Glossary

Every SEO and AI search term used in IMVASA, explained in a sentence or two.

A program that fetches web pages for an AI product. Some collect training data, such as GPTBot. Others fetch pages to answer a question right now, such as OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot. Your robots.txt decides which ones may read your site.

AI Overview

The AI-written answer Google shows above some search results, with links to the pages it used. Being linked there can bring visits even when you are not first in the results below.

Alt text

A short description of an image, written in the HTML. Screen readers read it aloud, and search engines use it to understand the image.

Anchor text

The clickable words of a link. "Our cold brew guide" tells readers and Google more about the target page than "click here".

Backlink

A link from another website to yours. Search engines treat good backlinks as recommendations, so they are one of the strongest ranking signals.

Canonical tag

A line in a page's HTML that names the main version of that page. It stops Google splitting ranking signals between near-duplicate addresses, such as a page with and without tracking parameters.

Citation (AI)

When an AI answer links to your page as a source. Citations can send visitors and build trust in your brand.

Content gap

Keywords your competitors rank for that you do not. It is one of the fastest ways to find proven topics you are missing.

Core Web Vitals

Google's three measures of how a page feels to use: LCP (how fast the main content appears), INP (how quickly the page responds to a tap or click) and CLS (how much the layout jumps while loading).

CPC

Cost per click: what advertisers pay on average when someone clicks their ad for a keyword. A high CPC usually means the keyword leads to sales.

Crawling

How search engines discover pages, by following links and reading sitemaps.

D to K

Deep audit

An option in the site audit that also crawls up to 8 pages from your sitemap to check internal links, orphan pages and duplicate titles across the site.

Dofollow and nofollow

A normal link is dofollow and passes ranking credit. A link marked rel="nofollow" (or sponsored, or ugc) asks search engines not to pass that credit. Both kinds can still send visitors.

Domain rank

A score for how strong a site's backlink profile is compared with other sites. Higher means more, and better, sites link to it. Different tools calculate it differently, so compare sites within one tool.

E-E-A-T

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust: the qualities Google's quality guidelines look for. Author names, credentials, sources, contact details and honest claims all help.

Featured snippet

A quoted answer from one page, shown in a box at the top of the results.

GEO

Generative engine optimisation: making your content easy for AI answer engines to find, understand and cite. Also called AEO.

Headings (H1, H2, H3)

The titles and subtitles inside a page. The H1 is the main title; H2 and H3 split the content into sections. Clear headings help readers skim and help machines find answers.

hreflang

A tag that tells search engines which language or country version of a page to show to which users.

Indexing

When a search engine stores a page so it can appear in results. A page that is not indexed cannot rank.

Keyword

A word or phrase people type into a search engine.

Keyword difficulty (KD)

A score from 0 to 100 estimating how hard it is to reach the first page for a keyword, based mostly on the strength of the pages already ranking. Under 30 is usually realistic for a young site.

L to R

Lighthouse

Google's free testing tool that scores a page on performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO, and measures Core Web Vitals.

llms.txt

A short Markdown file at /llms.txt that summarises your site for AI tools and links to your most important pages. It is a voluntary convention, not a standard every engine follows.

Local pack

The map and short list of businesses Google shows for local searches such as "dentist near me".

Long-tail keyword

A longer, more specific search, such as "burr grinder for pour over under 100 dollars". Each one has fewer searches, but they are easier to win and often convert better.

Meta description

A short summary in a page's HTML that Google often shows under the title in search results. It does not affect ranking directly, but a good one earns more clicks.

Mention (AI)

When an AI answer names your brand or domain, with or without a link.

Noindex

A tag that tells search engines not to show a page in results. Useful for thank-you pages and internal search results; a disaster when it is left on an important page by mistake.

Organic traffic

Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results, as opposed to ads.

Pillar page

A broad page that covers a whole topic and links to more detailed pages on each part of it. Together they form a topic cluster.

Position

Where a page appears in the results for a keyword. Position 1 is the top organic result. Positions 1 to 10 are usually page one.

Redirect

An instruction that sends visitors and crawlers from one address to another. A 301 redirect is permanent and passes ranking signals; a 302 is temporary.

Referring domain

A website that links to you at least once. Ten links from one site count as one referring domain. The number of different referring domains matters more than the raw number of links.

robots.txt

A text file at /robots.txt that tells crawlers which parts of your site they may visit.

S to Z

Schema markup

Also called structured data. Code, usually JSON-LD, that describes a page in a format machines understand: this is a product with this price, this is a recipe, this is a local business with these opening hours.

Search intent

Why someone searched: to learn, to compare, to buy, or to reach a specific site.

Search volume

How many times a keyword is searched per month on average, in the country you chose.

SERP

Search engine results page: everything shown after a search, including ads, AI Overviews, maps and the organic results.

SERP features

Anything on the results page other than a plain link: AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask, local packs, videos, images and more.

Your share of the attention for a topic compared with competitors. In AI search, it is your share of all brand mentions in AI answers about that topic.

Sitemap

A file, usually at /sitemap.xml, that lists the pages you want search engines to find.

Spam score

An estimate of how likely a site's link profile looks manipulative. A high score on a site linking to you is a reason to look closer, not proof of a problem.

Striking distance

Keywords where you rank in positions 11 to 20: just off page one. Small improvements to these pages often bring the fastest traffic gains.

Title tag

The page title in the HTML, shown as the clickable headline in search results and on browser tabs. One of the most important on-page signals.

Topic cluster

A group of pages about one topic, usually a pillar page plus detailed pages that link to each other. Clusters show search engines that you cover a subject in depth.

Traffic value

What your organic traffic would cost if you bought the same clicks with ads, based on each keyword's CPC. A way to express SEO results in money.