Digital Marketing Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the SEO, AI search, paid ads, analytics and social media terms you will hear from agencies, with in-depth guides for the most important ones.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
- Google AI Overviews
- llms.txt
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
A to Z
Terms from A to Z
Search or jump to a letter. Terms with an arrow have a full guide.
A
- A/B testing
- Comparing two versions of a page, ad or email to see which performs better.
- Ad Rank
- The score Google uses to decide where your ad appears, based on bid, quality and expected impact.
- AI Overviews →
- AI-generated summaries at the top of Google results that answer a query and cite sources.
- Alt text
- A short text description of an image that helps screen readers and search engines understand it.
- Anchor text
- The clickable words in a link, which tell users and search engines what the linked page is about.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) →
- Optimising content so AI assistants and search features quote it as the direct answer.
- Attribution
- Assigning credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that led to it.
B
- Backlink →
- A link from another website to yours, a key signal of trust and authority.
- Bounce rate
- The share of sessions where a visitor leaves without interacting further.
C
- Canonical tag
- An HTML tag telling search engines which version of a page is the main one.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- The percentage of people who click a result or ad after seeing it.
- Core Web Vitals
- Google’s metrics for loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability of a page.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- The average cost to win one customer or conversion from a campaign.
- Cost per click (CPC)
- The amount paid each time someone clicks an ad.
- Crawl budget
- How many pages a search engine will crawl on your site in a given time.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Total sales and marketing cost divided by the number of new customers won.
D
- Domain Authority (DA) →
- Moz’s 1–100 score predicting how likely a domain is to rank, based mainly on links.
E
- E-E-A-T
- Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust: qualities Google’s raters look for in content.
- Entity
- A distinct thing, such as a brand, person or place, that search engines and AI recognise.
F
- Featured snippet
- A highlighted answer box shown above regular Google results.
G
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
- Improving how often and how accurately AI assistants mention your brand.
- Google Business Profile →
- Google’s free listing that shows a business on Maps and in local results.
- Google Tag Manager
- A free tool to add and manage tracking tags without editing website code.
- GA4
- Google Analytics 4, Google’s current analytics platform based on events.
H
- Hreflang
- A tag telling search engines which language or country version of a page to show.
I
- Impression
- One display of an ad or search result to a user.
- Indexing
- Adding a page to a search engine’s database so it can appear in results.
- Internal link
- A link from one page on your site to another page on the same site.
K
- Keyword
- A word or phrase people type into a search engine.
- Keyword cannibalisation
- When several of your pages compete for the same keyword and weaken each other.
- Knowledge Graph
- Google’s database of entities and facts used to power panels and AI answers.
L
- Landing page
- A page built for one campaign or offer, designed to convert visitors.
- Lead magnet
- A free resource offered in exchange for contact details.
- llms.txt →
- A proposed text file that points AI systems to a site’s most useful content.
- Local pack
- The map and three business listings Google shows for local searches.
- Long-tail keyword
- A longer, more specific search phrase with lower volume and clearer intent.
M
- Meta description
- The page summary that often appears under the title in search results.
N
- NAP
- Name, address and phone number, which should match everywhere a business is listed.
- Nofollow
- A link attribute telling search engines not to pass ranking credit through a link.
O
- On-page SEO
- Optimising content and HTML on a page, such as titles, headings and copy.
- Organic traffic
- Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results.
P
- Performance Max
- A Google Ads campaign type that uses automation across all Google channels.
Q
- Quality Score
- Google Ads’ 1–10 rating of how relevant your keywords, ads and landing pages are.
R
- Remarketing
- Showing ads to people who have already visited your site or app.
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Revenue earned for every rupee spent on advertising.
- Rich results
- Search results enhanced with extras such as stars, prices or FAQs, powered by structured data.
- Robots.txt
- A file that tells crawlers which parts of a site they may access.
S
- Schema markup
- Structured data code that helps search engines understand page content.
- Search intent
- The goal behind a search: to learn, compare, buy or find a specific site.
- SERP
- Search engine results page: everything shown after a search.
- Sitemap
- A file listing a site’s important URLs so search engines can find them.
T
- Technical SEO →
- Making a site easy for search engines to crawl, render, index and understand.
- Title tag
- The HTML title of a page, usually shown as the clickable headline in search results.
- Topic cluster
- A pillar page linked to related articles that together cover a subject in depth.
U
- UTM parameters
- Tags added to URLs to track where visitors came from in analytics.
Z
- Zero-click search
- A search answered on the results page, so the user does not click any result.
How to use
How to use this glossary
Digital marketing has its own vocabulary, and agencies do not always explain it. This glossary gives each term a short, plain-language definition you can share with your team. The most important terms, marked with an arrow, have full guides with examples from Indian businesses, comparison tables and checklists.
Terms are grouped alphabetically and cover search engine optimisation, AI search, paid advertising, analytics, content and social media. Use the search box to filter instantly, or jump to a letter.
AI search terms
New terms in AI search
Search is changing quickly. Answer Engine Optimization focuses on being the direct answer to a question. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) focuses on how often AI assistants mention your brand. Google AI Overviews are AI summaries at the top of results, and llms.txt is a proposed file that helps AI systems find your best content. Together they describe how businesses earn visibility when people ask AI instead of clicking links.
Core SEO terms
Core SEO terms every business should know
If you only learn a handful of terms, start with technical SEO (making your site crawlable and fast), backlinks (links from other sites that build authority), Domain Authority (a third-party measure of link strength) and Google Business Profile (your free listing on Google Maps). These four concepts explain most of why one business outranks another.
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