SEO, GEO and SFT glossary.

Definition

A generative engine's use of information in an answer without visibly attributing or citing its original source.

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Optimization for direct answers, featured snippets and answer engines, where the goal is extraction rather than only ranking.

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Google Search experience that provides AI-generated answers and follow-up interactions inside the search journey.

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Google Search feature that summarizes answers with generative AI and may cite supporting sources.

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A link from one website to a page on another. Search systems can use links among their signals; not every link has the same value.

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A directive delivered through a robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header asking supporting search engines not to index a page. The crawler must be able to access the directive.

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An HTML element or HTTP header identifying the preferred URL among identical or very similar pages. Google treats it as a canonicalization signal, not an absolute instruction.

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The act of being named or referenced as a source inside a generative engine answer.

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An Anthropic crawler collecting content for model development. Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User have distinct search and user-requested access purposes.

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A Core Web Vitals metric assessing unexpected layout shifts throughout a page's lifetime. A good value is at most 0.1, assessed at the 75th percentile.

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A set of related pages organized around a central topic or pillar page.

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The process of removing, merging or improving weak content to protect overall site quality.

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Google performance metrics measuring loading speed, visual stability and interaction responsiveness.

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The amount of crawling search engines can allocate to a website during a given period.

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A Google tool for requesting that certain links be disregarded. Google limits its recommended use to particular artificial-link situations involving a manual action or risk of one.

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Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness: criteria in Google's search quality rater guidelines. Rater assessments help evaluate search systems and do not directly determine a page's ranking.

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SEO approach that optimizes people, brands, concepts and organizations as identifiable entities rather than isolated keywords.

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FAQPage explicitly structures question-and-answer pairs with Schema.org. Its use by a generative engine depends on that system and guarantees neither extraction nor citation.

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Discipline focused on structuring content so it can be extracted and cited by generative answer engines. Formalized in 2023 by Princeton and IIT Delhi research.

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A robots.txt control token Google uses to manage certain generative-model uses of content, including Gemini training and grounding. It has no separate HTTP User-Agent and controls neither inclusion nor ranking in Google Search.

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An OpenAI crawler collecting content that may be used to train models. It differs from OAI-SearchBot for search and ChatGPT-User for certain user-requested visits.

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GPTBot and ClaudeBot are crawlers associated with collection for model development. Google-Extended is a robots.txt control token without its own HTTP User-Agent. These functions differ from search and user-requested access.

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Google system targeting content created mainly for search engines instead of real users, integrated into core systems.

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HTML attribute indicating language or regional page variants to search engines.

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A Core Web Vitals metric assessing responsiveness to clicks, taps and keyboard interactions. It replaced FID in March 2024; a good value is at most 200 ms, assessed at the 75th percentile.

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A graph representing entities and their relationships. Google's Knowledge Graph is one application, organizing information about people, places, organizations and other entities.

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A Core Web Vitals metric measuring the rendering delay of the largest eligible content element in the viewport. A good value is at most 2.5 seconds, assessed at the 75th percentile.

Definition

A proposed Markdown file for presenting website content to systems using language models. It is neither an indexing condition nor a Google Search requirement.

Definition

Quebec legislation amending, among other laws, the Charter of the French language. It contains multiple obligations and effective dates; applicability to a business and its communications depends on their circumstances.

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A brand or entity mention inside an AI answer without necessarily providing a clickable link.

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Google indexing approach where the mobile version is the primary version used for indexing and ranking.

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Google algorithm update targeting thin, duplicate and low-quality content.

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Network of websites built primarily to manipulate link authority.

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Google algorithm update targeting manipulative links and keyword stuffing.

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Large-scale page generation from data and templates to cover many query combinations.

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Process where an AI system retrieves external sources to ground or support its generated answer.

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Root file giving crawlers instructions about which areas of a site they may access.

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A Schema.org property pointing to a reference URL that unambiguously identifies the same entity. An official profile may qualify; a topical link or simple mention is not enough.

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Shared vocabulary and JSON-LD format used to describe entities, relationships and content for machines.

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XML file listing URLs to help search engines discover and crawl a website.

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Page that returns HTTP 200 while behaving like a not-found page.

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Approach combining search optimization and user experience quality.

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Perceived authority of a site or entity on a subject, built through depth, consistency and reliability.

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The delay between the start of navigation and receipt of the first response byte. TTFB can contribute to loading delay but does not describe page performance on its own.

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An open interoperability protocol for exchanges between shopping surfaces, agents and merchant services, describing commerce capabilities and their discovery.

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Google category for high-stakes topics such as health, finance, safety and law.

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Search result where the user gets the answer without clicking through to a website.