GLOSSARY
Glossary for SEO, GEO and digital marketing
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terms
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All terms from A to Z
#
- 301 Redirect The permanent redirect.
- 400 Error A 400 error shows up when the server cannot read the request itself: a badly encoded URL, …
- 404 Error Why a 404 shows up, what a "soft 404" is and why Google treats it more seriously than a regular …
- 500 Error What actually triggers a 500 error, how it differs from 502, 503, and 504, and why a one-off …
A
- A/B Testing Let the data decide.
- AEO What AEO measures, how it differs from SEO and GEO, how answer engines work, and which mistakes …
- Affiliate Marketing How the affiliate link and attribution window work, and why every affiliate link needs the …
- AI Overview Google's AI answers.
- AIDA Model Where the AIDA model actually comes from and why its authorship is shakier than usually …
- Alt Attribute Describes your images for Google and accessibility.
- Amazon SEO Which factors Amazon's search actually uses, whether the term "A10" comes from Amazon itself or …
- Anchor Text The linking text matters.
- ASCII Code How ASCII differs from Unicode and UTF-8, why a 1963 standard still decides which characters a …
B
- Backlink A vote of confidence for your site.
- Black Hat SEO Forbidden tactics that Google punishes.
- Bounce Rate When users leave without doing anything.
- bove the Fold What you see without scrolling.
- Brand Bidding What Google Ads actually allows when bidding on someone else's brand name, where the trademark …
- Breadcrumb The three breadcrumb types that exist, how to mark one up with BreadcrumbList in JSON-LD, and …
- Buyer Persona Where the term comes from, how it differs from a target audience, and how to build a buyer …
C
- Call to Action Which CTA type fits which stage of the marketing funnel, why an aggressive buy button can scare …
- Canonical Prevents duplicate content.
- CMS What a CMS actually does under the hood, how a headless CMS differs from a traditional one, and …
- Consent What conditions make consent valid under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, how a CMP blocks and …
- Content Cluster Cover a topic with interlinked content.
- Content Marketing Content that attracts customers.
- Conversion When a visitor does what you want.
- Conversion Funnel What a conversion funnel measures stage by stage, the classic e-commerce funnel example with …
- Cookie What a cookie actually is, how first-party cookies differ from third-party ones, when consent …
- Core Web Vitals What LCP, INP and CLS actually measure, which thresholds count as good in 2026, why INP …
- CPC What you pay for each click.
- CPM How to calculate CPM with the exact formula, how it differs from CPC and CPA, and why a low CPM …
- Crawl Budget How much Google crawls your site.
- Crawler How a web crawler actually works, which crawler types exist in 2026 (classic indexing, AI …
- Crawling How Google discovers your site.
- CRM What a CRM actually stores, how it differs from an email marketing tool, and why its data is …
- CRO Conversion Rate Optimization.
- Cross-Selling How it differs from up-selling, how recommendation algorithms and structured data automate it, …
- CTA The button that turns visitors into customers.
- CTR The share of clicks you get.
- Customer Journey The classic phase model buyers move through, why the real path is rarely linear, and what gets …
- Customer Lifetime Value Which formulas calculate CLV, why it should clearly outweigh the cost of acquiring a customer, …
D
- Dark Web What really separates the dark web from the deep web, how the onion routing behind Tor works, …
- Deep Link What separates a web deep link from an app deep link, how custom URI schemes, Universal Links …
- Demographic Data In Google Analytics 4, demographic data only shows up for the share of users who are signed …
- Digital PR Public relations in the digital age.
- Dofollow Where the word dofollow comes from, why typing rel="dofollow" in the code has no recognized …
- Domain Authority The strength of your domain.
- Domain Rating Authority according to Ahrefs.
- Double Opt-in Whether double opt-in is an explicit legal requirement in Germany or a practice that follows …
- Duplicate Content The silent enemy of SEO.
- Dwell Time How long users stay on your page.
E
F
G
- GDPR What principles the GDPR imposes on any website with European visitors, how it differs from …
- GEO Generative Engine Optimization: getting visible in AI answers.
- GET Parameter What GET parameters are used for in filtering, sorting and pagination, why they create …
- Google Ads Paid advertising in the number 1 search engine.
- Google Analytics Understand what your visitors do.
- Google Business Profile Your listing in Google Maps.
- Google Discover Organic traffic without a search.
- Google Penalty When Google penalizes your site.
- Google Search Console Your free SEO dashboard.
- Google Signals Which reports Google Signals unlocks on top of normal event tracking, why it only covers a …
- Google Tag Manager Manage your tags without code.
H
I
- I Visibility Track your brand in ChatGPT and Gemini.
- Impression When Search Console counts an impression for a search result, when Google Ads counts one for an …
- Inbound Marketing Where the term comes from, the four stages that originally shaped it, and how it fits with …
- Indexing How Google indexes your content.
- Internal Linking Which link types exist, how they pass PageRank between pages, what anchor text works best, and …
- International SEO Rank in several countries and languages.
- IP Address What an IP address is, how IPv4 differs from IPv6, what static and dynamic mean, and when an IP …
K
- Keyword Cannibalization When your own pages compete with each other.
- Keyword Density Why this metric comes from early-2000s search algorithms, what Google has actually said about …
- Keyword Research The base of every SEO strategy.
- Keyword Stuffing What Google's official spam policies say about keyword stuffing, the visible and hidden forms …
- KPI The metrics that really count.
L
- Landing Page One page, one goal.
- Lead Generation Turning visitors into sales opportunities.
- Link Building The authority other sites give you.
- Link Building Backlinks and domain authority.
- Link Juice The value that flows through links.
- LLMO Optimization for language models.
- Local SEO Searches near me.
- Long-Tail Keyword Less volume, more conversion.
M
- Marketing Automation Automating your marketing.
- Meta Description Your free ad in Google.
- Meta Keyword Why Google stopped using the meta keywords tag back in 2009, what Bing actually does with it …
- Meta Tags Which meta tag types exist, which ones affect rankings directly, and which only handle …
- Mobile First Google indexes your mobile version.
N
- n Orphan Page The page nobody links to.
- n XML Sitemap The XML map that guides Google.
- Negative SEO When someone attacks your rankings.
- Newsletter What a newsletter's open rate actually measures, why Apple has distorted that number since …
- Nofollow What changed in 2019 in how Google interprets the nofollow attribute, when to use sponsored and …
- Noindex Tell Google NOT to index a page.
O
- Off-Page SEO Backlinks, PR and authority.
- On-Page SEO Optimize each page individually.
- On-Page SEO Everything you can control on your page.
- Open Graph Which og: properties are essential, why they control the social preview instead of the Google …
- Organic CTR Organic clicks in Google.
- Organic Search What separates organic search from paid ads, how Google builds it through crawling and …
- Organic Traffic Free visits from Google.
P
R
- RAG How AI searches before it answers.
- Remarketing Win back the visitors who left.
- Responsive Design A site that adapts to every screen.
- Retargeting How the industry separates retargeting from remarketing, what Chrome's cookie reversal actually …
- Rich Results Since when Google has officially called what the SEO industry still calls a rich snippet a …
- Rich Snippet Enriched search results.
- ROAS What you earn for every euro spent on ads.
- Robots.txt Controls what search engines crawl.
- ROI Measure the return on your investment.
S
- Schema.org Structured data for SEO.
- SEA How the Google Ads auction works through Ad Rank, why the highest bidder doesn't automatically …
- Search Intent Understanding what the user searches for.
- Segmentation The four classic types of segmentation, how a segment is built in Google Analytics 4 versus a …
- SEM Search Engine Marketing: advertising in search engines.
- SEO Search Engine Optimization: everything you need to know.
- SERP The page where everything is decided.
- SERP Feature The special elements in Google results.
- Session How GA4 technically defines the start and end of a session, what changed compared to Universal …
- SGE Google's generative search.
- Sitemap The map of your site for Google.
- SO SEO for mobile apps.
- Social Media Marketing What organic content, paid advertising, and community management each contribute, and how the …
- SSL / HTTPS The security Google demands.
- Structured Data Which format Google recommends (JSON-LD) versus Microdata and RDFa, what rich results actually …
- SWOT Analysis What separates a strength from an opportunity, how to build the matrix without it turning into …
T
- Target Audience What criteria define a target audience, how it differs from a buyer persona, and how to …
- Targeting The targeting types in use today, why behavioral targeting keeps losing ground to contextual …
- Technical SEO The invisible base of your rankings.
- Thin Content Pages without value that Google penalizes.
- Title Tag What Google rewrites in a title tag and why, how long it can run before search results cut it …
- Topical Authority Become the reference for your topic.
- Tracking Pixel How a 1x1 pixel triggers a server call, what role third-party cookies still play in Chrome in …
- Traffic What sets users, sessions and pageviews apart, which channels bring traffic to a site, and why …
U
- Up-Selling How it differs from cross-selling, how the order in which variants get shown shapes the …
- URL Shortener Bit.ly, well known since 2008, is the most familiar example of a URL shortener, but the term …
- URL Slug The readable part of your URL.
- User Intent What the user is really looking for.
- UX The experience that decides whether a user stays.
W
- Web Analytics What sessions, users and engagement rate actually measure in GA4, why the classic bounce rate …
- Webinar What separates a live webinar from a recorded one, how sign-up pages turn viewers into leads, …
- White Hat SEO Ranking by playing fair.
- Wireframe The difference between low-fidelity and high-fidelity wireframes, when each one fits in the …
- World Wide Web Who invented the Web at CERN and when, what technically separates it from the Internet, and why …
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