What Do the Common SEO Terms Actually Mean?
SEO has an unusually large amount of jargon, and much of it is used loosely. That makes reports harder to read than they need to be.
This glossary defines the terms you are most likely to meet in an audit, a proposal or a monthly report, grouped by the area they belong to.
Skim the group you need rather than reading top to bottom. If a term you are looking for is missing, it is probably covered in the introduction to SEO.
Key takeaways
- Most SEO terms describe one of three things: access, meaning, or trust.
- Crawling, indexing and ranking are separate stages that fail separately.
- Intent describes what a searcher wants, and decides what page type can rank.
- AEO, GEO and AIO describe visibility in generated answers rather than blue links.
- Authority is earned through links, citations and brand mentions, not bought.
- Impressions, clicks and conversions measure different things — never one alone.
Search basics
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| SEO | Improving a website so it earns visibility in unpaid search results. |
| SERP | Search engine results page — everything shown for a query, ads included. |
| Organic result | An earned listing you do not pay per click for. |
| Paid result | An advertising slot bought through an auction such as Google Ads. |
| Query | The words someone actually types or says into a search engine. |
| Keyword | A phrase a page is intended to rank for. |
| Search intent | What the searcher is trying to achieve: learn, compare, buy or navigate. |
| Long-tail query | A longer, more specific search with lower volume and clearer intent. |
| Head term | A short, broad, high-volume and usually highly competitive phrase. |
| Branded query | A search containing your business name. |
| Non-branded query | A search with no brand name, showing new demand. |
| Featured snippet | An answer box quoting a page above the standard results. |
| People Also Ask | The expandable related questions shown within a results page. |
| Map pack | The local results block showing businesses and a map. |
| Zero-click search | A search resolved on the results page without a visit to any site. |
Technical SEO terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Crawling | A search engine following links to discover pages. |
| Indexing | Storing and understanding a crawled page so it can be shown. |
| Crawl budget | The effective limit on how much of a site gets crawled in a period. |
| robots.txt | A file telling crawlers which paths they may request. |
| noindex | An instruction telling search engines not to include a page. |
| Canonical tag | A signal naming the preferred version of duplicate or similar pages. |
| Redirect (301) | A permanent forward from one URL to another, passing most signals. |
| Redirect (302) | A temporary forward, which should not be used for permanent moves. |
| Status code | The server's response: 200 works, 404 missing, 500 error. |
| XML sitemap | A file listing the URLs you want crawled and indexed. |
| Core Web Vitals | Google's measures of loading, interaction and visual stability. |
| LCP | Largest Contentful Paint — when the main content becomes visible. |
| CLS | Cumulative Layout Shift — how much the page moves while loading. |
| Render | The process of executing a page's code to see final content. |
| JavaScript SEO | Making content built by scripts reliably crawlable and indexable. |
| Log file analysis | Reviewing server records of what crawlers actually requested. |
| Structured data | Machine-readable markup describing a page's contents. |
| Schema markup | The vocabulary used for structured data, usually in JSON-LD. |
| Hreflang | Markup indicating language and regional targeting of pages. |
| Site architecture | How pages are grouped and linked to each other. |
On-page SEO terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Title tag | The clickable headline shown in results, usually under 60 characters. |
| Meta description | The summary beneath the title, influencing clicks rather than rank. |
| H1 | The main on-page heading describing what the page is. |
| H2 / H3 | Subheadings that structure sections and sub-questions. |
| URL slug | The readable part of the address identifying the page. |
| Alt text | A description of an image for screen readers and search engines. |
| Internal link | A link from one page of your site to another. |
| Anchor text | The visible words used for a link. |
| Keyword cannibalisation | Two pages competing for the same query, splitting signals. |
| Content depth | How completely a page resolves the question it targets. |
| Above the fold | Content visible before the reader scrolls. |
| Thin content | A page with too little substance to satisfy the query. |
| Duplicate content | Substantially identical content across multiple URLs. |
| Orphan page | A page with no internal links pointing to it. |
Content and semantic terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Semantic SEO | Optimising for meaning and relationships rather than exact phrases. |
| Entity | A distinct thing — person, place, brand, concept — that engines recognise. |
| Knowledge graph | A database of entities and how they relate to each other. |
| Topical authority | Recognised depth of coverage across a subject area. |
| Pillar page | A broad page covering a topic and linking to detailed subpages. |
| Content cluster | A pillar page plus supporting articles interlinked around one topic. |
| E-E-A-T | Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust — quality signals. |
| Content decay | Gradual loss of visibility as content becomes outdated. |
| Content refresh | Updating an existing page rather than publishing a new one. |
| Search journey | The sequence of searches someone makes while deciding. |
Links and authority terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Backlink | A link from another website to yours. |
| Referring domain | A unique website linking to you, regardless of link count. |
| Domain authority | A third-party estimate of a site's ranking strength; not a Google metric. |
| Nofollow | A link attribute indicating it should not pass endorsement. |
| Link building | Deliberately earning or acquiring links to a site. |
| Digital PR | Earning coverage and links through newsworthy material. |
| Citation | A mention of your business details, especially name, address and phone. |
| Brand mention | Your brand named without a link, still a recognised signal. |
| Toxic link | A low-quality or manipulative link that risks harm. |
| Disavow | Telling Google to ignore specified inbound links. |
Local SEO terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Local SEO | Optimising to appear for searches tied to a place. |
| Google Business Profile | The listing controlling map pack and knowledge panel details. |
| NAP consistency | Matching name, address and phone number across the web. |
| Service area | The geographic area a business states that it covers. |
| Proximity | How close the searcher is to the business — a strong local factor. |
| Prominence | How well known and well reviewed a business appears to be. |
| Local pack ranking | Position within the map results for a local query. |
| Review velocity | The rate at which new reviews arrive over time. |
| Location page | A page targeting a specific town or area you serve. |
AI search terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| AI Overview | Google's generated answer shown above traditional results. |
| AIO | AI Overview optimisation — work aimed at being cited in those answers. |
| AEO | Answer engine optimisation — being the source of a direct answer. |
| GEO | Generative engine optimisation — visibility inside AI assistant responses. |
| LLM | Large language model — the technology generating those answers. |
| Retrieval | The process of fetching sources to ground a generated answer. |
| Grounding | Tying generated text to retrievable sources. |
| Citation | The linked source credited within an AI answer. |
| Hallucination | A confident but incorrect statement generated by a model. |
| Prompt | The natural-language instruction a user gives an assistant. |
Measurement terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Impressions | How often your pages appeared for searches. |
| Clicks | Visits earned from those impressions. |
| CTR | Click-through rate — clicks divided by impressions. |
| Average position | The mean ranking position across recorded impressions. |
| Conversion | A tracked valuable action such as a form submission or call. |
| Search Console | Google's free tool reporting queries, coverage and indexing. |
| Attribution | Assigning credit for a conversion across channels. |
| Share of voice | Your visibility for a keyword set relative to competitors. |
| Baseline | The recorded starting point used to judge later change. |
For how these fit together in practice, see the guide to the types of SEO or our SEO services.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?+
SEO earns visibility in traditional results. AEO aims to be the direct answer to a question. GEO aims to be referenced inside AI assistant responses. The underlying fundamentals overlap heavily.
Is domain authority a Google ranking factor?+
No. It is a third-party estimate produced by SEO tools. Useful as a rough comparison between sites, but Google does not use or publish it.
What does E-E-A-T actually mean?+
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust — the qualities Google's raters use to judge content quality. It is not a direct score, but it describes what the algorithms try to approximate.
Which metric matters most?+
Conversions, followed by non-branded impressions as a leading indicator. Average position is the least useful of the common metrics because it varies by device, location and personalisation.
Do I need to know all of this?+
No. Understanding crawling, indexing, intent, internal links and conversions is enough to hold a competent conversation with any agency and to spot vague reporting.
Using this glossary
Keep this page to hand when reading an audit or proposal. If a document uses terms it never explains, that is usually a sign the work behind it has not been explained either.
A good agency will define its terms without being asked, and tie each one to something it intends to change on your site.
If you would like a plain-English review of your current SEO, get in touch.
Related reading
What is SEO and why is it important?
A plain-English guide to search engine optimisation: how search engines work, what technical, on-page, off-page and local SEO contribute, and where AI search fits.
Read articleWhat are the different types of SEO?
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Read articleThe SEO website checklist
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Read articleWhat are the benefits of SEO for businesses?
Ten business benefits of organic search, measured in enquiries rather than traffic, plus realistic expectations and when SEO is the wrong investment.
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