google tool where retailers upload and manage product data so their products can appear in Shopping ads, free product listings and other Google surfaces. It checks products against Google's policies and flags disapprovals and data errors. A Merchant Center account linked to Google Ads is required to run Shopping ads or Performance Max with a product feed.
Our e-commerce ads managementH
Hreflang
Technical SEO
Hreflang is an HTML attribute (or sitemap or HTTP header annotation) that tells search engines which language or regional version of a page to show to which users, such as en-us versus en-gb. Each version must reference all the others, including itself, and an x-default value can mark the fallback page. Errors in hreflang often cause the wrong country version to rank, which hurts conversions on international sites.
Our enterprise SEO servicesI
Indexing
Technical SEO
Indexing is the process by which a search engine stores and organizes a crawled page so it can be shown in search results. A page that is not indexed cannot rank, no matter how good it is. Google Search Console's page indexing report shows which URLs are indexed and the reasons others were excluded, such as noindex tags, duplicates or low quality.
Our technical SEO servicesINP (Interaction to Next Paint)
Technical SEO
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures how quickly a page visibly responds after a user clicks, taps or types, based on interactions across the whole visit. It replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024, and Google considers 200 milliseconds or less good. Poor INP usually comes from heavy JavaScript, such as large tag manager setups, chat widgets and third-party scripts.
Internal linking
SEO
Internal linking is the practice of linking from one page on a website to another page on the same site. Internal links help search engines discover pages, understand how topics relate, and judge which pages matter most. Pages with few or no internal links pointing to them (orphan pages) are often crawled less and rank poorly.
K
Keyword cannibalization
SEO
Keyword cannibalization happens when two or more pages on the same site target the same query and intent, so they compete with each other in search results. The usual symptoms are rankings that swap between pages or neither page reaching the top positions. Fixes include merging the pages, redirecting one to the other, or rewriting one page to serve a different intent.
Knowledge Graph
AEO & AI search
The Knowledge Graph is Google's database of entities and the facts and relationships connecting them. It powers knowledge panels and helps Google interpret what a query or page is about. Brands that are clearly established as entities, with consistent facts across trusted sources, are more likely to be represented accurately in search and AI features.
L
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
Technical SEO
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures how long it takes for the largest image or text block in the viewport to render after a page starts loading. Google considers an LCP of 2.5 seconds or less good. Common fixes include compressing and preloading the hero image, reducing server response time and removing render-blocking resources.
LLM SEO
AEO & AI search
LLM SEO is a common label for optimizing a brand's content and web presence so that large language models describe it accurately and recommend it when users ask related questions. It covers two channels: what a model absorbed during training, and what it retrieves from the web at the moment it answers. Most of the work looks like strong SEO plus close attention to brand mentions, reviews and consistent facts on third-party sites.
Our AEO & AI SEO servicesllms.txt
AEO & AI search
llms.txt is a proposed convention for a Markdown file at a site's root that gives large language models a short summary of the site and links to its most useful pages. It was put forward in 2024 by the developer community and is not an official protocol from any search engine or AI company. No major AI search provider has confirmed that it reads the file, so treat it as an optional, low-effort extra and put the real work into crawlable, well-structured pages.
Local pack / Map pack
SEO
The local pack (also called the map pack) is the block of business listings with a map that Google shows for searches with local intent, such as "plumber near me". The listings come from Google Business Profiles, ranked mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. For service-area and storefront businesses it is often the most valuable spot on the results page.
Our local SEO servicesLookalike audience
Paid ads
A lookalike audience is an ad targeting group built from people who share traits with a source audience you supply, such as existing customers or website purchasers. The term is most closely tied to Meta, where Lookalike Audiences are built from a custom audience source; Google offers lookalike segments within Demand Gen campaigns. A tight seed list of high-value customers usually beats a large list of every site visitor.
Our Meta Ads managementN
NAP consistency
SEO
NAP consistency means a business's Name, Address and Phone number appear in exactly the same form everywhere online, including its website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Conflicting details, such as an old suite number on one directory or a tracking phone number on another, make it harder for search engines to trust which information is correct. Local businesses and multi-location brands feel the effects most.
Our local SEO servicesP
Performance Max
Paid ads
Performance Max is a goal-based Google Ads campaign type that uses one campaign to serve ads across Google's inventory, including Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. Google's automation decides bids, placements and asset combinations based on your conversion goals, assets, product feed and audience signals. Results depend heavily on accurate conversion data and a clean feed, since the system optimizes toward whatever you tell it to count.
Our Google Ads managementProduct feed
Paid ads
A product feed is a structured file or data source listing a store's products with attributes such as ID, title, description, price, availability, image link and GTIN. Ad platforms like Google Merchant Center and Meta Commerce Manager use it to build shopping and catalog ads. Feed quality shapes which searches a product shows for, so clear titles and complete attributes often improve performance without any change in bids.
Our e-commerce ads managementProgrammatic SEO
SEO
Programmatic SEO is the creation of many search-targeted pages from a template and a structured dataset, such as one page per city, product type or integration. It works when each page answers a real query with data that is specific to that page. Thin pages that only swap a keyword risk being treated as scaled content abuse under Google's spam policies.
R
Retargeting
Paid ads
Retargeting (also called remarketing) is showing ads to people who have already interacted with your business, such as visiting your site, viewing a product or engaging with your social content. These audiences usually convert at a higher rate because they already know the brand. Privacy rules and consent requirements limit how audiences can be built, so retargeting lists are often smaller than raw traffic numbers suggest.
Our paid advertising servicesROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
Paid ads
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is the revenue generated by advertising divided by the cost of that advertising. A ROAS of 4 means four dollars in tracked revenue for every dollar spent. It does not account for product costs, shipping or returns, so the break-even ROAS for a store depends on its margins.
Our e-commerce ads managementRobots.txt
Technical SEO
Robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of a domain that tells crawlers which parts of the site they may or may not crawl. It controls crawling only: a blocked URL can still appear in search results if other pages link to it, and a noindex tag is the right tool for keeping a page out of the index. Many sites also use it to allow or block AI crawlers such as OpenAI's GPTBot, or to set the Google-Extended token, which controls whether Google can use the content for its Gemini models.
Our technical SEO servicesS
Schema markup / Structured data
Technical SEO
Schema markup (structured data) is code added to a page, usually in JSON-LD format, that describes its content in a standard vocabulary from Schema.org, such as Organization, Product, Article or LocalBusiness. It helps search engines understand a page and makes it eligible for rich results like product ratings and prices. The markup must match what is visible on the page, or Google may ignore it or apply a manual action.
Our technical SEO servicesSearch intent
SEO
Search intent is the goal behind a search query, usually grouped as informational, navigational, commercial or transactional. Google ranks pages that match the dominant intent, so a product page rarely ranks for a how-to query and a blog post rarely ranks for a buy query. Checking what already ranks for a keyword is the quickest way to see which intent Google has settled on.
Our SEO servicesT
Topical authority
SEO
Topical authority is the degree to which search engines treat a site as a reliable, in-depth source on a particular subject. It builds up when a site covers a topic and its subtopics thoroughly, with pages that link to each other logically. A site that has published dozens of solid pages on commercial roofing, for example, will usually find a new roofing article ranks faster than the same article would on a general home-improvement blog.
How we do SEOU
UTM parameters
Analytics & tracking
UTM parameters are tags added to the end of a URL (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content) that tell analytics tools where a visit came from. They let you attribute traffic from emails, social posts, partner links and non-Google ads correctly in GA4. Consistent, lowercase naming rules prevent the same channel from being split across several rows in reports.
W
White-label SEO
SEO
White-label SEO is an arrangement where one company delivers SEO work that another agency resells to its own clients under its own brand. The reselling agency keeps the client relationship, while the provider handles audits, content, technical fixes or link building behind the scenes. Because the agency answers to the client for every deliverable, agreed scopes, reporting templates and response times should be settled in writing before work starts.
Our white-label SEOX
XML sitemap
Technical SEO
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs a site wants search engines to crawl and index, often with the date each page was last modified. It helps search engines find new and updated pages, especially on large sites or pages with few internal links. A sitemap should list only canonical, indexable URLs that return a 200 status code.
Z
Zero-click search
AEO & AI search
A zero-click search is a search that ends without the user clicking through to any website, because the results page already showed the answer. Featured snippets, knowledge panels, local packs and AI Overviews all produce them. When fewer searches lead to a visit, impressions, brand mentions and citations become more important measures of success alongside traffic.
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