You hired an agency, or you’re about to. The proposal is full of words you half know. Crawl budget. Canonical. E-E-A-T. Now something called AEO.
Nod along and you’ll sign off on work you can’t judge. Ask what every term means and the meeting runs an hour long.
This SEO glossary fixes that. 100 essential SEO terms, A to Z, each one in plain English a business owner can use, with a line on why it matters to you when it does. It’s the SEO vocabulary you need to read a proposal, an audit or a monthly report without a translator. Jump to the letter you need, or read the Key Takeaways and the five terms to learn first.
Key Takeaways
Search engines do three jobs. They crawl your pages, index what they find, and rank the index for each search query. Most SEO problems live in one of those three steps.
Google itself documents a lot of this. Core Web Vitals thresholds, crawl budget, E-E-A-T and redirects all have official Google pages, so you can check any vendor claim against the source.
Domain Authority is a Moz score, not a Google one. Moz says it isn't a ranking factor. Treat it as a comparison tool, never as a goal.
AI search has its own vocabulary. AI Overviews, AI Mode, answer engine optimization (AEO), citations and entities are the terms that decide whether ChatGPT or Google's AI names your business.
Local businesses need five extra terms. Google Business Profile, the local pack, NAP, local citations and reviews are the local SEO terms that drive calls and walk-ins.
Four terms get confused the most. SEO versus SEM, AEO versus GEO, crawling versus indexing, and 301 versus 302. The comparison table near the end sorts them out.
If you only learn five SEO terms, learn these: search intent, title tag, backlink, Google Business Profile and Core Web Vitals. They cover what people want, what your page says, who vouches for you, where local customers find you, and whether your site is fast enough to keep them.
- Search intent
- Title tag
- Backlink
- Google Business Profile
- Core Web Vitals
How To Use This SEO Glossary
The terms run alphabetically, with numbers first. Each piece of SEO terminology gets a definition, and where it helps, a line on why it matters to your business. Where BCC has a longer guide on a term, the entry links to it. If you’re a beginner, start with the Sticky Note above for the key terms, then skim the headings until one looks familiar from a proposal or a report you’ve been sent. The SEO concepts that matter most for digital marketing, like search intent and E-E-A-T, get a little more room than the purely technical ones.
0 To 9
301 Redirect
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. It sends visitors and search engine crawlers from an old URL to a new one, and Google’s documentation says it treats a 301 as a signal that the new URL should be the canonical (main) version. Use it whenever you move, rename or delete a page. Our guide on how redirects affect website authority covers the cases where a redirect quietly costs you rankings.
302 Redirect
A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect. Google says it does not use a temporary redirect as a signal that the destination should become the canonical page, so the old URL can stay in search results. Use a 302 for short-term moves, like a seasonal page, and a 301 for anything permanent.
404 Error
A 404 is the status code a server returns when a page doesn’t exist. A few 404s are normal. Hundreds of them, especially on pages other sites link to, waste link equity and send visitors to dead ends. Redirect the ones that matter and let the rest stay 404.
A
Above The Fold
Above the fold is the part of a page a visitor sees before scrolling. Search engines and users both judge a page quickly, so your main heading, your offer and your first useful sentence belong above the fold, not under a hero image that says nothing.
AI Mode
AI Mode is a tab in Google Search that answers a question with a full AI-generated response, lets you ask follow-ups, and links out to sources. Google rolled it out to all US users on May 20, 2025. It matters because a buyer in AI Mode may never see the ten blue links at all. Being one of the sources it cites is the new goal.
AI Overviews
AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages it drew from. Google began rolling them out to everyone in the US on May 14, 2024. For a business, an AI Overview can take the click you used to get from position one, or hand you a citation you never had. Our post on what Google AI Overviews are explains how to tell which is happening to you.
Algorithm
A search engine’s algorithm is the set of systems that decides search engine rankings: which pages appear for a search query and in what order. Google updates it constantly and announces the big changes as core updates. You can’t optimize for the algorithm itself. You optimize for what it’s trying to measure: relevance, quality and trust.
Alt Text
Alt text is the written description of an image in your page’s HTML. Screen readers read it aloud for visually impaired users, and it helps search engines understand what the image shows. Describe the image plainly. “Cory Young presenting at a conference” works. “SEO agency best SEO services” does not.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. In the link “read our local SEO guide,” the anchor text is those five words. It tells users and search engines what the linked page is about, which is why descriptive anchor text beats “click here.”
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer engine optimization is the practice of making your business the answer when someone asks a question, whether the asker is typing into Google, talking to a voice assistant, or prompting ChatGPT. It covers featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, AI Overviews and AI chat answers. Our AEO services treat it as a layer on top of SEO, not a replacement. Some people call the same work generative engine optimization (GEO), defined under G.
Now Try It On Your Own Business
You know what AI Overviews, AI Mode and AEO mean. The free AI Visibility Playbook is a 15-minute check that shows you how ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity describe your business today, who they compare you to, and where they get their information. It shows you where you stand. Fixing it is the work we do.
Get the free playbookB
Backlink
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat backlinks from relevant, trusted sites as evidence that your page is worth ranking, which is why they improve search engine rankings more reliably than almost anything else. Quantity matters far less than who is linking and why. Our guide on what backlinks are and how to build them covers the ways that still work.
Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO is any tactic that breaks search engine guidelines to manipulate rankings: buying links, hiding text, cloaking, scaled auto-generated pages. It can work for a while. Then a core update or a manual action removes the gains, and sometimes the site. If a vendor’s plan sounds too easy, ask which part of Google’s spam policies it brushes against.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a page without taking any action on it. In Google Analytics 4 it’s the share of sessions that weren’t “engaged,” meaning under ten seconds, no conversion and only one page. A high bounce rate on a blog post can be fine. A high bounce rate on a service page usually means the page didn’t match what the visitor searched for.
Branded Keyword
A branded keyword is a search that includes your company or product name, like “BCC Interactive reviews.” Branded searches are the easiest to rank for and the most valuable to protect, because the person already knows you. When you read a traffic report, ask how much of the growth is branded. Branded growth comes from your reputation. Non-branded growth comes from your SEO.
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are the small navigation trail near the top of a page, such as Home > Blog > SEO Glossary. They show users where they are on the site and give search engines a clean picture of your site structure. With the right schema markup, Google can show the trail in your search listing.
C
Canonical Tag
A canonical tag is a line of HTML that tells search engines which version of a page is the main one when several URLs show the same or similar content. Ecommerce SEO runs into this constantly: one product reachable through three category paths. Without a canonical, search engines pick one for you, and they don’t always pick the one you’d want.
Citation (AI)
In AI search, a citation is the source link an AI answer attaches to a claim. When ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overview answers “best commercial holiday lighting company in Philadelphia,” the pages it links are the citations. Getting cited is the measurable goal of AEO. Being the seventeenth citation is about the same as not being cited.
Citation (Local)
In local SEO, a citation is any online mention of your business name, address and phone number: a directory listing, a chamber of commerce page, a Yelp profile. Consistent citations across the web help search engines trust that your business exists where you say it does. Inconsistent ones, like an old address on a directory you forgot about, do the opposite.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate is the percentage of people who click your listing after seeing it. If your page appeared in search results 1,000 times and 50 people clicked, the CTR is 5%. Google Search Console reports it per query and per page. A page with lots of impressions and a low CTR usually needs a better title tag and meta description, not more content.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is publishing useful material, such as guides, comparisons, tools and videos, so the people who need what you sell find you and trust you before they ever talk to sales. It’s the part of digital marketing that overlaps most with SEO, because search is where most of that content gets found. Content strategies that ignore search intent produce articles nobody reads.
Conversion
A conversion is the action you want a visitor to take: a form fill, a call, a purchase, a booking, subscribing to a newsletter. Conversion rate is conversions divided by visitors. SEO reports that stop at traffic and rankings are hiding the number you actually care about. Ask for conversions by landing page.
Core Update
A core update is a broad change Google makes to its ranking systems, announced on its Search Status Dashboard a few times a year. Core updates aren’t penalties. They re-assess the whole web, so sites rise and fall based on how the new systems judge them. If your traffic moves on an announced core update date, that’s where to start the investigation.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are three page experience measurements Google uses as part of ranking: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Google’s thresholds for “good” are 2.5 seconds, 200 milliseconds and 0.1. Each one has its own entry below. For the business case, read why page speed optimization matters.
Crawl Budget
Crawl budget is the number of pages Google can and wants to crawl on your site in a given period. Google’s own guidance says it’s a concern for large sites with more than a million unique pages, or sites with more than 10,000 pages that change daily. If a vendor is selling crawl budget optimization to a 60-page local business site, ask why.
Crawler
A crawler (also called a spider or bot) is the automated program a search engine uses to discover and read web pages by following links. Google’s crawler is Googlebot. If a page can’t be crawled, it can’t be indexed, and if it can’t be indexed, it can’t rank in search.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift measures how much a page’s content jumps around while it loads, like a button that moves just as you tap it. It’s one of the three Core Web Vitals. Google counts a CLS of 0.1 or less as good. Late-loading ads, images without set dimensions and injected banners are the usual causes.
D
Domain Authority (DA)
Domain Authority is a score from 1 to 100 developed by Moz that predicts how likely a domain is to rank, based mostly on its backlink profile. Moz’s own explainer says it isn’t a metric Google uses and has no effect on search results. Ahrefs has an equivalent called Domain Rating, and Semrush has Authority Score. All three are estimates from the tool’s own link index, not from Google.
Any sales pitch built on "we'll raise your DA to 50" is selling you a number from a third-party tool, not a result in Google. We use DA, DR and Authority Score to compare one site to another in the same market, and for nothing else. Judge SEO by rankings for terms that bring customers, by organic conversions, and by the calls and orders you can trace back. If an agency can't report those, the authority score is the distraction.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is the same or nearly the same content reachable at more than one URL, on your site or across sites. Google doesn’t penalize most duplicate content, but it does have to pick one version to show, and it may pick wrong or split the signals between copies. Canonical tags, redirects and rewriting the near-copies are the fixes.
Dwell Time
Dwell time is how long a searcher stays on your page before returning to the search results. Google hasn’t confirmed it as a direct ranking factor, and you can’t see it in any report. Treat it as a reminder: a page that answers the question in the first paragraph keeps people longer than one that makes them hunt.
E
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. It comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, the handbook its human raters use to evaluate results. Google says E-E-A-T itself isn’t a specific ranking factor, and that of the four, trust is the most important. In practice: show real authors, real credentials, real customers and real contact details.
Entity
An entity is a thing search engines and AI models recognize as distinct: a company, a person, a product, a place. Google keeps these in its Knowledge Graph. When your business is a well-defined entity, with a consistent name, description, founder, location and services everywhere it appears, search engines and large language models can describe you confidently. When it isn’t, they guess, and they guess wrong.
External Link
An external link is a link from your page to a page on another website. Linking out to a trustworthy source doesn’t hurt your rankings. It helps your reader, and it shows search engines what your content is about. Link to the primary source for every stat you cite.
F
Featured Snippet
A featured snippet is the box at the top of some Google results that answers the query directly with text, a list or a table pulled from one page, with a link to that page. People call it “position zero.” You earn it by answering a specific question clearly, in one short block, on a page that already ranks on page one for that query.
G
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative engine optimization means shaping your content and your presence across the web so AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude name you or cite you in their answers. At BCC we lead with the term AEO (answer engine optimization) and treat GEO as the same discipline under a different name. Start with what GEO is, then read GEO vs SEO to see how it sits on top of a normal SEO program.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is Google’s free tool for measuring what visitors do on your website: where they came from, which pages they viewed, and whether they converted. The current version is Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which replaced Universal Analytics when the old version stopped processing data on July 1, 2023. Pair it with Search Console; our comparison of Google Search Console vs Google Analytics explains which answers which question.
Google Business Profile (GBP)
Google Business Profile is the free listing that controls how your business appears in Google Maps and in the local pack, including hours, photos, reviews, services and posts. Google renamed it from Google My Business in November 2021, so you’ll still hear both names. For local businesses it’s the single most important SEO asset. Our Google Business Profile optimization checklist walks through every field.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is Google’s free tool that shows how your site performs in Google Search: which queries show your pages, how many impressions and clicks each gets, your average position, indexing status and errors. It’s one of the few places you get data from Google itself rather than an estimate. It’s also on our list of free SEO tools worth setting up before you spend anything.
Googlebot
Googlebot is the name of Google’s web crawler. It visits pages, follows links and sends what it finds back to be indexed. Google now crawls and indexes the web as a smartphone; see mobile-first indexing under M.
H
H1 Tag
The H1 is the main heading on a page, marked in HTML so search engines know it’s the headline. Headings run from H1 to H6, and the hierarchy tells both users and search engines how the page is organized. One H1 per page that says what the page is about. Subheadings (H2, H3) for the sections under it.
Hreflang
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and country a page is for, so a searcher in Mexico gets your Spanish page and a searcher in Ohio gets the English one. It only matters if you publish the same content in more than one language or region. If you don’t, you can skip it.
HTTPS
HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol browsers use to load pages. The padlock in the address bar means your site has it. Google has used HTTPS as a lightweight ranking signal since 2014, and browsers label sites without it “Not secure.” Every site should have it by now. If yours doesn’t, it’s a fix, not a strategy.
I
Impressions
An impression is one appearance of your page in a search result, whether or not anyone clicked. Google Search Console counts them per query and per page. A page with 10,000 impressions and 2 clicks is being shown and ignored, which usually means it ranks on page five or its listing gives no reason to click.
Index
The index is the database where search engines like Google store the pages they’ve crawled and decided to keep. When you search Google, you’re searching the index, not the live web. If a page isn’t in the index, it can’t rank, no matter how good it is. Search Console’s Pages report tells you which of your URLs are in and which are out.
Indexing
Indexing is the step after crawling: the search engine reads the page, works out what it’s about, and stores it. Crawled doesn’t mean indexed. Google can crawl a page and decide not to keep it, usually because it’s thin, duplicate, blocked with a noindex tag, or low quality compared with what’s already stored.
Interaction To Next Paint (INP)
Interaction to Next Paint measures how quickly a page responds when someone taps, clicks or types. It’s one of the three Core Web Vitals and replaced the older First Input Delay metric in 2024. Google counts 200 milliseconds or less as good. Heavy scripts, chat widgets and tracking tags are the usual reasons a page fails it.
Internal Link
An internal link is a link from one page to another page within the same website. Internal links help search engines find your pages, pass link equity between them, and show which pages matter most. Pages with no internal links pointing to them are orphan pages, covered under O. Most sites under-link their best service pages and over-link their homepage.
J
JavaScript Rendering
JavaScript rendering is the step where a search engine runs a page’s JavaScript to see the content it produces, the way a browser does. Google can render JavaScript, but it does so in a second pass that can take longer, and other crawlers and AI bots may not render it at all. If your important content only appears after JavaScript runs, check what crawlers actually see before you assume it’s indexed.
K
Keyword
A keyword is a word or phrase people type into a search engine, and the keyword or phrase you build a page around to match it. “SEO glossary” is the keyword for this page. Keywords and phrases still anchor SEO strategy, but search engines now read intent and context, not just exact matches, so one page can rank for dozens of related keywords.
Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization happens when two or more of your own pages target the same keyword and compete with each other. Google has to pick one, and it may pick the weaker page, or alternate between them. The fix is usually to merge the pages or give each one a distinct target.
Keyword Difficulty
Keyword difficulty is a tool-generated score estimating how hard it is to rank on page one for a keyword, based mostly on the backlinks of the pages already there. Every tool scores it differently. Use it to compare keywords against each other, not as a verdict. A smaller business usually wins faster on lower-difficulty keywords with clear buying intent.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of finding the search queries your customers actually use, how many people search them (search volume), what they expect to find, and how hard each is to rank for. It’s the first step of any SEO strategy, because it decides which pages you build. Our local keyword research guide shows the process for a business that serves a specific area.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is cramming a keyword into a page so often that the text reads badly. It was a tactic in 2008. Today it’s listed in Google’s spam policies. Keyword density, the percentage of a page’s total number of words that are your keyword, is not a metric worth tracking. Write for the reader and put the keyword in the title, the H1 and the first paragraph.
Knowledge Panel
The Knowledge Panel is the information box Google shows on the right side of desktop results (top on mobile) for a recognized entity: a company, a person, a landmark. It pulls from Google’s Knowledge Graph, Wikipedia, your Google Business Profile and other trusted sources. For a local business, the panel is your Google Business Profile. For a brand, it’s a sign Google understands who you are.
KPI
A KPI, or key performance indicator, is the number you’ve agreed to judge SEO performance by. For SEO, sensible KPIs are organic conversions, organic revenue, qualified leads from search and rankings for the keywords that drive them. Impressions and Domain Authority are not KPIs. They’re diagnostics.
L
Landing Page
A landing page is the page on a website a visitor arrives on from a search result, an ad or a link. In SEO reporting, “organic landing pages” shows which pages are actually bringing people in. Every landing page needs one clear job: match the search intent, then move the visitor toward a conversion.
Large Language Model (LLM)
A large language model is the kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. It generates answers by predicting text based on enormous amounts of training data, and increasingly by reading live web pages through search. LLMs don’t rank pages the way Google does. They describe your business based on what the sources they trust say about you, which is why AEO focuses on those sources.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Largest Contentful Paint measures how long it takes the biggest visible element on a page, usually a hero image or a block of text, to load. It’s one of the three Core Web Vitals, and Google counts 2.5 seconds or less as good. Oversized images and slow hosting are the two most common reasons a page fails.
Link Building
Link building is the work of earning backlinks from other websites: publishing something worth citing, getting listed where your industry gets listed, being quoted, being reviewed. Buying links violates Google’s spam policies. Earning them is slow, and it’s where most of the lasting ranking gains come from. See how to build backlinks for the methods that still hold up.
Link Equity
Link equity (older SEOs say “link juice”) is the ranking value a link passes from one page to another. A link from a trusted, relevant page passes more than one from a random directory. Internal links pass it too, which is why your most important pages should be linked from many others.
Local Pack
The local pack is the map with three business listings that Google shows for searches with local intent, like “pizza near me” or “estate attorney Philadelphia.” It sits above the regular organic results, and it’s built from Google Business Profiles, not web pages. For most local businesses, the local pack produces more calls than any blue link. Our guide to local SEO best practices covers what moves you into it.
Local SEO
Local SEO is the work of showing up when people near you search for what you do: Google Business Profile optimization, reviews, local citations, location pages, and content for your service area. It’s a different discipline from national SEO because the local pack and Maps follow their own rules. Start with what local SEO is, or see our local SEO services if you’d rather hand it off.
Log File Analysis
Log file analysis is reading your web server’s logs to see exactly which pages Googlebot and other crawlers visited, how often, and what they got back. It’s the only way to know what search engines actually did on your site, rather than what a tool estimates. It matters mostly for large sites, e-commerce catalogs and sites with crawl problems.
Long-Tail Keyword
A long-tail keyword is a longer, more specific search phrase with lower search volume, like “commercial holiday lighting installer for office parks” instead of “holiday lighting.” Head terms get the volume. Long-tail keywords get the buyers, because the specificity tells you exactly what the person wants, and they’re far easier to rank for.
M
Meta Description
A meta description is the short summary of a page in its HTML that Google may show under the title in search results. Google says it sometimes uses it and sometimes writes its own snippet, and that there’s no fixed length limit, though it truncates to fit the screen. It isn’t a ranking factor. It’s an ad for the click, so write it like one: what the page delivers, in about 150 characters.
Mobile-First Indexing
Mobile-first indexing means Google crawls and indexes the mobile version of your site, not the desktop version, and ranks you based on what the mobile version contains. Google announced on October 31, 2023 that the move to mobile-first indexing was complete. If your mobile site hides content the desktop site shows, as far as Google is concerned that content doesn’t exist.
N
NAP
NAP stands for name, address and phone number. In local SEO, NAP consistency means your business details match exactly across your website, your Google Business Profile and every directory. “Suite 200” on one listing and “Ste. 200” on another is a small mismatch; a different phone number is a big one. Both weaken the trust signals the local pack relies on.
Nofollow
Nofollow is an attribute you add to a link to tell search engines you don’t vouch for the destination. Google treats it as a hint rather than a command. Paid links and sponsored placements must carry nofollow or the sponsored attribute, or they fall under Google’s link spam policy. Links from comment sections and forums are usually nofollow too.
Noindex
Noindex is a tag that tells search engines to keep a page out of their index. Use it on thank-you pages, internal search results, staging copies and anything else that shouldn’t appear in search. It’s the right tool for that job. Robots.txt, covered under R, is not.
O
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is everything that affects your rankings and happens away from your own website: backlinks, brand mentions, reviews, citations, social profiles and press. It’s how search engines decide whether other people consider you credible. You control it less directly than on-page work, which is why it takes longer.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is everything you optimize on the page itself: title tag, meta description, headings, body copy, images, internal links and structured data. It’s the part of SEO you fully control. If you’re new to SEO, on-page fixes to pages that already get impressions are usually the fastest wins.
Organic Search
Organic search results are the unpaid listings on a search engine results page, ranked by relevance and quality rather than by bids. Organic traffic is the visitors those listings send you. Unlike paid search, you don’t pay per click, but you do pay in the content, technical work and link building it takes to get there.
Orphan Page
An orphan page is a page on your site that no other page links to. Search engines find pages by following links, so an orphan may never be crawled, and if it’s indexed it gets no link equity from the rest of your site. Site audits catch them; adding internal links from relevant pages fixes them.
P
Page Speed
Page speed is how fast a page loads and becomes usable, measured in the lab by tools like PageSpeed Insights and in the field by Core Web Vitals from real users. Slow pages lose visitors before they see anything, and Google uses the Core Web Vitals measurements in ranking. Read why page speed optimization matters before you pay for a faster host.
PageRank
PageRank is Google’s original algorithm for scoring a page by the quantity and quality of links pointing to it, named after co-founder Larry Page. Google stopped showing public PageRank scores in 2016, but links are still a core part of how it ranks pages. Domain Authority and similar tool scores are third-party attempts to estimate something like it.
Parasite SEO
Parasite SEO is publishing your content on a high-authority site you don’t own, such as a news site, a forum or a marketplace, so it ranks on that site’s strength. Google’s spam policies now include a site reputation policy covering third-party content published on a host mainly to trade on the host’s established ranking signals, so the tactic has a shorter shelf life than it used to. A legitimate guest article is fine. Renting a subfolder of a newspaper is not.
People Also Ask
People Also Ask is the box of related questions Google expands in the middle of many results pages. Each answer is pulled from a web page, with a link. It’s a direct read on what else your customers are asking, and answering those questions on your page is one of the simplest AEO tactics there is.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Pay-per-click is advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad, most often Google Ads. PPC results show up above and below organic results, labeled as sponsored. PPC gives you traffic the day you turn it on and stops the day you stop paying. SEO is slower to start and keeps working after the invoice is paid. Most businesses need both, in different amounts at different times.
Programmatic SEO
Programmatic SEO is creating a large number of pages from a template and a dataset, such as a page for every city you serve or every product-and-location combination. Done with real, distinct content, it can capture thousands of long-tail keywords. Done with thin, near-identical pages, it falls under Google’s scaled content abuse policy. The data has to be worth a page.
Q
Query
A search query is the exact words someone types or speaks into a search engine. “Query” and “keyword” get used interchangeably, but a keyword is what you target and a query is what the person actually searched. Search Console shows you your real queries, which are often messier and more useful than the keywords you planned for.
R
Ranking
Ranking in search results is the position your page holds for a specific query. Position one is the top organic result. Search rankings move every day, differ by location and device, and are now shared with ads, AI Overviews, local packs and other features, so “we rank number three” tells you less than it used to. Rank for terms that bring customers, and measure the customers.
Ranking Factor
A ranking factor is any signal a search engine uses to decide whether a page ranks higher in search than another. Google confirms some (relevant content, links, page experience, HTTPS, mobile usability) and declines to confirm or deny many others. Lists of “200 ranking factors” circulate online; Google has never published one. Be skeptical of anyone who claims to know the full list.
Rich Results
Rich results are search listings with extras beyond the title and description: star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, prices, event dates, recipe times, breadcrumbs. They come from structured data (schema markup) on your page. Rich results don’t improve your ranking position, but they take more space and usually earn more clicks.
Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your site that tells crawlers which parts of the site they may or may not crawl. Google’s documentation is explicit that it is not a mechanism for keeping a page out of Google; a blocked page can still be indexed if other sites link to it. To keep a page out, use noindex or password protection.
S
Schema Markup (Structured Data)
Schema markup is code, usually JSON-LD, that labels the content on a page in a vocabulary search engines understand: this is a local business, this is its address, this is an FAQ, this is a product with this price. It helps search engines understand your content and makes you eligible for rich results. It also gives AI systems clean, machine-readable facts about your business.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing is the umbrella term for getting traffic from search engines, paid and organic. In practice, most agencies use SEM to mean paid search specifically. When you see “SEM” on a proposal, ask whether it includes SEO or just ads. The answer changes what you’re buying.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the work of making your website rank higher in search engine results so more of the right people find it. An SEO strategy has three parts: technical health so the site can be crawled and indexed, content that matches what people search for, and authority from links and mentions so search engines trust it. Every one of the SEO practices in this glossary falls under one of those three. What it costs depends on your starting point and your market; our guide to SEO pricing explains the models you’ll be quoted.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
The search engine results page is what you see after you search: organic results, ads, and depending on the query, an AI Overview, a local pack, a featured snippet, People Also Ask, images, videos and a Knowledge Panel. SERP features are everything on that page that isn’t a plain blue link. Which features appear tells you what Google thinks the searcher wants.
Search Intent
Search intent is the reason behind a query: to learn something (informational), to find a specific site (navigational), to compare options (commercial), or to buy or book (transactional). Google ranks pages that match the intent, so a product page won’t rank for a how-to question and a blog post won’t rank for “buy.” Match the page type to the intent before you write a word.
Search Volume
Search volume is the estimated number of times a keyword is searched per month, usually from a keyword research tool. Every tool estimates differently, and the numbers are averages, not promises. Use volume to prioritize, then check Search Console for what you’re actually shown for.
Sitemap (XML Sitemap)
An XML sitemap is a file listing the URLs on your site you want search engines to crawl and index, with the date each last changed. You submit it in Google Search Console. It doesn’t guarantee indexing, but it helps search engines find every important page, especially new ones and ones with few internal links.
Slug
The slug is the last part of a URL that identifies the page, like “seo-glossary-terms-explained” in this page’s address. Keep slugs short, readable and descriptive, with words separated by hyphens. Changing a slug changes the URL, which means a 301 redirect from the old one.
T
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the work that lets search engines access, crawl, render and index your site properly: site speed, Core Web Vitals, mobile usability, HTTPS, crawl errors, redirects, canonicals, sitemaps, structured data and JavaScript rendering. An SEO audit usually starts here, because content and links can’t rank a page Google can’t reach.
Thin Content
Thin content is a page or piece of content with little or no value for the person who lands on it: a 100-word location page that swaps the city name, a tag archive, a product page with only the manufacturer’s description. Google’s systems are built to find and demote it. Merge, expand or noindex thin pages rather than leaving them to drag down the pages around them.
Title Tag
The title tag is the HTML element that sets a page’s title. It’s the clickable headline in search results and the text in the browser tab, and it’s one of the strongest on-page signals of what the page is about. Google rewrites titles it thinks are poor. Our guide to title tag optimization covers length, keyword placement and how to write one that earns the click.
Topical Authority
Topical authority is the credibility a site earns by covering a subject thoroughly and well, with many connected pages, rather than one article. A site with forty linked pages about commercial roofing is more likely to rank for a new commercial roofing query than a general contractor with one post. It’s the long-term reason to publish in clusters instead of one-offs.
U
URL
A URL is a page’s full web address. For SEO, a good URL is short, uses real words, matches the page topic, and never changes without a redirect. The protocol (https), domain (bccinteractive.com), path (/blog/) and slug all count. Parameters like ?sort=price create extra URLs for the same content and usually need a canonical tag.
User Experience (UX)
User experience is how easy and pleasant it is to interact with a website: can visitors find what they came for, read it, and act on it without friction. Google measures parts of it through Core Web Vitals and mobile usability. The rest shows up in conversions. A page that ranks and frustrates people is a page that ranks and loses them.
V
Voice Search
Voice search is a query spoken to a phone, smart speaker or car instead of typed. Voice queries are longer and phrased as questions, and the assistant usually reads one answer aloud, often from a featured snippet or a Google Business Profile. You don’t need a separate voice strategy. Clear answers to real questions, plus a complete business profile, cover it.
W
White Hat SEO
White hat SEO is ranking by following search engine guidelines: useful content, a healthy site, links earned on merit. It’s slower than black hat SEO, and it’s the only version that keeps working through core updates. Every tactic in this glossary that we’d recommend falls on this side of the line.
Y
YMYL
YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life, Google’s label in its quality rater guidelines for topics that can affect a person’s health, finances, safety or legal standing. Pages on YMYL topics are held to a higher E-E-A-T standard. If you’re a medical practice, a financial advisor, a law firm or an insurance agency, your content needs visible credentials and sources, not just keywords.
Z
Zero-Click Search
A zero-click search is a query that ends without the searcher clicking any result, because the answer was on the results page itself: a featured snippet, an AI Overview, a Knowledge Panel, a map, a calculator. For some queries you want the click. For others, like “what are your hours,” the zero-click answer is the win. Know which of your keywords are which before you judge a traffic report.
Terms People Confuse
Six pairs come up in almost every client call. Side by side:
| Pair | The first one | The second one | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO vs SEM | Earning organic rankings | The umbrella for paid and organic search, usually meaning paid ads | Decides whether a proposal includes ads, SEO, or both |
| AEO vs GEO | Being the answer across snippets, voice and AI | The same discipline, named for generative AI tools | Two vendors may be selling the same thing under different names |
| Crawling vs indexing | Google visits and reads the page | Google stores it and makes it eligible to rank | A crawled page can still be missing from Google |
| 301 vs 302 | Permanent redirect; new URL becomes canonical | Temporary redirect; old URL may stay in results | The wrong one leaves rankings on a dead page |
| Domain Authority vs PageRank | Moz's estimate from its own link index | Google's own link-based scoring, no longer public | Only one of them is used by Google |
| Search Console vs Google Analytics | What Google showed and what people clicked | What visitors did once they arrived | Rankings questions go to one, conversion questions to the other |
Which Terms Actually Matter For Your Business
You don’t need all 100. You need the handful that match your situation.
A local business lives in the local pack: Google Business Profile, NAP, local citations, reviews and search intent. An e-commerce company lives in technical SEO: canonical tags, crawl budget, Core Web Vitals, structured data and duplicate content. A B2B company lives in authority: topical authority, backlinks, E-E-A-T, entities and the AI terms, because its buyers are asking ChatGPT who to shortlist.
Whichever you are, the next time a proposal lands on your desk, you can read it. And when timing comes up, there’s no single answer. An established site with content or targeting gaps can move in about 60 to 90 days. Bigger fixes or a crowded market take closer to 3 to 6 months. A new site, or national terms against big brands, runs 6 to 12 months or more. Our post on how long SEO takes walks through each starting point.
Frequently Asked Questions
SEO (search engine optimization) is earning unpaid, organic rankings through content, technical work and links. SEM (search engine marketing) is technically the umbrella for both paid and organic search, but most agencies use it to mean paid ads like Google Ads. When a proposal says SEM, ask whether SEO is included. Usually it isn’t.
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is making your business the answer wherever a question is asked: featured snippets, People Also Ask, voice assistants, AI Overviews and AI chat tools. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the same work, named for generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. BCC uses AEO as the lead term and treats GEO as a synonym. Both sit on top of SEO rather than replacing it.
Start with search intent, title tag, backlink, Google Business Profile and Core Web Vitals. Then add the ones for your business type: local pack, NAP and citations if you serve an area; canonical tag, duplicate content and crawl budget if you run an online store; topical authority, E-E-A-T, entity and citation (AI) if you sell B2B. Impressions, clicks and conversions are the three report numbers to understand first.
Crawling is a search engine’s bot visiting your page and reading it. Indexing is the search engine deciding to store that page in its database so it can appear in results. Google can crawl a page and still leave it out of the index because it’s thin, duplicate, blocked with noindex, or lower quality than what’s already stored. Google Search Console’s Pages report shows which of your URLs made it in.
No. Domain Authority is a score developed by Moz, calculated from Moz’s own link index, and Moz says it isn’t a metric Google uses. Ahrefs’ Domain Rating and Semrush’s Authority Score are the same idea from different tools. Use them to compare sites in your market. Don’t pay anyone to raise the number for its own sake.
It depends on where you start, and anyone who gives you one number is guessing. An established site with content or targeting gaps can see movement in about 60 to 90 days. A site that needs bigger technical fixes, or a competitive market, usually takes 3 to 6 months. A brand-new site, or a push on national keywords against large brands, is 6 to 12 months or more. Our guide to how long SEO takes breaks it down by starting point.