SEO glossary
SEO and AI search terms, each answered in one plain sentence
Start with the one-sentence answer, then the example and the part that changes what you do on your own site. Each term links the free tool or lesson that helps next.
AI search
How Google's AI answers, ChatGPT and Perplexity pick what to quote, and what changes for your pages.
Google AI Mode
Google AI Mode is a search mode inside Google Search that answers your question with an AI-written response and links to supporting websites, and lets you keep asking follow-up questions.
Read the definitionAI Overviews
AI Overviews are AI-written summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the web pages the summary draws on.
Read the definitionAnswer engine optimization (AEO)
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of making your pages easy for AI answer engines, such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, to find, understand and quote in their answers.
Read the definitionQuery fan-out
Query fan-out is the technique AI search uses to split one question into several related searches, run them at the same time, and combine what it finds into a single answer.
Read the definitionllms.txt
llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file, placed at a site's root as /llms.txt, that gives AI models and agents a short summary of the site and links to its most useful pages.
Read the definitionZero-click search
A zero-click search is a search that ends without the searcher clicking any result, because the results page answered them, they searched again, or they gave up.
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Search results
What a searcher sees on Google, and what decides how your page looks and ranks there.
SERP
A SERP, or search engine results page, is the page a search engine shows after a search: the list of links plus everything else on it, such as ads, an AI Overview, a map, videos and questions people also ask.
Read the definitionTitle tag
A title tag is the HTML <title> element that names a page, and Google often uses it as the clickable headline of the page's search result, which Google calls the title link.
Read the definitionE-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, the qualities Google says its systems look for when deciding which helpful content to put first.
Read the definitionClick-through rate
Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of people who saw a link, ad or search result and clicked it: clicks divided by impressions, shown as a percentage.
Read the definitionH1 tag
An H1 tag is the HTML <h1> element, the top-level heading that names what a page is about, and the first of six heading levels that run from H1 to H6.
Read the definitionURL slug
A URL slug is the part at the end of a page's address that names that page, such as best-running-shoes in example.com/blog/best-running-shoes.
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Crawling and indexing
The files that tell search engines where to go on your site, and what they will and won't do.
robots.txt
robots.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a site that tells search engine crawlers which URLs on the site they may fetch and which they should leave alone.
Read the definitionXML sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs on a site you want search engines to find, with optional details such as when each page last changed.
Read the definition301 redirect
A 301 redirect is a server response that tells browsers and search engines a page has moved for good to a new URL, and sends the visitor there automatically.
Read the definitionGooglebot
Googlebot is the web crawler Google Search uses to fetch pages so they can be considered for its index, and it comes in two versions: Googlebot Smartphone and Googlebot Desktop.
Read the definitionSubdomain
A subdomain is a name added in front of your domain, such as blog.example.com or shop.example.com, that can run as its own website on its own server.
Read the definitionNoindex tag
A noindex tag is a rule, set in a page's HTML or in its HTTP header, that tells search engines such as Google to keep that page out of their search results.
Read the definitionURL parameters
URL parameters are the key and value pairs after the question mark in a web address, such as ?color=blue&sort=price, that change or track what a page shows.
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Keywords and content planning
How searches turn into a plan: which page answers which search, and what to write next.
Search volume
Search volume is the average number of times a keyword is searched in a month, usually worked out over the last 12 months for one country.
Read the definitionSEO keywords
SEO keywords are the words and phrases people type into a search engine that you want a page on your site to show up for.
Read the definitionKeyword cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization is when two or more pages on the same site target the same search, so they compete with each other and Google has to choose between them.
Read the definitionTopical map
A topical map is a plan of every topic and subtopic a site should cover to answer its audience's searches, grouped under hub pages, with the page that will cover each one.
Read the definitionTopical authority
Topical authority is the idea that a site which covers a subject in depth, with many connected pages that answer its questions well, ranks more easily for searches on that subject than a site with one page on it.
Read the definitionPillar page
A pillar page is a broad page that covers one main topic and links out to narrower pages, called cluster pages, that go deeper on each subtopic and link back to it.
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Local search
How a business shows up on the map when someone nearby searches for it.
Covered in depth elsewhere
These terms already have a full guide, lesson or free tool on this site, so the link goes straight there.
- Local SEOGuide
- Generative engine optimization (GEO)Feature
- BacklinksGuide
- Schema markupGuide
- People also askFree tool
- Core Web VitalsAcademy lesson
- On-page SEOGuide
- Canonical tagGuide
- Meta descriptionGuide
- Image alt textGuide
- Domain authorityGuide
- Technical SEOGuide
- Long-tail keywordsGuide
- HreflangGuide
- Internal linkingGuide
- Semantic SEOGuide
- LLM SEOAcademy lesson
- White-label SEOGuide
- Programmatic SEOGuide
- Keyword clusteringFree tool
- Search intentAcademy lesson
- Featured snippetGuide
- Keyword difficultyGuide
- Content briefGuide
- Topic clustersAcademy lesson
- NAP (name, address, phone)Academy lesson
- Keyword mappingAcademy lesson
- Content gap analysisGuide
- Share of voiceFree tool
- Content refreshAcademy lesson
- Anchor textGuide
- Local citationsAcademy lesson
- Domain ageFree tool
- Structured dataGuide
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)Academy lesson
See which searches your own site should answer next.
Start with the plan for your own site: which page targets each search, and what to write next. The first one is free.
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