Glossary
Web, AI search and automation terms, defined plainly
40 terms you'll meet when improving a website, getting found in AI search, or automating customer enquiries.
3
- 301 redirectalso: permanent redirect
- A 301 redirect is a server response that tells browsers and search engines a page has moved permanently to a new address. Google treats a permanent redirect (301 or 308) as a signal that the new URL should be the one shown in search, which makes 301s essential when you redesign a site or change platform. Learn more about 301 redirect
A
- AEO (answer engine optimisation)also: answer engine optimization
- Answer engine optimisation is the practice of shaping content so it can be given as the direct answer to a question, for example in a featured snippet, a voice assistant or an AI-written answer. It relies on the same foundations as SEO: crawlable pages, clear answers and plain facts. Learn more about AEO (answer engine optimisation)
- AI assistant
- An AI assistant is software that uses a large language model to answer questions or carry out tasks in conversation, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Microsoft Copilot. Some answer from what the model learned in training; many can also search the web live and cite the pages they used. Learn more about AI assistant
- AI Overviews
- AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the web pages they draw on. Google says there are no special requirements to appear in them beyond a page being indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet. Learn more about AI Overviews
- APIalso: application programming interface
- An API (application programming interface) is a defined way for one piece of software to request data from, or send instructions to, another. Connecting a website form to a CRM, or a shop to an accounting system, usually means calling their APIs. Learn more about API
C
- Chatbot
- A chatbot is a program that holds a text conversation with people, on a website or a messaging app such as WhatsApp. Older chatbots follow fixed scripts; newer ones use a language model to understand questions and answer from information the business provides. Learn more about Chatbot
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
- Cumulative Layout Shift is the Core Web Vital that measures how much visible content moves unexpectedly while a page is in use. A good score is 0.1 or less at the 75th percentile of page loads; common causes are images without set dimensions, late-loading ads or widgets, and web fonts. Learn more about CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
- Conversion tracking
- Conversion tracking records when a visitor completes an action you care about, such as submitting a form, starting a WhatsApp chat, booking a call or buying. It lets you see which pages, campaigns and channels lead to enquiries and sales, not just visits. Learn more about Conversion tracking
- Core Web Vitals
- Core Web Vitals are three Google metrics for real-world page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Google's good thresholds are LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less, at the 75th percentile of page loads. Learn more about Core Web Vitals
- Crawleralso: bot, spider
- A crawler is an automated program that visits web pages and downloads them so a search engine or AI service can index or use them. Examples include Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot, and site owners can give them instructions in a robots.txt file. Learn more about Crawler
- CRMalso: customer relationship management
- A CRM (customer relationship management system) is software that stores your contacts, conversations, deals and follow-up tasks in one place. Connected to your website, ads and messaging channels, it becomes the single record of every lead and customer. Learn more about CRM
- CrUX (Chrome UX Report)
- The Chrome User Experience Report is Google's public dataset of how real Chrome users experience websites, including all Core Web Vitals. It powers the field data in PageSpeed Insights and the Search Console Core Web Vitals report, and only includes pages and sites with enough eligible traffic. Learn more about CrUX (Chrome UX Report)
E
- Ecommerce platform
- An ecommerce platform is the software that runs an online shop's catalogue, cart, checkout and orders. Hosted platforms such as Shopify run the servers for you, while self-hosted options such as WooCommerce on WordPress give more control but leave hosting and updates to you. Learn more about Ecommerce platform
F
- Field dataalso: real-user data, RUM
- Field data is performance data collected from real visitors on their own devices and networks, as opposed to lab data from a simulated test. Core Web Vitals assessments in Google's tools are based on field data from the Chrome UX Report. Learn more about Field data
G
- GEO (generative engine optimisation)also: generative engine optimization
- Generative engine optimisation is the work of making your pages easy for AI search tools, such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search and Perplexity, to find, understand and cite. It builds on ordinary SEO, and no one can guarantee that an AI tool will cite or recommend a business. Learn more about GEO (generative engine optimisation)
- Google Business Profilealso: Google My Business, GBP
- Google Business Profile is Google's free listing for local businesses, shown in Google Maps and local search results with details such as address, hours, phone number and reviews. It is for businesses that meet customers in person, either at a staffed location or at the customer's location. Learn more about Google Business Profile
- Google-Extended
- Google-Extended is a robots.txt token that lets site owners control whether content Google crawls may be used to train future Gemini models and for grounding in some Gemini products. Google says it does not affect a site's inclusion in Google Search and is not used as a ranking signal. Learn more about Google-Extended
- GPTBot
- GPTBot is OpenAI's crawler for collecting content that may be used to train its generative AI models. Blocking it in robots.txt signals that your content should not be used for training, and OpenAI says this setting is independent of OAI-SearchBot, which controls ChatGPT search. Learn more about GPTBot
H
- Headless commerce
- Headless commerce separates the storefront customers see from the commerce system that handles products, cart and checkout, connecting the two through APIs. It allows a fully custom front end, but Shopify notes that a headless storefront costs more to build and run than a theme. Learn more about Headless commerce
I
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint)
- Interaction to Next Paint is the Core Web Vital that measures how quickly a page responds to clicks, taps and key presses across a whole visit. A good score is 200 milliseconds or less at the 75th percentile; INP replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. Learn more about INP (Interaction to Next Paint)
J
- JSON-LD
- JSON-LD is a format for adding structured data to a web page inside a script tag, separate from the visible content. It is the format used in Google's structured data examples, for instance to describe a local business's name, address and opening hours. Learn more about JSON-LD
L
- Landing page
- A landing page is the page a visitor arrives on from an ad, email, search result or link, usually built around one offer and one clear next step. Good landing pages match the promise of the link that brought the visitor there. Learn more about Landing page
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
- Largest Contentful Paint is the Core Web Vital that measures loading: the time until the largest image, text block or video in the visible area is rendered. A good score is 2.5 seconds or less at the 75th percentile of page loads. Learn more about LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
- Lead qualification
- Lead qualification is the process of deciding whether an enquiry is a good fit and how urgently to follow it up, based on factors such as need, budget, timing and location. It can be done by your team, by form questions or by a chatbot that asks a few agreed questions before handing over. Learn more about Lead qualification
- LLM (large language model)
- A large language model is an AI system trained on large amounts of text to understand and generate language. LLMs power AI assistants and modern chatbots, and they can state incorrect information confidently, so business uses need checks and approved sources. Learn more about LLM (large language model)
- llms.txt
- llms.txt is a proposed convention for a text file at a site's root that summarises its content for AI tools. Google says Google Search ignores llms.txt files and you do not need them to appear in Google Search, including its AI features; other uses remain proposals that individual tools may or may not support. Learn more about llms.txt
- Local SEO
- Local SEO is the work of helping a business appear when people nearby search for what it offers, mainly in Google Maps and local results. Google says local ranking is based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that no one can pay for a better local ranking. Learn more about Local SEO
O
- OAI-SearchBot
- OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT's search features. Sites that block it may not appear in ChatGPT search answers, and the setting is independent of GPTBot, so you can allow search while opting out of model training. Learn more about OAI-SearchBot
- Opt-in
- An opt-in is a person's clear, active agreement to receive messages or to have their data used for a stated purpose, such as ticking an unticked box. Meta requires opt-in before businesses message people on WhatsApp, and UK guidance says pre-ticked boxes do not count as consent. Learn more about Opt-in
P
- Prompt injection
- Prompt injection is an attack where text written by a user, or hidden in a web page, email or document, tries to override an AI system's instructions. It is a key risk for chatbots and AI agents that read outside content or can take actions, so their permissions should be limited and sensitive actions checked. Learn more about Prompt injection
R
- RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
- Retrieval-augmented generation is a technique where an AI system first looks up relevant passages from a chosen set of documents, then writes its answer from them. It helps a business chatbot answer from approved, current information rather than only from what the model learned in training. Learn more about RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
- robots.txt
- robots.txt is a text file at the root of a website that tells crawlers which parts of the site they may or may not crawl. Google notes it is mainly for managing crawler traffic and is not a way to keep a page out of Google; use a noindex rule for that. Learn more about robots.txt
S
- Schema.org structured dataalso: schema markup, structured data
- Structured data is code that describes a page's content in a standard vocabulary, usually schema.org, so search engines can understand facts such as a business's address, a product's price or an article's author. It must match what is visible on the page, and Google says no special schema is needed for its AI features. Learn more about Schema.org structured data
- Service-area business
- A service-area business is one that visits or delivers to customers rather than serving them at its own premises, such as a plumber or a mobile tutor. On Google Business Profile it sets a service area and hides its address. Learn more about Service-area business
- Sitemapalso: XML sitemap
- A sitemap is a file that lists the pages, videos and other files on a site so search engines can crawl it more efficiently. It matters most for large sites, new sites with few links pointing to them and sites with a lot of media. Learn more about Sitemap
T
- Technical SEO
- Technical SEO is the work of making sure search engines can crawl, render and index a website correctly. It covers robots.txt, sitemaps, redirects, canonical tags, structured data, page speed and mobile usability, rather than the words on the page. Learn more about Technical SEO
U
- UTM parameters
- UTM parameters are tags added to the end of a link, such as utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, that tell analytics tools where a visit came from. Google Analytics treats the values as case-sensitive, so use one consistent naming scheme. Learn more about UTM parameters
W
- Webhook
- A webhook is a message one system sends automatically to a URL you choose when something happens, such as a new lead or an incoming WhatsApp message. Webhooks can be retried, delayed or delivered twice, so the receiving system should verify each one and handle duplicates safely. Learn more about Webhook
- WhatsApp Business Platformalso: WhatsApp Business API, WhatsApp Cloud API
- The WhatsApp Business Platform is Meta's service that lets businesses message customers at scale and connect WhatsApp to their own systems through the Cloud API. Businesses must get opt-in before messaging people, and template messages generally need approval before they can be sent. Learn more about WhatsApp Business Platform
- Workflow automation
- Workflow automation uses software to carry out repeatable business steps without manual effort, such as creating a CRM record from a form, assigning a follow-up task or sending a confirmation. Good automations log every run and alert a person when something fails. Learn more about Workflow automation
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