SEO & Digital Marketing Glossary

Google’s free business listing, formerly Google My Business, shown in Google Search and Google Maps.

Google’s 2013 rewrite of its core search algorithm, built to understand the meaning of a whole query.

Google’s 2014 local search update, which tied local results more closely to standard web ranking signals.

An alleged Google filter that stops brand-new websites ranking well for their first few months.

Making a business visible when people nearby search for what it offers, on Google Search, Maps and beyond.

The unpaid listings a search engine ranks on merit, as opposed to paid ads.

The practice of improving a website so it earns more visibility and traffic from unpaid search results.

Recording your current search performance and comparing it with competitors and your own history.

Any result on a search page beyond a standard blue link, such as AI Overviews, featured snippets and map packs.

The main, top-level heading on a web page, marked up with the HTML <h1> element.

An HTML tag that summarises a page and is often shown as the snippet under its title in search results.

The main search query a page is designed to rank for.

The HTML title tag, shown as the clickable headline of a page in search results.

A broad search term of one to three words with high search volume and strong competition.

A program that systematically discovers and reads web pages so a search engine can index them.

Google’s free tool for monitoring how a website is crawled, indexed and performs in Google Search.

Links created or bought mainly to manipulate search rankings, in breach of Google’s spam policies.

A group of websites created or bought only to link to another site and lift its rankings.

Deliberately manipulating a search engine’s index to rank pages higher than they deserve.

How a website’s pages are organised, grouped and linked together.

An HTTP response header that tells search engines whether and how to index a URL, including non-HTML files.

The amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks their ad.

A full-screen ad that covers the page or app at a natural break between two pieces of content.

An online advertising model where the advertiser pays a fee each time someone clicks their ad.

Promoting a website in search engine results, most often through paid search ads such as Google Ads.

An AI-generated summary Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to its sources.

Optimising for the people, places, brands and concepts that search engines recognise, not only for keywords.

The instruction, question or input given to a generative AI model to produce a response.