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SEOL

    Glossary

    Terms you will meet in lessons and tools. In lessons, highlighted words link here.

    AEO (answer engine optimisation)

    Optimising content to be used in direct answers.

    An industry term for making content easy for answer engines and AI assistants to find, understand and cite. Much of it overlaps with established SEO. Many specific AEO tactics are unproven.

    See also: GEO (generative engine optimisation).

    Anchor text

    The clickable text of a link.

    Descriptive anchor text, such as "men's hiking boots" rather than "click here", tells users and search engines what the linked page is about.

    See also: Internal link. Lesson: SEO terminology you will meet every day

    Average position

    Average of your topmost position across impressions.

    A Search Console metric averaged across many searches, devices and locations. Use it to see trends, not as your exact rank.

    See also: CTR (click-through rate).

    Canonical URL

    The preferred URL among duplicates.

    When several URLs show the same or very similar content, search engines pick one as canonical and show that one. Site owners can suggest it with redirects, rel="canonical" and sitemaps. Google treats these as signals, not commands.

    See also: Indexing.

    Clicks

    How many times someone clicked through to your site from results.

    In Search Console, the number of clicks from Google Search results that took the user to your site.

    See also: Impressions, CTR (click-through rate).

    CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)

    How much the layout jumps while a page loads.

    A Core Web Vital. Good is 0.1 or less at the 75th percentile. Caused by images, ads and embeds without reserved space, or content inserted above existing content.

    See also: Core Web Vitals, LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), INP (Interaction to Next Paint). Lesson: Core Web Vitals and site speed

    Core update

    A broad change to Google's ranking systems, released several times a year.

    Core updates are not aimed at specific sites and are not penalties. Pages can rise or fall because other content is now judged more helpful. Google announces them on its Search Status Dashboard.

    See also: Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Lesson: How Google evaluates content and websites

    Core Web Vitals

    Google's three main real-user experience metrics.

    Largest Contentful Paint (loading, good at 2.5 s or less), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness, good at 200 ms or less) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability, good at 0.1 or less), measured at the 75th percentile of page loads. Google says its ranking systems use them, but relevance still matters more.

    Crawl budget

    The set of URLs Google can and wants to crawl on a site.

    Determined by crawl capacity (how much the server can handle) and crawl demand (how many URLs Google knows, their popularity and staleness). Google says it matters mainly for very large or fast-changing sites.

    See also: Crawling, Googlebot. Lesson: Crawling and indexing in practice

    Crawling

    Discovering and downloading pages.

    The first stage of search. A crawler such as Googlebot finds URLs, mainly through links and sitemaps, and downloads their content. Pages that cannot be crawled cannot be properly indexed.

    See also: Googlebot, Indexing, robots.txt. Lesson: How search engines work

    CTR (click-through rate)

    Clicks divided by impressions.

    The share of impressions that led to a click. CTR varies strongly with position and SERP features, so compare it with pages in similar positions.

    See also: Clicks, Impressions, Average position.

    Duplicate content

    The same or very similar content on more than one URL.

    On your own site it is not a spam policy violation, but search engines must choose one URL to show and may waste crawling on the copies. Use canonicals or redirects to consolidate. Copying other sites' content is a separate problem.

    See also: Canonical URL. Lesson: Common SEO myths and what is actually documented

    E-E-A-T

    Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.

    A framework from Google's quality rater guidelines for judging content quality. Google says E-E-A-T is not itself a ranking factor, and that trust is its most important part. Its systems look for signals that align with it, especially for topics that affect health, money or safety.

    Field data

    Performance measured from real visitors.

    Collected from real Chrome users in the Chrome UX Report (CrUX) over 28 days. Used by the Search Console Core Web Vitals report. Lab data, by contrast, is a simulated test such as Lighthouse.

    See also: Core Web Vitals. Lesson: Core Web Vitals and site speed

    GEO (generative engine optimisation)

    Optimising for visibility in AI-generated answers.

    An industry and research term for improving how often and how accurately content appears in answers produced by generative AI search systems. Treat GEO advice as evolving unless it is backed by documentation or data.

    See also: AEO (answer engine optimisation).

    Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

    Google's web analytics tool, measuring what visitors do on a site.

    Collects events such as page views and form submissions. Its Organic Search channel includes visits from non-ad organic results, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. In the EU, visitors who decline analytics cookies are not fully counted.

    See also: Key event, Google Search Console. Lesson: Google Analytics 4 for SEO

    Google Search Console

    Google's free tool for monitoring a site in Google Search.

    Shows search performance (clicks, impressions, CTR, position), indexing status, sitemaps, Core Web Vitals field data and problems Google found. It keeps about 16 months of performance data.

    See also: Impressions, Clicks, CTR (click-through rate), Average position, URL Inspection. Lesson: Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

    Googlebot

    Google's web crawler.

    The program Google uses to crawl the web. Its activity can be controlled with robots.txt and observed in Search Console's Crawl stats report and in server logs.

    See also: Crawling, robots.txt.

    Head term

    A short, broad, frequently searched keyword.

    Queries such as "laptop repair" or "running shoes". They have high volume and strong competition, and often mixed intent. They usually name main pages such as categories or services.

    See also: Long-tail keyword, Keyword. Lesson: Finding keyword ideas

    hreflang

    Annotations linking language or country versions of a page.

    Added in the HTML head, HTTP headers or the sitemap. Each version must list itself and all other versions with valid ISO language (and optional region) codes. x-default marks the fallback version.

    See also: Canonical URL. Lesson: International and multilingual SEO

    HTTP status code

    The server's three-digit answer to a request.

    200 means OK, 301 and 308 mean moved permanently, 302 and 307 mean moved temporarily, 404 and 410 mean not found or gone, and 5xx means a server error. Search engines index only pages that return a successful status.

    See also: Soft 404. Lesson: SEO terminology you will meet every day

    Impressions

    How many times a result from your site was shown.

    In Search Console, an impression is counted when a link to your site appears in search results a user loaded.

    See also: Clicks, CTR (click-through rate). Lesson: Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

    Indexing

    Analysing and storing a page so it can be shown in results.

    The second stage of search. The search engine processes a crawled page's content and tags, decides whether it duplicates other pages, and stores it in its index. Indexing is never guaranteed.

    See also: Crawling, Canonical URL, noindex. Lesson: How search engines work

    INP (Interaction to Next Paint)

    How quickly a page responds to user interactions.

    A Core Web Vital since March 2024, replacing First Input Delay. Good is 200 milliseconds or less at the 75th percentile. Usually affected by heavy JavaScript.

    See also: Core Web Vitals, LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). Lesson: Core Web Vitals and site speed

    JSON-LD

    The recommended format for adding structured data.

    A JSON block in a script tag (type="application/ld+json") that describes the page using schema.org types. Google supports JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa, and recommends JSON-LD because it is easiest to add and maintain.

    See also: Structured data, Rich result. Lesson: Structured data basics

    Key event

    A GA4 event marked as important to the business.

    Any GA4 event, such as a form submission, phone click or purchase, can be marked as a key event. Older guides call these conversions. Key events are shown in reports such as Landing pages and Traffic acquisition.

    See also: Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Lesson: Conversion tracking

    Keyword

    A word or phrase people type into a search engine.

    In SEO, a keyword is a query you want a page to be found for. Modern search engines understand meaning, so pages rank for many related queries, not one exact phrase.

    See also: Search intent, Long-tail keyword.

    Keyword cannibalisation

    Several pages on one site competing for the same topic and intent.

    A practitioner term, not a Google penalty. When similar pages split effort, none performs as well as one strong page would. Common fixes are merging pages with a 301 redirect, differentiating their intent, or using canonicals.

    See also: Keyword map, Duplicate content, Canonical URL. Lesson: Mapping keywords to pages

    Keyword cluster (topic)

    A group of keywords that one page can answer.

    Keywords with the same meaning and intent, usually confirmed by large overlap in their search results. Each cluster gets one main page and one main keyword.

    See also: Keyword map, Search intent. Lesson: Keyword clustering and topic research

    Keyword difficulty

    A tool vendor's estimate of how hard it is to rank for a keyword.

    Calculated differently by each tool, usually from the links pointing to the pages that currently rank. It is not a Google metric, and the same keyword can score very differently in different tools.

    See also: Search volume. Lesson: Search volume, difficulty and competition

    Keyword map

    A document linking each topic to the page that should rank for it.

    Lists topics, their main and supporting keywords, intent, and target page. It shows which pages to optimise, which to create (content gaps) and where pages compete with each other.

    See also: Keyword cluster (topic), Keyword cannibalisation. Lesson: Mapping keywords to pages

    Keyword stuffing

    Overloading a page with keywords to manipulate rankings.

    Repeating phrases unnaturally, adding blocks of city names or lists of keywords. It is listed in Google's spam policies and makes pages worse for readers.

    See also: Keyword. Lesson: Common SEO myths and what is actually documented

    LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

    When the main content of a page has loaded.

    A Core Web Vital. Good is 2.5 seconds or less at the 75th percentile of page loads. Usually affected by large images, slow servers and render-blocking resources.

    See also: Core Web Vitals, INP (Interaction to Next Paint), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). Lesson: Core Web Vitals and site speed

    Long-tail keyword

    A specific, usually longer query with fewer searches.

    Specific queries such as "waterproof hiking boots for wide feet". Each has low volume, but together they make up a large share of searches, and they often convert well because the intent is clear.

    See also: Keyword.

    Meta description

    An HTML summary of a page that may be used as the snippet.

    A meta tag in the page head that summarises the page. It is not described by Google as a ranking factor, but a clear one can make the result more attractive to click.

    See also: Snippet.

    noindex

    A rule that tells search engines not to show a page in results.

    Set with a robots meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header. The page must remain crawlable, because a search engine cannot see the rule on a page it is not allowed to fetch.

    See also: robots.txt, Indexing. Lesson: How search engines work

    People-first content

    Content made mainly to help people, not to rank.

    Google's term for content created primarily for its readers. Its guidance asks who made the content, how it was made, and why. It names "why" as the most important question.

    See also: E-E-A-T. Lesson: How Google evaluates content and websites

    rel="nofollow", "sponsored" and "ugc"

    Link attributes that describe the relationship to the linked page.

    sponsored marks paid links and ads, ugc marks links in user-generated content, and nofollow marks other links you do not want to vouch for. Google generally does not follow these links, and it requires paid links to carry sponsored or nofollow.

    See also: External link, Backlink. Lesson: SEO terminology you will meet every day

    Rendering

    Running a page's code to see what a browser would show.

    Google renders pages with a recent version of Chrome, which runs JavaScript. Content that only appears after rendering is processed later and can be missed if scripts fail.

    See also: Crawling. Lesson: How search engines work

    Rich result

    A search result with extra visual information.

    An enhanced result showing things such as review stars, prices or availability, usually based on structured data. Eligibility changes. For example, Google removed HowTo rich results in 2023 and FAQ rich results in 2026.

    See also: Structured data, SERP feature.

    robots.txt

    A file that tells crawlers which URLs they may crawl.

    A plain-text file at the root of a site (for example /robots.txt) with rules for crawlers. It controls crawling, not indexing. A disallowed URL can still appear in results if other pages link to it.

    See also: Crawling, noindex. Lesson: How search engines work

    Scaled content abuse

    Mass-producing low-value pages mainly to rank.

    A Google spam policy covering many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings rather than help users, no matter how they are created, whether by AI, scraping, templates or people.

    See also: Thin content, Keyword stuffing. Lesson: Thin, duplicate and low-quality content

    Search intent

    What the searcher is trying to achieve.

    The goal behind a query, often grouped as informational (learn), navigational (find a specific site), commercial (compare options) and transactional (buy or act). Pages that do not match the intent rarely rank well.

    See also: Keyword.

    Search Quality Rater Guidelines

    Google's handbook for people who evaluate search results.

    A public document describing how human raters judge result quality, including E-E-A-T, YMYL and user intent. Google says rater data is not used directly in its ranking algorithms. It is used to evaluate whether ranking systems work well.

    See also: E-E-A-T, YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), Search intent. Lesson: How Google evaluates content and websites

    Search volume

    An estimate of how often a keyword is searched per month.

    Keyword Planner reports a rounded monthly average that includes close variants for the chosen location. Third-party tools model their own estimates, which often disagree. Use volume to compare keywords, not as an exact count.

    See also: Keyword difficulty, Keyword. Lesson: Search volume, difficulty and competition

    Seed keyword

    A starting phrase used to find more keyword ideas.

    A short phrase that describes an offer or customer problem in the customer's words. Seeds come from the business and its customers, and are then expanded with tools such as Search Console, autocomplete and Keyword Planner.

    See also: Keyword, Head term. Lesson: Finding keyword ideas

    SEO (search engine optimisation)

    Helping search engines find and understand your pages, and making them worth showing.

    The practice of improving a website so that search engines can crawl, index and understand it, and so that its pages are useful answers for the people searching. It covers technical work, content and on-page work, and off-page work such as earning links.

    See also: Organic search, SERP. Lesson: What SEO is, and what it is not

    SERP

    Search engine results page.

    The page a search engine shows after a query. It can contain organic results, ads, AI-generated answers and other features such as maps, images or product listings.

    See also: SERP feature, Organic search. Lesson: Search results pages, organic and paid

    SERP feature

    Any result on a SERP that is not a standard organic listing.

    Special result types such as AI Overviews, local packs, image and video results, People also ask boxes and shopping results. Which features appear depends on the query and changes over time.

    See also: SERP, Rich result.

    Snippet

    The description text under a search result.

    Built mainly from page content. Google sometimes uses the meta description when that describes the page better. It can be limited with nosnippet, max-snippet and data-nosnippet.

    See also: Title link, Meta description. Lesson: Search results pages, organic and paid

    Soft 404

    An error page that returns status 200.

    A page that says "not found", or has no real content, but tells crawlers it is fine by returning 200. Search Console reports soft 404s. They should return a real 404 or 410 instead.

    See also: HTTP status code. Lesson: SEO terminology you will meet every day

    Structured data

    Machine-readable labels describing what a page contains.

    Code, usually JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary, that describes entities on a page such as a product, an organisation or an article. It can make pages eligible for rich results. It must match the visible content.

    See also: Rich result.

    Thin content

    Pages with little useful substance.

    Stub pages, empty categories, boilerplate text or copied descriptions that do not help the visitor. Improve, merge, noindex or remove them depending on their purpose.

    See also: Duplicate content, Scaled content abuse. Lesson: Thin, duplicate and low-quality content

    Topic cluster

    A hub page and supporting pages that together cover one subject.

    The hub gives an overview and links to each supporting page, and each supporting page covers one subtopic or question in depth and links back. It organises content so each page has one job.

    See also: Keyword cluster (topic), Internal link. Lesson: Topic clusters and topical authority

    URL

    The address of a page.

    Made of a scheme (https), host (subdomain and domain), path, optional parameters after "?", and an optional fragment after "#". Paths are case-sensitive, and Google generally ignores fragments.

    See also: Canonical URL. Lesson: SEO terminology you will meet every day

    URL Inspection

    Search Console tool that shows Google's view of one URL.

    Shows whether a URL is indexed, when it was last crawled, the declared and Google-selected canonical, and blocking issues. It can test the live URL and request indexing, which does not guarantee indexing.

    See also: Google Search Console. Lesson: Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

    XML sitemap

    A file that lists the URLs you want search engines to know about.

    An XML file listing canonical URLs, optionally with an accurate last-modified date. Google limits one file to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed, and ignores the priority and changefreq fields. Submitting one helps discovery but does not guarantee crawling.

    See also: Crawling, Google Search Console.

    YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)

    Topics where poor information could seriously harm people.

    A term from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines for topics that could significantly affect people's health, financial stability or safety, or the welfare of society. Google gives more weight to signals of trust and expertise for these topics.

    See also: E-E-A-T, Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Lesson: How Google evaluates content and websites