All SEO Terms, Explained: What’s Current, Changed, Retired, or Myth

SEO vocabulary expires. Since late 2021 Google has renamed, retired, or replaced at least 17 SEO terms, and several “rules” that still circulate in audits contradict its current documentation. The words in an SEO report fall into four kinds: some describe something a platform documents and does, some changed meaning, some are dead, and some were never Google concepts at all: industry shorthand, myths, and tool scores.

The difference decides where effort goes. A retired term in an audit becomes a wasted fix, a myth in a content brief becomes a wasted rewrite, and a vendor score in a board deck gets read as something Google measures. Google’s AI Mode answer for “all seo terms” (checked October 6, 2026, US) showed how easily this happens: it described nofollow as an instruction not to pass value, treated crawl budget as a fixed maximum, gave a 150 to 160 character rule for meta descriptions, and flagged no retired terms. Google’s documentation contradicts the first three, and the retired table below covers the fourth.

Every term on this page carries one of six labels:

Each definition was checked on October 6, 2026 against a dated primary source: Google’s documentation for Google concepts, each AI company’s own crawler docs, and each vendor’s docs for its scores. The source sits under every definition as a small linked label.

Where to start depends on your job:

• ▪New to SEO: read the 30 terms in Learn these first, in order.
• ▪Checking an old audit, template, or agency report: start with retired and renamed, then the myths.
• ▪Decoding a tool report or an AI-search pitch: go to vendor metrics or the AI search module, or look the term up in the A-Z reference.

Every entry shows its status label directly under its definition, so you can scan any section for Retired, Myth, or Vendor metric.

Retired and Renamed in the Last Five Years

These 17 changes since November 2021 are the ones most often still described as current. Each row quotes Google’s own wording, or the platform’s, with the date of the change.

Older changes still show up in current glossaries and AI answers:

Most of these 17 changes retire tools, reports, result features, or names rather than change how pages rank; the exceptions are the helpful content system and the swap from FID to INP in Core Web Vitals. An audit that still checks FID, FAQ markup for rich results, or the Mobile-Friendly Test is measuring things Google no longer uses or shows. Before acting on an older audit, template, or AI answer, check its terms against this table.

Learn These 30 Terms First

If you are new to SEO, these terms cover most of what an audit or agency report discusses. They follow the order Google works in: find a page, store it, rank it, show it, and then measure what happened. Once these are clear, most entries in the full reference read as variations on them. For how this work splits into on-page, off-page, and technical SEO, read the three components of SEO.

1. How Google Finds Pages

Google can only rank what it has found. It discovers pages mainly by following links from pages it already knows and by reading sitemaps, using crawlers such as Googlebot, while robots.txt sets which URLs those crawlers may fetch. When a new page gets no impressions at all, start here.

Crawling

The first stage of Google Search: automated programs download text, images, and videos from pages Google has found. Being crawled does not mean a page will be indexed.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

Googlebot

The generic name for Google Search’s two web crawlers, Googlebot Smartphone and Googlebot Desktop. Both obey the same Googlebot token in robots.txt, so you can’t target one without the other.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-02-03

Robots.txt

A file at the site root that tells crawlers which URLs they may access. It manages crawl load. Google says it is not a way to keep a page out of search results; use noindex or a password.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

XML Sitemap

A file listing the pages, videos, and other files on a site and how they relate, so search engines can crawl it more efficiently. Google also accepts RSS, mRSS, Atom, and text sitemaps. A sitemap does not guarantee indexing.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Internal Links

Links between pages on the same site. Google discovers many pages by following links from pages it already knows, so pages you want found should be linked from your other pages.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

2. How Pages Get Stored

Crawling and storing are separate steps. After fetching a page, Google renders it, decides whether to index it, and picks one canonical URL when several URLs show the same content. Most “why isn’t this page indexed?” questions end in this group: a noindex rule, a duplicate that lost the canonical choice, or a redirect pointing elsewhere.

Rendering

Running a page’s JavaScript the way a browser does, so the crawler sees content added by scripts. Google renders with a recent version of Chrome during the crawl.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

Indexing

The second stage of Google Search: Google analyzes a page’s text, images, and video and stores what it learns in the Google index, a large database. Not every crawled page is indexed.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

Noindex

A rule, set in a robots meta tag or an HTTP header, that tells Google not to index a page. The page must stay crawlable; if robots.txt blocks it, Google never sees the rule.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Canonical URL

The URL Google chose as the most representative of a set of duplicate pages. Your preference is an input; Google can pick a different URL.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-20

301 and 308 Redirects (Permanent)

Server responses that send users and crawlers to a new URL for good. Google treats the target as the likely canonical and shows it in results.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-04-14

3. What Gets Ranked

Indexed pages compete when someone searches. Google’s ranking systems try to match what the searcher wants with helpful, reliable content, and core updates periodically change how those systems weigh pages. The spam policies set the floor: pages that break them can be demoted or removed, whatever else they do well.

Serving

The third stage of Google Search: when someone searches, Google returns indexed results it judges relevant to the query. Ranking happens here.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

Keyword

A word or phrase people type into a search engine, and the topic a page is built to answer. Google advises thinking about the words a user might search for to find your content.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10 · J6: what is a keyword in SEO?

Search Intent

What the searcher wants to do or find behind a query. Google says it works to understand the meaning of queries, including when they don’t use the exact words on a page.

Industry term · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Helpful, People-First Content

Content made primarily to help people, which Google says its systems aim to reward. Google offers self-assessment questions on originality, expertise, and satisfaction.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-10-05

E-E-A-T

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Google says its systems look for factors that signal these, trust most of all, but E-E-A-T itself isn’t a specific ranking factor.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-10-05

Core Update

A significant, broad change to Google’s search algorithms and systems, made several times a year. Google says core updates don’t target specific sites or pages.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Spam Policies

Google’s list of practices that can get pages demoted or removed, from cloaking to site reputation abuse. They cover attempts to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search too.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

4. What You Can Change

These are the levers a site owner controls directly. Titles and meta descriptions shape how a result looks, structured data can make it eligible for rich results, and links from other sites feed Google’s link analysis, with rel attributes that qualify them. None of them guarantees a ranking or a particular display; Google decides how to use each one.

Title Tag

The HTML title element. Google asks for a descriptive, concise title on every page; there is no length limit, but long titles are cut off in results.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Meta Description

A page summary in a meta tag that Google may use for the result snippet. Google sets no length limit and truncates to fit the device, so fixed character rules are a convention with no Google requirement behind them.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-04-20

Structured Data

A standardized format, usually schema.org vocabulary, for describing a page’s content to search engines. It can make a page eligible for rich results; Google says it is not required for AI features.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Backlink

A link on a page from another site to a page on your site. Search Console’s Links report lists them, and Google’s link analysis systems, including PageRank, use links to understand pages.

Official · Links and authority · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Nofollow

A rel value for links you don’t want associated with your site. Since 2019 Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a directive, so it may still use the link.

Changed · Links and authority · Google Search Central Blog · published 2019-09-10

5. How You Measure It

Search Console shows what happened in Google Search; GA4 shows what visitors did after they arrived. Read impressions, CTR, and average position together, because each misleads alone: CTR is clicks divided by impressions, and average position tracks your topmost result. Core Web Vitals sit here because Search Console reports them from real-user data.

Google Search Console

Google’s free service for monitoring a site in Google Search: indexing, queries, errors, and AI-feature impressions. It was called Google Webmaster Tools until May 20, 2015.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Search Central Blog · published 2015-05-20

Impressions

In Search Console, how many times your site appeared in search results. Google’s separate counting rules decide what counts as an appearance for each result type.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Clicks divided by impressions. Some glossaries invert this; Google defines it as click count divided by impression count.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Average Position

In Search Console, the average position of your site’s topmost result. In the table it is per URL or query, so it can differ from the chart.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Core Web Vitals

Three field metrics for loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP), and visual stability (CLS). Google says they are used by its ranking systems, but good scores alone don’t guarantee top rankings.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-22

Organic Search (Channel)

The GA4 default channel for visits from non-ad links in organic search results. It includes AI Overviews and AI Mode; visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and similar assistants go to the AI Assistant channel.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

6. How AI Search Differs

Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode are rooted in the same Search ranking and quality systems, so everything above still applies. What changes is how a page is used: as one of several supporting links inside a generated answer. The AI search module below covers the techniques and crawler controls; for what this shift changes for a team, read SEO to GEO.

AI Overviews

AI-generated summaries at the top of some Google results, with links to supporting pages. Google began rolling them out to everyone in the US on May 14, 2024, replacing the Search Generative Experience.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2024-05-14

AI Mode

Google’s AI search experience for questions that need exploration, reasoning, or complex comparisons, with follow-ups and links to supporting sites. Search Console counts its traffic in the Web search type and in the Generative AI performance report.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

SEO Claims That Sound Like Terms but Are Myths

The 30 terms above describe how Google works. The next two sections cover words that don’t: claims Google’s sources contradict, and scores that come from tools.

These 8 claims are phrased like terminology, which helps them spread through audits, briefs, and AI answers. The cited source contradicts each one. If an audit item rests on one of them, drop the item and put the time into the core terms above. Three more errors live inside real terms rather than here: fixed meta description lengths, nofollow as a directive, and crawl budget as a fixed maximum. The entries for those terms correct them.

Chunking

Splitting content into small blocks “so AI can read it”. Google says Google Search has no requirement to do this and there’s no ideal page length.

Myth · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Duplicate Content Penalty

The belief that the same content at several URLs triggers a penalty. Google says it won’t cause a manual action; copying others’ content is a different matter.

Myth · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Ideal Word Count

The belief that pages need a minimum or maximum length to rank. Google says content length alone doesn’t matter for ranking.

Myth · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Keyword Density

The share of a page’s words that are the target keyword, often given a “safe” range. Google publishes no density target and says excessively repeating the same words is keyword stuffing, against its spam policies.

Myth · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

LSI Keywords

Lists of “semantically related” words sold as Google’s ranking method. Google’s John Mueller said in 2019, “There’s no such thing as LSI keywords”; Google says its systems understand synonyms and general meanings.

Myth · On-page and content · John Mueller (Google) on X · published 2019-07-30

Redirects Lose PageRank

The belief that a 301 or other permanent redirect passes only part of a page’s link value. Google’s site move guide says permanent redirects don’t cause a loss in PageRank.

Myth · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-20

Special AI Markup

The idea that AI search needs special schema, AI text files, or Markdown versions. Google says Search doesn’t use them and no special schema.org markup is needed.

Myth · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

“Use Only One H1”

A rule repeated in audits and AI answers. Google’s starter guide says there is no ideal number of headings and their order doesn’t matter for Search. Google adds: “if you think it’s too much, then it probably is.”

Myth · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Vendor Metrics: Scores From Tools, Not From Google

Where myths are claims about Google, vendor metrics are numbers that never came from Google. SEO tools compute these 12 numbers from their own data. They are useful for comparing sites inside one tool and for tracking change over time. They are not Google measures: Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems, and scores from different tools don’t convert into each other. Search volume is included because every figure, including Google Keyword Planner’s, is an estimate.

AI Visibility Score

A third-party tool’s score for presence in AI answers. Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.

Vendor metric · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Authority Score (Semrush)

Semrush’s compound metric grading a domain or page from link power, estimated organic traffic, and spam factors. Not used by Google.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Semrush · checked 2026-10-06

Citation Flow (Majestic)

Majestic’s 0 to 100 score predicting how influential a URL might be based on how many sites link to it. Read with Trust Flow.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Majestic · checked 2026-10-06

Domain Authority (DA)

Moz’s 1 to 100 score predicting how well a domain will rank, calculated from factors like linking root domains. Moz says it isn’t a direct ranking factor used by Google.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Moz · updated 2025-03-18

Domain Rating (DR)

Ahrefs’ 0 to 100 score for the strength of a site’s backlink profile relative to others in its own database. Not used by Google.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Ahrefs · checked 2026-10-06

Keyword Difficulty (KD)

A tool’s 0 to 100 estimate of how hard it is to rank in the top 10 for a keyword. Each tool calculates it differently (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz).

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Semrush · checked 2026-10-06

Page Authority (PA)

Moz’s 1 to 100 score predicting how well a single page will rank. It is Moz’s model; Google does not use it.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Moz · published 2024-11-18

Referring Domains

The number of unique domains linking to a site, as counted by a tool’s own crawler. Counts differ between tools and from what Google sees.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Majestic · checked 2026-10-06

Search Volume

Estimated monthly searches for a keyword. Google Keyword Planner shows estimates for advertisers; SEO tools publish their own estimates, which often differ.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Google Ads Help · checked 2026-10-06

Spam Score (Moz)

Moz’s percentage of sites with similar features that Moz found penalized or banned by Google. It describes risk from shared features and is no Google verdict on your site.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Moz · checked 2026-10-06

Trust Flow (Majestic)

Majestic’s 0 to 100 score based on how closely a site links to a hand-picked set of trusted seed sites.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Majestic · checked 2026-10-06

URL Rating (UR)

Ahrefs’ 0 to 100 score for a single page’s link profile, modeled on PageRank principles. Not used by Google.

Vendor metric · Vendor metrics · Ahrefs · checked 2026-10-06

AI Search: An Advanced Module

Everything in the core 30 still applies to AI search. This module covers 35 more terms for Google’s AI features, the techniques behind AI answers, and the crawlers AI companies use. Google’s position, from its July 2026 guide, is that optimizing for its generative AI search “is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO”. That is why AEO, GEO, and AI SEO are labeled industry terms here: they are useful names for a focus; Google documents no separate systems for them.

The crawler tokens matter most in practice, because blocking a training bot and blocking a search bot have different effects:

To exclude a site from Google’s AI features without leaving Google Search, Google offers a separate switch: the Search generative AI control in Search Console.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

A label for work aimed at visibility in AI answers. Google says optimizing for its generative AI search “is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO”.

Industry term · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

AI Agents (Browser Agents)

Autonomous systems that do tasks for people, such as booking or comparing products. Browser agents read screenshots, the DOM, and the accessibility tree of your pages.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

AI Citation (Supporting Link)

A link to a source shown inside an AI answer. In Google’s AI features, a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and the site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console.

Industry term · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

AI Crawler

Any bot that collects pages for an AI product. Most vendors now separate training crawlers, search crawlers, and user-triggered fetchers, each with its own robots.txt token.

Industry term · AI search · OpenAI docs · checked 2026-10-06

AI SEO

Using AI in SEO work, or optimizing for AI search, depending on who says it. For Google surfaces, its guidance is that SEO best practices still apply.

Industry term · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Applebot-Extended

A robots.txt token for opting out of Apple using your content to train its generative AI models. Applebot can still crawl for Siri, Spotlight, and Safari.

Official · AI search · Apple Support · checked 2026-10-06

Brand Mentions

Unlinked references to a brand across the web. Google says AI features can reflect what is said about products, but seeking inauthentic mentions “isn’t as helpful as it might seem”.

Industry term · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

ChatGPT Search

ChatGPT’s web search feature, which answers with linked sources. OpenAI says any public site can appear if it doesn’t block OAI-SearchBot.

Official · AI search · OpenAI Help Center · checked 2026-10-06

ChatGPT-User

The agent ChatGPT uses when a user’s request makes it visit a page. It doesn’t crawl automatically, and OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply.

Official · AI search · OpenAI docs · checked 2026-10-06

Claude-SearchBot

Anthropic’s crawler for improving Claude’s search results. Blocking it may reduce a site’s visibility in Claude’s search answers.

Official · AI search · Anthropic · checked 2026-10-06

Claude-User

The agent Claude uses when a user’s question leads it to fetch a page. Blocking it stops those user-directed retrievals.

Official · AI search · Anthropic · checked 2026-10-06

ClaudeBot

Anthropic’s crawler for content that may be used in model training. Blocking it signals that future content should be excluded from training data.

Official · AI search · Anthropic · checked 2026-10-06

Commodity Content

Google’s term for content based on common knowledge that adds little insight, such as “7 tips for first-time homebuyers”. Non-commodity content offers expert or first-hand takes.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Generative AI Features (Google)

Google’s umbrella term for AI Overviews, AI Mode, and similar features. Google says they are rooted in its core Search ranking and quality systems.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Generative AI Performance Report

A Search Console report of impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device, and date. Google announced it June 3, 2026, and rolled it out to all sites by August 31, 2026.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central Blog · published 2026-06-03

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

A label, like AEO, for work aimed at AI search visibility. Google says many suggested GEO “hacks” aren’t effective or supported by how Google Search works.

Industry term · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Google-Extended

A robots.txt token controlling whether Google may use your content to train Gemini models and ground Gemini Apps. Google says it does not affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-14

GPTBot

OpenAI’s crawler for content that may be used to train its foundation models. Blocking it opts out of training and doesn’t remove a site from ChatGPT search.

Official · AI search · OpenAI docs · checked 2026-10-06

Grounding

Connecting an AI answer to retrieved sources, such as pages from a search index, to improve accuracy and freshness. Google uses the term as a synonym for RAG.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Large Language Model (LLM)

Google’s glossary: at a minimum, a language model with a very high number of parameters; informally, any Transformer-based language model, such as Gemini or GPT.

Official · AI search · Google ML Glossary · updated 2026-04-10

LLM Visibility (AI Visibility)

How often a brand or page appears or is cited in AI answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google’s AI features. Third-party tools sample prompts; Google’s own report counts impressions in its AI features only.

Industry term · AI search · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

LLMs.txt

A proposed Markdown file at a site’s root that summarizes a site for AI agents. Google Search does not use it; Google says keeping one neither helps nor harms visibility.

Industry term · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Nosnippet for AI Features

The nosnippet rule blocks text snippets in all Google results and stops the content being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-03-24

OAI-AdsBot

OpenAI’s agent that checks landing pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT. It visits only those pages, and its data isn’t used for model training.

Official · AI search · OpenAI docs · checked 2026-10-06

OAI-SearchBot

OpenAI’s crawler for ChatGPT search. Sites that block it won’t appear in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.

Official · AI search · OpenAI docs · checked 2026-10-06

Perplexity-User

The agent Perplexity uses for user-requested page visits. Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt because a user asked for the fetch.

Official · AI search · Perplexity docs · checked 2026-10-06

PerplexityBot

Perplexity’s crawler for surfacing and linking sites in its answers. Perplexity says it is not used to crawl content for training foundation models.

Official · AI search · Perplexity docs · checked 2026-10-06

Preferred Sources

Sites a user picks to see more of. Their content is more likely to appear in Top Stories and can carry a “preferred” badge in AI Mode and AI Overviews. Sites must be included in Search generative AI features.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-18

Query Fan-Out

Google’s technique of generating several related searches across subtopics to gather results for one AI answer. A weed-control query might fan out to herbicides and prevention.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

Also called grounding: an AI model retrieves current web pages from a search index and bases its answer on them, showing links to the sources it used.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Search Generative AI Control

A Search Console setting to include or exclude a site from Google’s generative AI search features. Excluded sites get no links, grounding use, traffic, or impressions from them.

Official · AI search · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Search Generative Experience (SGE)

Google’s 2023 Search Labs experiment with AI answers. AI Overviews replaced it in May 2024.

Retired · AI search · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2024-05-14

Training Crawler vs Search Crawler

Blocking a training bot such as GPTBot opts out of model training. Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps pages out of ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.

Industry term · AI search · OpenAI docs · checked 2026-10-06

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

An emerging protocol that Google says will allow Search agents to do more on websites. Google mentions it in its AI optimization guide without further detail.

Official · AI search · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

UTM Tag utm_source=chatgpt.com

The UTM tag ChatGPT adds to referral links, so analytics tools such as GA4 can attribute visits from ChatGPT search.

Official · AI search · OpenAI Help Center · checked 2026-10-06

The Full A-Z Reference

The remaining 182 terms are here for lookup, grouped by how often you will need them and sorted A to Z within each group.

Useful Terms (97)

Terms you will meet in reports, audits, and Search Console.

302 and 307 Redirects (Temporary)

Server responses for a short-term move. Google keeps showing the source URL in results.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-04-14

404 and 410 Status Codes

Not found and gone. Google treats all 4xx codes except 429 the same: the content doesn’t exist, and indexed URLs are removed over time.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-02-04

AI Assistant (Channel)

The GA4 default channel for visits from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Copilot, or Grok. It excludes Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, which GA4 counts as Organic Search.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

AI-generated Content

Content made with generative AI tools. Google’s guidance is that it must meet Search Essentials and the spam policies; generating many pages without adding value may violate the scaled content abuse policy.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-10-01

Alt Text

An image’s text alternative in the alt attribute. Google uses alt text, captions, titles, and page text to understand an image, and uses an image link’s alt text as its anchor text.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-03-02

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

An HTML framework for fast mobile pages. Google dropped AMP as a Top Stories requirement in 2021, and since July 1, 2026 sends users to the publisher’s own AMP host. Google says AMP ranks like any other page.

Changed · Technical · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2026-07-01

Anchor Text

The visible, clickable text of a link. Google says good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both the linking and the linked page.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Bounce Rate

In GA4, the percentage of sessions that were not engaged: the opposite of engagement rate. Universal Analytics instead used single-page sessions divided by all sessions, the definition many glossaries still use.

Changed · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

Breadcrumb

A trail of links showing a page’s place in the site hierarchy. BreadcrumbList markup can show it in Google results.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-08

Canonicalization

How Google picks one representative URL from a set of duplicate or near-duplicate pages and shows that one in results. Google calls this deduplication too.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-20

Citation (Local)

A mention of a business’s name and details on another site, such as a directory. Google says prominence draws on information such as how many websites link to the business.

Industry term · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Clicks

In Search Console, the number of times a user clicked through to your site from Google Search results.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Core Web Vitals Report

The Search Console report grouping URLs as Good, Need improvement, or Poor, based on real-world usage (field) data. URL groups without enough data get no status.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Crawl Budget

The URLs Google can and wants to crawl on a site. Google says it is set by crawl capacity limit and crawl demand, so it changes over time. It matters mainly for very large or fast-changing sites.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-22

Crawlable Link

A link Google can follow. Google says it can generally crawl a link only if it is an element with an href attribute; script-driven pseudo-links may not be extracted.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Crawled – Currently Not Indexed

A Page indexing status: Google crawled the page but has not indexed it. Google says it may or may not be indexed later, with no need to resubmit.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Direct (Channel)

The GA4 channel for visits that arrive via a saved link or a typed URL.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

Disallow and Allow Rules

The robots.txt rules that say which URL paths a named crawler may not, or may, crawl. Google supports user-agent, allow, disallow, and sitemap fields.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-31

Discovered – Currently Not Indexed

A Page indexing status: Google found the URL but has not crawled it yet, often because crawling it would have overloaded the site.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Distance (Local)

How far each business is from the searcher. If the searcher doesn’t share a location, Google uses what it knows about where they are.

Official · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Dofollow

Slang for a normal link without nofollow, sponsored, or ugc. There is no “dofollow” attribute in HTML.

Industry term · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Duplicate Content

The same or very similar content at more than one URL. Google says some duplication is normal and not a spam violation, though the same content at many URLs can be a bad user experience.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-20

Engaged Session

A GA4 session that lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event, or has two or more page or screen views.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

Engagement Rate

The percentage of sessions that were engaged sessions in GA4.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

Entity

A distinct thing, such as a person, place, organization, or concept, that a search engine can identify. Google’s Knowledge Graph stores facts about entities from public sources, licensed data, and content owners.

Industry term · On-page and content · Knowledge Panel Help · checked 2026-10-06

Featured Snippet

A special box where Google shows the descriptive snippet first, above the link, for some queries. Google’s systems decide which pages qualify; site owners can opt out with snippet controls.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Google’s event-based analytics product. It replaced Universal Analytics, whose standard properties stopped processing data on July 1, 2023.

Changed · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · updated 2025-07-16

Google Business Profile

Google’s free business listing for Search and Maps. It was called Google My Business until Google renamed it on November 4, 2021.

Changed · Local · Business Profile Help · published 2021-11-04

Google Discover

A personalized content feed in Google that shows pages without a query. Content is automatically eligible if it is indexed and meets Discover’s content policies; no special tags are needed.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-03-09

Google Search Essentials

Google’s core rules for appearing in Search: technical requirements, spam policies, and key best practices. It replaced the Webmaster Guidelines on October 13, 2022.

Changed · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2022-10-13

Guest Posting

Writing articles for other sites. Google lists links with optimized anchor text in guest posts, articles, or press releases distributed on other sites as an example of link spam.

Industry term · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Headings (H1 to H6)

HTML elements that structure a page. Google says the number and order of headings don’t matter for Search, though semantic order helps screen readers.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Hreflang

An annotation that tells Google about language or regional versions of a page, so it can show searchers the right one. It can be set in HTML, HTTP headers, or a sitemap; Google treats the three methods as equivalent.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-21 · J6: international SEO strategy

HTTPS

HTTP over an encrypted TLS connection. Google lists secure HTTPS serving among its page experience questions and has a Search Console HTTPS report. Many glossaries still call the certificate “SSL”.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-22

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

How quickly a page responds to clicks, taps, and key presses. Good is 200 milliseconds or less. It is the successor to FID as the Core Web Vital for responsiveness (see the Retired table for the date).

Changed · Technical · web.dev (Chrome team) · updated 2025-09-02

JavaScript SEO

Making sure content that depends on JavaScript can be crawled, rendered, and indexed. Google processes JavaScript in crawl, render, and index phases.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-03-04

JSON-LD

A JavaScript-notation format for structured data placed in a script tag. Google recommends it where possible as the easiest to implement and maintain at scale, though Microdata and RDFa work equally well.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Key Event

A GA4 event you mark as important to the business, such as a form submit. Google Ads conversions can be created from key events; older GA4 guides call them conversions.

Changed · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

Keyword Stuffing

Filling a page with keywords or numbers to manipulate rankings, often out of context. It violates Google’s spam policies.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Keywords in Domain or URL

Putting target words in the domain name or URL path. Google says they have hardly any ranking effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs.

Industry term · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Knowledge Graph

Google’s database of facts about people, places, and things, compiled from public sources, licensed data (such as sports scores), and content owners.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Knowledge Panel Help · checked 2026-10-06

Knowledge Panel

An information box about an entity, drawn from Google’s Knowledge Graph. Entities that claim their panel can suggest changes.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Knowledge Panel Help · checked 2026-10-06

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

Time until the largest visible image or text block renders. Google’s “good” target is within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load; web.dev measures it at the 75th percentile of page loads.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Link Building

Work to earn links from other sites. Google’s spam policies mark the line: buying links, excessive exchanges, and automated link creation count as link spam.

Industry term · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Link Equity (Link Juice)

Informal name for the value a link is thought to pass to its target. It is shorthand for PageRank-style link analysis; Google publishes no such metric.

Industry term · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Link Spam (Link Schemes)

Creating links mainly to manipulate rankings: buying or selling links, excessive link exchanges, automated links, and optimized anchors in guest posts. It violates Google’s spam policies.

Official · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Links Report

The Search Console report of top linked pages, top linking sites, and anchor text. Google says it shows a sample of internal and external links rather than every link.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Local Pack

The map and short business list Google shows for local-intent searches. Industry term; Google calls these local results.

Industry term · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Local SEO

Improving visibility in map and local results. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and prominence, and there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Industry term · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06 · J6: local SEO for small businesses

Long-Tail Keyword

A longer, more specific search phrase with lower individual volume. Google says its AI systems understand synonyms, so you don’t need to capture every long-tail variation.

Industry term · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Main Content

The part of a page that serves its purpose, as distinct from navigation, ads, and boilerplate. Google’s page experience guidance asks whether visitors can tell it apart easily.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-22

Manual Action

A penalty applied when a human reviewer at Google finds pages that don’t comply with spam policies. Most cause pages to rank lower or be omitted, and they appear in the Manual actions report.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Mobile-First Indexing

Google uses the mobile version of a site’s content, crawled with its smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking. Google says to make sure the mobile site contains the same content as the desktop site.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

NAP Consistency

Using the same business name, address, and phone number everywhere it appears. Google asks that the name match the real-world name used on storefront and website.

Industry term · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Organic Results

Unpaid search results that rank on relevance. Google says payment does not influence organic ranking.

Industry term · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

Outbound Links

Links from your site to other sites. Google asks you to qualify paid or untrusted ones with rel values.

Official · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Page Experience

Google’s umbrella term for usability factors such as Core Web Vitals, HTTPS, mobile display, ads, and interstitials. Google says there is no single page experience signal; core ranking systems look at a variety of signals.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-22

Page Indexing Report

The Search Console report showing which known URLs are indexed and why others are not, with a status for each reason.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

PageRank

Google’s original link analysis system. Google says it has evolved a lot and remains part of its core ranking systems, as one signal among many.

Official · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Pagination

Splitting a long list across pages. Google advises giving each page a unique URL and its own canonical, linking pages sequentially with , and not canonicalizing everything to page one.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Paid Links

Links bought or sold to pass ranking credit. Google counts them as link spam; ad and sponsored links are fine when qualified with rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored”.

Official · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Performance Report

The Search Console report of clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position, grouped by query, page, country, device, search appearance, and date.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Prominence (Local)

How well-known a business is, based on links, reviews, and other information. Google’s help page also calls this factor “popularity”.

Official · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Ranking Systems

The automated systems Google uses to order results, looking at many signals across hundreds of billions of pages. Some are core systems; others serve specific needs.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Redirect Chain

Several redirects in a row before the final URL. Google’s crawlers follow up to 10 redirect hops by default; longer chains fail and show as redirect errors in Search Console.

Industry term · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-02-04

Referral (Channel)

The GA4 channel for visits from non-ad links on other sites and apps, such as blogs and news sites.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

Rel=”canonical”

A link annotation that names your preferred URL for duplicate or very similar pages. Google rates it a strong signal, like redirects; sitemap inclusion is a weak signal.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Rel=”sponsored”

The rel value Google asks for on paid, advertising, or sponsored links. Like nofollow, Google has treated it as a hint since 2019.

Official · Links and authority · Google Search Central Blog · published 2019-09-10

Relevance (Local)

How well a Business Profile matches what someone searched. Google advises complete, detailed business information.

Official · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Request Indexing

Asking Google to recrawl a URL through the URL Inspection tool. There is a quota, requesting the same URL repeatedly won’t speed it up, and a request doesn’t guarantee indexing.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Reviews and Ratings

Customer reviews on a Business Profile. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and replies show you value feedback.

Official · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Rich Results

Search results with extra visual features, such as review stars, prices, or breadcrumbs, often enabled by structured data. Google does not guarantee that correct markup will show.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-10

Rich Results Test

Google’s tool for validating structured data and previewing which rich results a page may be eligible for. Use it during development, then the rich result reports in Search Console.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Robots Meta Tag

A meta tag in a page’s head that gives page-level indexing and display rules, such as noindex, nofollow, nosnippet, and max-snippet, to all crawlers or to a named one.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-03-24

Scaled Content Abuse

Generating many pages mainly to manipulate rankings rather than help users, whether by AI, automation, or people. Google added this policy on March 5, 2024.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central Blog · published 2024-03-05

Schema.org

The shared vocabulary of types (Organization, Product, Article) and properties that structured data uses. It currently lists 826 types and 1,540 properties, many of which Google Search doesn’t use.

Official · Technical · Schema.org · checked 2026-10-06

Search Appearance

A Performance report dimension that splits traffic by result type, such as rich results or videos.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Search Quality Rater Guidelines

The guidelines Google’s human search raters use to judge result quality and E-E-A-T. Google says rater data isn’t used directly in ranking; it helps check whether changes work.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-10-05

Search-Engine-First Content

Content made primarily to attract search visits, such as many pages on trending topics with little added value. Google advises against it.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-10-05

Semantic SEO

Optimizing for topics, entities, and meaning rather than exact keyword strings. It reflects how Google says systems like BERT and neural matching understand language.

Industry term · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10 · J6: semantic SEO on a page

SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

The page a search engine returns for a query: organic results, ads, and features such as AI Overviews, featured snippets, and local results.

Industry term · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-02-04

Session (GA4)

In Google Analytics, a period during which a user is engaged with a site or app.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

Site Move (Migration)

Changing a site’s URLs, domain, or protocol. Google’s guidance centers on mapping old URLs to new ones with permanent redirects, testing them, and monitoring in Search Console.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-20

Site Reputation Abuse

Publishing third-party content on a host site mainly to exploit the host’s ranking signals, often called parasite SEO. Added in March 2024; Google’s page now titles it the site reputation policy.

Changed · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Site: Operator

A search operator that limits results to one domain, such as site:example.com. Google says the list of URLs it returns is not always exhaustive, so use Search Console to check indexing.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Sitelinks

Extra links shown under a result to other pages on the same site. Google says sitelinks are automated; you can’t set them directly.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Sitemaps Report

The Search Console report for submitting sitemaps and seeing when Google last read them and any errors.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Snippet

The description text under a search result’s title link. Google builds it mainly from page content and sometimes from the meta description.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-04-20

Soft 404

A URL that returns a 200 success code but shows an error, empty page, or “not found” message. Search Console reports these; return a real 404 or 410 instead.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-02-04

Spam Update

A notable improvement to Google’s always-running spam detection systems, such as SpamBrain, which Google announces on its ranking updates list.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Technical Requirements (Google)

The minimum for a page to be eligible for indexing: Googlebot isn’t blocked, the page returns HTTP 200, and it has indexable content. Meeting them doesn’t guarantee indexing.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

Title Link

Google’s name for the clickable headline of a search result. Google builds it from several sources, mainly the title element but also headings and other prominent text. There is no title length limit; Google truncates as needed.

Changed · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Topical Authority

Industry term for a site’s depth and reputation on a subject. Google has no documented “topical authority” score; its reliable information systems aim to surface authoritative pages.

Industry term · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

URL Inspection Tool

A Search Console tool showing Google’s indexed version of a URL, a live test of whether it might be indexable, and a request-indexing button.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

URL Marked Noindex

A Page indexing status: Google found a noindex rule when it tried to index the page, so it left the page out. Fine if intended; remove the rule if not.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

URL Structure

How page addresses are written. Google recommends simple, descriptive URLs and hyphens instead of underscores to separate words.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)

Topics that could significantly affect people’s health, financial stability, safety, or society’s welfare. Google says its systems give even more weight to strong E-E-A-T on these.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-10-05

Specialist Terms (64)

Terms for technical work, named ranking systems, specific spam policies, and edge cases.

5xx and 429 Status Codes

Server errors and “too many requests”. Both prompt Google’s crawlers to slow down temporarily; already indexed URLs stay in the index for a while but are eventually dropped if errors persist.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-02-04

Attribution

How credit for a key event is assigned to the touchpoints that led to it. GA4 offers data-driven, paid and organic last click, and Google paid channels last click models.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · checked 2026-10-06

BERT

Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers: an AI system Google uses to understand how combinations of words express meaning and intent.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Bingbot

Bing’s standard crawler, which handles most of Bing’s crawling. You control it with robots.txt and with the hourly crawl-rate setting in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Bing Webmaster Tools · checked 2026-10-06

Business Name Keyword Stuffing

Adding unnecessary keywords to a Business Profile name. Google’s guidelines don’t permit it, and it could get the profile suspended.

Industry term · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Byline Date

The publication or update date Google may show in a result. Google advises a user-visible, prominently placed, clearly labeled date (“Published”, “Last updated”).

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Country-Code TLD (ccTLD)

A country-code top-level domain such as .de or .ca. Google calls ccTLDs a strong signal that a site targets that country.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Change of Address Tool

A Search Console tool that tells Google a site moved from one domain or subdomain to another. It is not needed for HTTP to HTTPS moves, www to non-www switches, or path changes.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-20

Cloaking

Showing search engines different content from what users see, to manipulate rankings and mislead users. A spam policy violation.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Crawl Capacity Limit

The ceiling Google’s crawlers set so they don’t overload your server, also called hostload. It goes up when the site responds quickly and down when it slows or returns 5xx or 429 errors.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-22

Crawl Demand

How much Google wants to crawl a site. Google names three factors you can influence: perceived inventory (the URLs it knows about), popularity, and staleness.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-22

Crawl Stats Report

The Search Console report of Google’s crawl history on a site: how many requests were made and when, server responses, and availability issues.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Crawl-Delay

A non-standard robots.txt field asking crawlers to wait between requests. Google does not support it; Anthropic says its bots do.

Industry term · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-31

Crawler (Bot, Spider)

A program that fetches web pages automatically. Search crawlers follow links and sitemaps; each identifies itself with a user-agent string and can be addressed by a robots.txt user-agent token.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-06-12

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

A score for how much visible content moves unexpectedly while a page is used. Good is less than 0.1.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Deduplication Systems

Systems that show only the most relevant of many near-identical results. A page shown as a featured snippet isn’t repeated lower on page one.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Disavow

A Search Console tool for asking Google to ignore specific backlinks. Google says most sites won’t need it; use it only for many spammy links you can’t remove that caused, or may cause, a manual action.

Official · Links and authority · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Doorway Abuse

Creating sites or pages to rank for specific, similar searches that funnel users to a less useful destination. A spam policy violation.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Duplicate, Google Chose Different Canonical Than User

A Page indexing status: you marked this page canonical, but Google picked another URL as the better canonical.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Dynamic Rendering

Serving a pre-rendered page to crawlers and the JavaScript version to users. Google now describes it as a past workaround rather than a long-term solution, and recommends server-side rendering, static rendering, or hydration instead.

Changed · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Exact Match Domain System

A system that stops domains built to match a query, such as best-places-to-eat-lunch, from getting too much credit for the domain words.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Expired Domain Abuse

Buying an expired domain and reusing it mainly to rank low-value content on its past reputation. Google added this spam policy on March 5, 2024.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central Blog · published 2024-03-05

Faceted Navigation

Filter and sort options (size, color, price) that create many parameter URLs. Google says common implementations can generate infinite URL spaces, which cause overcrawling and slower discovery of new content.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

Favicon

The small icon shown next to a site in Google results. Google requires a square image at least 8×8 pixels and recommends one larger than 48×48.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Freshness Systems

Google’s “query deserves freshness” systems, which favor recent content when a query calls for it, such as news about a recent event.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Google-InspectionTool

The crawler behind Google’s Search testing tools, such as the Rich Results Test and the URL Inspection live test. Rules for it go under its own token or the Googlebot token.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-14

GoogleOther

A generic Google crawler that various product teams may use to fetch publicly accessible content. Google says robots.txt rules addressed to it don’t affect any specific product.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-14

Hidden Text and Link Abuse

Placing content only to manipulate search engines that visitors can’t easily see, such as white text on a white background or text hidden behind an image.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Image File Name

Google says file names give very light clues about an image’s subject, so use short, descriptive names.

Official · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2026-03-02

Indexing API

A Google API for notifying Google about new or removed pages. Google limits it to pages with JobPosting or BroadcastEvent markup in a VideoObject.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-16

IndexNow

An open protocol for notifying participating search engines the moment URLs are added, updated, or deleted. Its FAQ lists endpoints for Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam, Yep, and Amazon; Google is not listed.

Official · Crawling and indexing · IndexNow.org · checked 2026-10-06

Infinite Scroll

Loading more items as the visitor scrolls, usually with JavaScript. Google’s pagination guidance asks for sequential links and a unique URL per page so Googlebot can reach items beyond the first load.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Intrusive Interstitials

Pop-ups and dialogs that block the main content, especially on mobile. Google’s page experience guidance asks whether pages avoid them.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-22

Lastmod

The sitemap tag giving a URL’s last significant change date. Google uses it when it is consistently and verifiably accurate, and ignores the priority and changefreq tags.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-08

Lazy Loading

Deferring images or content until they are needed. Google asks that lazy-loaded content load whenever it is visible in the viewport, using methods that don’t rely on user actions such as scrolling or clicking.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

LocalBusiness Structured Data

Schema.org markup giving business details such as hours, address, and departments. Google may show these details in a knowledge panel when people search on Search or Maps.

Official · Local · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-08

Meta Refresh and JavaScript Redirects

Redirects done in the page rather than by the server. Google supports instant meta refresh as a permanent redirect, and says to use JavaScript redirects only if you can’t use server-side or meta refresh ones.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-04-14

Microdata and RDFa

Two structured data formats written as HTML attributes inside the visible markup. Google supports both; JSON-LD is its recommended format.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

MUM (Multitask Unified Model)

An AI system that understands and generates language. Google says it is not currently used for general ranking, only for specific applications.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Neural Matching

An AI system Google uses to match representations of concepts in queries and pages.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Organization Structured Data

Markup on the home page or an About page describing an organization (name, logo, address, contacts). It can influence the logo shown in results and the knowledge panel.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-08

Original Content Systems

Systems that help show original reporting ahead of pages that only cite it.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Passage Ranking

An AI system that identifies sections of a page to judge how relevant the page is to a search. It ranks pages; passages are not ranked on their own.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

RankBrain

An AI system that helps Google understand how words relate to concepts, so it can return relevant pages without all the exact query words.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Rel=”ugc”

The rel value for links inside user-generated content such as comments and forum posts.

Official · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Removals Tool

A Search Console tool that temporarily blocks pages on your site from Google results. Google says it is one step toward permanent removal; you must also delete, password-protect, or noindex the page.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Review Snippet

Star ratings and review details shown from Review or AggregateRating markup. Reviews a local business or organization publishes about itself (self-serving reviews) aren’t eligible.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-08

Reviews System

A ranking system that aims to reward high-quality reviews: insightful analysis and original research written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Scraping (Scraped Content)

Taking content from other sites, often automatically, and republishing it to manipulate rankings without adding value. A spam policy violation.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Security Issues Report

The Search Console report that flags hacked sites and behavior that could harm visitors, such as phishing or installing malware.

Official · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

Service-Area Business

A business that serves customers at their locations, such as a plumber. Google asks for one profile for the central office or location, with a designated service area.

Official · Local · Business Profile Help · checked 2026-10-06

Site Diversity System

Google generally shows no more than two listings from the same site in top results, and usually treats subdomains as part of the root domain.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Site Name

The name Google shows for a site in results. It is chosen automatically from the home page and references on the web; WebSite structured data on the home page states your preference.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Sitemap Limits

Each sitemap can hold up to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed. Larger sites split URLs across several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index file.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-07-08

Sneaky Redirects

Redirecting users maliciously, to show users and search engines different content. Google lists site moves and page consolidation as legitimate redirects.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

SpamBrain

Google’s AI-based spam detection system, used with other systems against content and links that violate spam policies.

Official · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Thin Affiliation

Affiliate pages whose product descriptions and reviews are copied from the merchant without original content or added value.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

Time to First Byte (TTFB)

Time from the request until the first byte of the response arrives. It precedes FCP and LCP, so a slow server delays everything after it, but it is not one of the three Core Web Vitals.

Official · Technical · web.dev (Chrome team) · updated 2025-11-28

Unnatural Links Manual Action

A penalty a Google reviewer applies for links that violate its spam policies. It appears in the Manual actions report; after fixing it, you request review describing the fixes.

Official · Links and authority · Search Console Help · checked 2026-10-06

URL Discovery

How Google finds pages to crawl. There is no central registry, so Google learns URLs from links on known pages, from sitemaps, and from pages it has visited before.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-18

User-Agent Token

The name a crawler answers to in robots.txt (for example Googlebot, GPTBot, or Google-Extended). Rules grouped under a token apply only to that crawler.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-31

User-Generated Spam

Spammy content users add through channels meant for user content, such as forum posts, blog comments, and file uploads. Site owners are often unaware of it.

Official · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2026-08-28

X-Default

The hreflang value for the fallback page shown when no language or region version matches, such as a country selector or an auto-redirecting home page.

Official · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2026-09-21

X-Robots-Tag

An HTTP response header that carries the same rules as the robots meta tag. Use it for non-HTML files such as PDFs, or to set rules at server level.

Official · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central · updated 2026-03-24

Outdated Terms (21)

Retired terms, listed so you can recognize them in older material. None should drive a decision today.

Cached Page (Cache Link and Cache: Operator)

Google’s stored copy of a page, once reachable from results. Google removed the cached link and the cache: operator in 2024; its docs recorded the removals on September 24 and October 2, 2024.

Retired · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2024-09-24 and 2024-10-02

Crawl Rate Limiter Tool

A Search Console setting that let owners cap Googlebot’s crawl rate. Google deprecated it on January 8, 2024, citing improved crawling logic.

Retired · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central Blog · published 2023-11-24

Data-Vocabulary.org

An older structured data vocabulary. Since January 29, 2021, Google has not used it for rich results; schema.org replaced it.

Retired · Technical · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2020-10-30

FAQ Rich Result

Expandable questions shown under a result from FAQPage markup. Google limited it to government and health sites in August 2023 and stopped showing it from May 7, 2026.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2026-05-08

First Input Delay (FID)

The delay before a page could start handling a visitor’s first interaction. It was a Core Web Vital until INP replaced it on March 12, 2024.

Retired · Technical · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2024-03-12

Google My Business

The former name of Google Business Profile. The old website became Business Profile Manager for businesses with multiple profiles.

Retired · Local · Business Profile Help · published 2021-11-04

Helpful Content System

A 2022 system (the “Helpful Content Update”) for rewarding people-first content. Google made it part of its core ranking systems in March 2024.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

HowTo Rich Result

Step-by-step results from HowTo markup. Google stopped showing them on desktop and mobile in September 2023.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2023-09-14

Hummingbird

A major improvement to Google’s overall ranking systems made in August 2013. Google now lists it as a retired system.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

International Targeting Report

A Search Console report for hreflang errors and country targeting. Google removed references to it as deprecated in August 2022; hreflang guidance still applies.

Retired · Technical · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2022-08-24

Meta Keywords Tag

A meta tag that listed a page’s keywords. Google Search does not use it.

Retired · On-page and content · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Mobile-Friendly Test and Mobile Usability Report

Google’s mobile testing tool, its API, and the Search Console Mobile Usability report. All three retired on December 1, 2023. Google points to Lighthouse from Chrome for mobile usability checks.

Retired · Technical · Google Search Central Blog · published 2023-04-19

Panda

A 2011 Google system for promoting high-quality, original content. It became part of the core ranking systems in 2015.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Penguin

A 2012 Google system against link spam. Google integrated it into its core ranking systems in 2016.

Retired · Links and authority · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Rel=”next” and rel=”prev”

Link tags that once marked pages in a paginated series. Google says it no longer uses them, though other search engines may.

Retired · Technical · Google Search Central · updated 2025-12-10

Retired Structured Data Features (2025)

Course info, ClaimReview, estimated salary, learning video, special announcement, and vehicle listing displays, phased out from June 2025. Google later kept book actions. Google said rankings are not affected.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central Blog · published 2025-06-12

Sitelinks Search Box

A search box shown under some sites’ results. Google removed it from results starting November 21, 2024, citing lower use.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central Blog · published 2024-10-21

Sitemap Ping Endpoint

A URL that used to let you notify Google of a new or updated sitemap. Google deprecated it in June 2023; you can still submit sitemaps in Search Console or list them in robots.txt.

Retired · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central Blog · published 2023-06-26

Universal Analytics

The previous version of Google Analytics. Standard properties stopped processing hits on July 1, 2023, and access to the data ended from July 1, 2024.

Retired · Measurement (GSC, GA4) · Google Analytics Help · updated 2025-07-16

URL Parameters Tool

A Search Console tool for telling Google how to treat URL parameters. Google announced its deprecation on March 28, 2022, effective one month later, citing low value.

Retired · Crawling and indexing · Google Search Central Blog · published 2022-03-28

Webmaster Guidelines

The former name of Google’s rules for site owners. Renamed Google Search Essentials, with the Quality Guidelines becoming the spam policies, on October 13, 2022.

Retired · Ranking, updates and spam · Google Search Central changelog · changelog 2022-10-13

Sort the Word Before You Act on It

SEO vocabulary expires, so the useful skill is sorting a word before acting on it:

• ▪Official terms describe something a platform documents and does, so act on the current definition.
• ▪Industry terms are shorthand, so check what the platform itself says.
• ▪Changed terms need their current name or meaning.
• ▪Retired terms and myths should no longer influence decisions.
• ▪Vendor metrics describe a tool’s model of the web; Google does not use them.

• ✓Check audit templates and agency reports against the retired and renamed table.
• ✓Treat Domain Authority, Domain Rating, or Authority Score targets as tool benchmarks; Google sets no such goals.
• ✓Confirm that robots.txt rules for AI crawlers match your intent: training bots and search bots have different effects.
• ✓Use Search Console’s Generative AI performance report and GA4’s AI Assistant channel alongside any third-party “AI visibility” scores, to see impressions in Google’s AI features.

J6 Venture works on SEO and AI search for B2B companies. If a proposal or audit leans on retired terms, myths, or vendor scores, ask which of its recommendations would change something Google or your analytics can measure.