Glossary
SEO and AI search, in plain English.
56 short, practical definitions of the terms that come up in SaaS growth: AI search, technical SEO, content, links and conversion. Each one explains what it means, why it matters and what to do about it.
15 terms
AI search and AEO
How ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI choose what to cite, and how to be the brand they name.
14 terms
Technical SEO
Crawling, indexing, speed and structure: the foundations search engines and AI tools rely on.
14 terms
Content and on-page SEO
Keywords, intent and pages that answer real buyer questions, structured to rank and convert.
6 terms
Links and authority
Backlinks, digital PR and the signals that tell search engines your site is worth trusting.
3 terms
Measuring search
The tools and numbers that show whether SEO and AEO are working.
4 terms
Growth and conversion
Acquisition cost, conversion and targeting: turning search visibility into pipeline.
56 terms
#
A
- Growth and conversionAccount-based marketing (ABM)Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B approach that targets a defined list of high-value companies with campaigns built for them, instead of marketing broadly and waiting for leads to arrive.
- AI search and AEOAI citationsAn AI citation is a link or reference to your website that an AI assistant shows as a source for its answer. Being cited means the tool used your page to answer the question.
- AI search and AEOAI crawlersAI crawlers are the bots AI companies use to read websites, either to train their models or to fetch pages live when answering a question. Examples include GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.
- AI search and AEOAI OverviewsAI Overviews are the AI-written summaries Google shows at the top of many search results. They answer the question directly and cite a handful of web pages as sources.
- AI search and AEOAI share of voiceAI share of voice is how often your brand is named in AI assistants' answers to the questions that matter in your category, compared with your competitors.
- Links and authorityAnchor textAnchor text is the clickable text of a link. It tells readers and search engines what the linked page is about.
- AI search and AEOAnswer engine optimization (AEO)Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of making your content and brand the source that AI assistants, voice assistants and featured snippets quote when someone asks a question.
B
C
- Technical SEOCanonical tagA canonical tag is a line of HTML that tells search engines which URL is the main version of a page, when the same or very similar content is available at more than one address.
- Content and on-page SEOContent refreshA content refresh is updating an existing page to keep it accurate, complete and competitive, usually because its rankings or traffic have started to slip.
- AI search and AEOConversational searchConversational search is searching by asking full, natural questions and follow-ups, as people do with ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode, instead of typing short keywords.
- Growth and conversionConversion rate optimization (CRO)Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the practice of increasing the share of visitors who take a valuable action, such as booking a demo or starting a trial, by testing and improving pages, offers and forms.
- Technical SEOCore Web VitalsCore Web Vitals are Google's three measures of real-user page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability).
- Technical SEOCrawl budgetCrawl budget is the number of pages a search engine is willing and able to crawl on your site in a given period. It mainly matters for large sites with thousands of URLs.
- Growth and conversionCustomer acquisition cost (CAC)Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend needed to win one new paying customer. Divide all sales and marketing costs in a period by the number of new customers won in that period.
D
- Links and authorityDigital PRDigital PR is earning coverage and links from online publications, blogs and newsletters with stories, data or expert comment that their audience cares about.
- Links and authorityDomain authorityDomain authority is a score from SEO tools, such as Moz's DA or Ahrefs' DR, that estimates how strong a website's backlink profile is. It's a third-party estimate, not a Google metric.
- Content and on-page SEODuplicate contentDuplicate content is the same or very similar content appearing at more than one URL, on your site or across sites. Search engines then have to choose which version to show.
E
- Content and on-page SEOE-E-A-TE-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: the qualities Google's quality guidelines use to judge whether content and its creators deserve trust.
- AI search and AEOEntity SEOEntity SEO is the work of making search engines and AI tools recognise your brand as a distinct, well-defined thing, with a clear name, category, offering and relationships, rather than just a set of keywords.
F
G
- AI search and AEOGenerative engine optimization (GEO)Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of getting your brand named and cited in answers from AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. It is closely related to, and often used interchangeably with, answer engine optimization (AEO).
- Measuring searchGoogle Search ConsoleGoogle Search Console is Google's free tool for site owners. It shows which searches your pages appear for, clicks and positions, indexing status and technical problems.
H
I
- Growth and conversionIdeal customer profile (ICP)An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the type of company that gets the most value from your product and is most valuable to you: its size, industry, stage, tech stack and the problem it needs solved.
- Technical SEOIndexingIndexing is when a search engine stores a page in its database after crawling it, so the page can appear in search results. A page that isn't indexed can't rank.
- Content and on-page SEOInternal linkingInternal linking is linking from one page on your site to another. It helps visitors find related content and helps search engines discover pages and understand which matter most.
J
K
- Content and on-page SEOKeyword cannibalizationKeyword cannibalization is when two or more pages on your site target the same keyword and intent, so they compete with each other and neither ranks as well as one strong page would.
- Content and on-page SEOKeyword difficultyKeyword difficulty is an estimate of how hard it would be to rank on the first page for a keyword, usually based on the authority of the pages already ranking.
- Content and on-page SEOKeyword researchKeyword research is finding the words and questions your buyers type into search engines, and judging which are worth targeting by demand, difficulty and how close they are to a purchase.
- AI search and AEOKnowledge panelA knowledge panel is the information box Google shows beside search results for a recognised entity, such as a company or person, with facts like its logo, description, website and profiles.
L
- Links and authorityLink buildingLink building is the work of earning links from other relevant websites to yours, through content, outreach, partnerships and PR, to grow your site's authority.
- AI search and AEOllms.txtllms.txt is a plain-text Markdown file at the root of a website that summarises the site for AI models: what the company does, its key pages and its most important facts, in one clean read.
- Content and on-page SEOLong-tail keywordsLong-tail keywords are longer, more specific searches with lower volume, such as "SEO agency for B2B fintech startups". Together they make up a large share of all searches, and they often convert better.
M
- Content and on-page SEOMeta descriptionA meta description is a short summary of a page in its HTML, often shown under the title in search results. It doesn't affect rankings directly, but it influences whether people click.
- Technical SEOMobile-first indexingMobile-first indexing means Google mainly uses the mobile version of a page to index and rank it, even for searches made on a desktop.
N
- Links and authorityNofollow linkA nofollow link carries a rel="nofollow" attribute that tells search engines not to pass ranking credit through it. Google treats it as a hint rather than a strict rule.
- Technical SEONoindex tagA noindex tag is an instruction in a page's HTML (or HTTP header) telling search engines not to show that page in their results.
O
P
- AI search and AEOPeople Also Ask (PAA)People Also Ask is the box of related questions Google shows in many search results. Each question expands to show a short answer from a web page, with a link.
- Content and on-page SEOPillar pageA pillar page is a comprehensive page covering a broad topic, which links out to more detailed pages on each subtopic. It's the centre of a topic cluster.
- Content and on-page SEOProgrammatic SEOProgrammatic SEO is creating many pages from a template and a data set, such as one page per integration, industry or location, to target large numbers of specific searches.
R
- AI search and AEORetrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is how many AI assistants answer with current information: they first search for relevant documents, then write an answer based on what they found, often citing those sources.
- Technical SEORich resultsRich results are search listings that show extra information beyond the usual title and description, such as FAQs, star ratings, prices or breadcrumbs, based on the page's structured data.
- Technical SEOrobots.txtrobots.txt is a text file at the root of a website that tells crawlers which parts of the site they may and may not access. It controls crawling, not indexing.
S
- Technical SEOSchema markupSchema markup is code added to a web page that tells search engines and AI tools exactly what the page describes: an organization, a service, an article, a FAQ, a product or a price. It uses the shared vocabulary at schema.org.
- Content and on-page SEOSearch intentSearch intent is the goal behind a search: whether the person wants to learn something, find a specific site, compare options or buy. Pages rank best when they match it.
- Measuring searchSERPA SERP (search engine results page) is the page a search engine shows for a query: ads, organic results, AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask and other features.
- Technical SEOSite architectureSite architecture is how a website's pages are organised and linked together, from the homepage down to individual articles. A clear structure helps visitors and search engines find and understand every page.
T
- Content and on-page SEOTitle tagA title tag is the HTML element that sets a page's title, shown as the clickable headline in search results and in the browser tab.
- Content and on-page SEOTopic clustersA topic cluster is a group of pages on one subject: a broad pillar page linked to several detailed pages on related questions, all linking back to the pillar.
V
X
Z
Let's build what's next
Ready to make growth compound?
Tell us where you want to be in twelve months. We'll show you the channel-by-channel plan to get there.