Search has changed faster in the last two years than in the decade before it. Answer engines now hand people a direct response before they ever reach a list of links, and the vocabulary for how that works keeps growing. This glossary is a plain-English reference for the language of search in the AI era, covering the long-standing SEO basics alongside newer ideas like AI Overviews and Answer Engine Optimization. Use it to find your footing, then turn it on your own pages and ask whether each one is built the way these definitions describe.
A
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
The practice of structuring your business information so AI answer engines understand what you do and cite you when someone asks a relevant question. Sometimes called GEO. See our full guide on what AEO is.
AI Mode
Google’s dedicated conversational search surface, where you ask follow-up questions in a chat-style interface. It is increasingly merging with AI Overviews into a single AI search experience.
AI Overview
Google’s AI-generated summary that appears above the traditional results, pulling an answer from multiple sources. It grew out of the earlier SGE experiment and launched broadly in 2024.
Algorithm
The set of rules a search engine uses to decide which pages, and which AI answers, show up first.
ALT Text
A written description of an image, used for accessibility and for image-search indexing.
Analytics
Tools such as GA4 and Search Console that measure traffic, engagement, and conversions.
Anchor Text
The clickable words in a hyperlink.
Answer Engine
An AI-powered tool that responds to a question with a direct answer instead of a list of links. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews are all answer engines.
Authority Site
A domain widely cited as a trusted source in its niche.
B
Backlink
A link from an external site pointing to your page, and a major trust signal.
BERT
A Google natural-language model that helps it understand context rather than just keywords.
Bing
Microsoft’s search engine, which powers Copilot answers and some voice assistants.
Black-Hat SEO
Tactics that violate search-engine guidelines, such as cloaking or keyword stuffing.
Blog
A regularly updated web journal, useful for long-tail traffic and topical authority.
Broken Link
A URL that returns a 404 or other error, which hurts user experience and wastes crawl budget.
C
Canonical Tag
An HTML tag that tells crawlers which version of a page is the master version.
Call to Action (CTA)
Copy that nudges a visitor to act, such as “Book a Call” or “Download Guide.”
Clickbait
Sensational headlines built for clicks that often disappoint the reader’s intent.
Cloaking
Showing search engines different content than users see, which is penalized when detected.
Content
Any text, image, video, or interactive element on a webpage.
Core Web Vitals
Google’s metrics for loading, interactivity, and visual stability (LCP, INP, CLS).
Crawler / Spider
A bot that discovers and indexes web pages.
Crawl
The act of a bot fetching your pages to update the search index.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets, the code that controls layout and design across devices.
D
DA (Domain Authority)
A Moz score from 0 to 100 predicting how likely a domain is to rank.
DR (Domain Rating)
An Ahrefs metric from 0 to 100 based on backlink strength.
Deep Link
A URL that skips the homepage and goes straight to internal content.
Duplicate Content
Substantially identical text appearing on multiple URLs, which dilutes ranking.
E
E-E-A-T
Google’s quality framework: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
E-commerce Site
An online storefront that processes transactions directly on the web.
Entities
Real-world people, places, or things that search engines map and relate to one another. Making your business a clear entity is the focus of Entity SEO.
External Link
A link from your site to another domain, which can signal credibility.
F
Featured Snippet
A highlighted answer box, often called position zero, shown above the organic results.
Footprint (SEO)
A pattern, such as a shared IP or link scheme, that reveals a private network or duplicate strategy.
G
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
Another name for Answer Engine Optimization. GEO and AEO describe the same practice of getting your business cited in AI answers. Learn more on our What Is AEO page.
Google
The dominant search engine and the provider of AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Google Business Profile
A free listing that boosts local visibility on Maps and Search, and a key signal for local AI answers.
Grey-Hat SEO
Middle-ground tactics that sit close to the line of search guidelines.
GSC (Google Search Console)
A free Google tool for monitoring index status and site health.
H
Headings (H1 to H6)
Structured tags that organize content, where H1 is the main topic. Question-style headings help answer engines extract your content.
Helpful Content
Google’s standard that rewards people-first, genuinely useful content over content written mainly for rankings.
Hidden Text
Keywords concealed from users, such as white text on a white background, which is punishable.
Hosting
The service that stores your website files on a server reachable over the internet.
I
Impression
Recorded each time a link or ad appears in a user’s viewport.
Index
The master database of all pages a search engine can serve.
IndexNow
A protocol from Microsoft and Bing that instantly notifies search engines of new or updated URLs.
Internal Link
A link pointing to another page on the same domain, which helps engines understand how your topics connect.
J
JSON-LD
The preferred schema-markup format, which embeds structured data in a script the engines read natively.
K
Keyword
A word or phrase a person types or speaks into search.
Keyword Cannibalization
When multiple pages target the same term and compete with one another.
Keyword Research
The process of finding the terms your audience actually searches for.
Keyword Stuffing
Overloading a page with keywords, a classic black-hat signal.
Knowledge Graph
Google’s database of entities and how they relate, which underpins how engines recognize your business. See Entity SEO.
L
Landing Page
A stand-alone page built around a single conversion goal.
Link Building
Earning high-quality backlinks through outreach and content worth citing.
Link Farm / PBN
A network of sites created solely to pass link equity, which risks a severe penalty.
LLM (Large Language Model)
The type of AI model, such as Gemini or GPT, that powers answer engines by generating responses from patterns in large amounts of text.
Local Pack
The map-based listing of nearby businesses triggered by location-based queries.
Long-Tail Keyword
A longer, more specific phrase, often lower in competition. These conversational phrasings are also the most likely to trigger an AI answer.
M
Meta Description
A short summary, around 155 characters, that can appear in search results and AI snippets.
Meta Tag
Invisible HTML information, such as the title or robots tag, that aids crawling.
Mobile-First Index
Google’s practice of using the mobile version of a site as the basis for ranking.
N
Nofollow
A link attribute telling crawlers not to pass ranking credit.
Noindex
A directive telling search engines to exclude a page from results.
NLP (Natural Language Processing)
The AI field that helps engines understand conversational queries.
O
Off-Page SEO
Reputation signals beyond your own site, such as links, PR, and mentions.
On-Page SEO
Optimizations you control on your own pages, such as headings, content, and user experience.
Open Graph Tags
Metadata that controls how a page looks when shared on social platforms.
P
Page Experience
A Google signal combining Core Web Vitals, HTTPS, and mobile-friendliness.
PageRank
Google’s original algorithm for measuring link authority.
People Also Ask (PAA)
An interactive results box listing related questions, and a useful map of what your audience asks.
Q
QDF (Query Deserves Freshness)
A Google factor that boosts timely content for trending searches.
Query
The words a person types or speaks into a search bar or answer engine.
R
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A method where an AI engine retrieves real sources first, then generates an answer from them. It is a big part of how answer engines decide which pages to cite.
Robots.txt
A file that sets crawl permissions for search bots.
RSS Feed
A syndication format that pushes new content to subscribers.
S
Schema Markup
Code that helps search engines and answer engines understand your content, such as FAQ, Article, or Organization data.
SGE (Search Generative Experience)
Google’s 2023 experimental version of AI search. It was rebranded as AI Overviews in 2024, so the term is now mostly historical.
SERP
The Search Engine Results Page, meaning the full set of results returned for a query.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The practice of increasing your organic visibility in search. See how it pairs with AEO on our AEO vs SEO page.
Sitemap
A file listing your URLs for bots (XML) or for people (HTML).
T
Traffic
The number of visits a webpage receives.
Top Stories
A news carousel featuring recent articles, which requires structured data to appear in.
U
User Intent
The goal behind a search, whether informational, navigational, or transactional.
URL
The web address of a page.
V
Voice Search Optimization
Techniques that target the conversational, question-based queries people speak to assistants.
W
White-Hat SEO
Strategies that comply fully with search-engine guidelines.
WordPress
A widely used open-source CMS that powers a large share of the web.
X
XML Sitemap
A machine-readable list of your site’s URLs, submitted to search engines.
Y
YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)
Pages affecting health, finance, or safety, which are held to a higher quality and credibility standard.
Z
Zero-Click Result
An answer, often AI-generated, that satisfies the query without the user ever leaving the results page.
Not sure how many of these your own site is built for? That is exactly what we look at. Book a call and we’ll walk through where AI search finds you today.
