SEO & Google Search Console glossary

This glossary defines the terms used across the Learn section in one or two plain sentences, grouped by topic and listed alphabetically within each group. Every entry links to the page that explains it in full, so the list doubles as a map of the fundamentals and the playbooks.

Search Console and its numbers

Annotation

A short note pinned to a date on the Performance chart, such as a site release, so you can see later whether a change in the line lines up with it. Search Console allows up to 120 characters per note (What is Google Search Console?).

Anonymised query

A search made so rarely that Google leaves it out of the Queries table to protect privacy. It still counts in the chart totals unless you filter by query, which is one reason filtered totals rarely add up (Clicks vs impressions).

Average position

The topmost position your site held in each search where it appeared, averaged across all those searches. It moves when the mix of searches changes, not only when rankings change (CTR and average position).

Branded query

A search that names your brand or a product only you offer. Search Console can split the Performance report into branded and non-branded searches for eligible sites, and most analysis should look at the non-branded side (What is Google Search Console?).

Click

One visit from a Google result to your site. Clicking the same result twice after coming back counts once (Clicks vs impressions).

CTR (click-through rate)

Clicks divided by impressions. It depends mostly on position, so judge it against what your own results earn at the same position (CTR and average position).

Data delay

The gap between a search happening and it showing in Search Console, usually two to three days, with the newest day still preliminary for a few hours (Search Console data delay).

Expected CTR

The click-through rate a result would normally earn at its position, read from a curve built from your own data. A result well below it is a candidate for a better title or snippet (CTR and average position).

Google Search Console

Google's free service that reports how a site appears in Google Search: searches, clicks and indexing problems (What is Google Search Console?).

Impression

One appearance of a link to your site on a results page that someone loaded. It can count even if the result was never scrolled into view (Clicks vs impressions).

Performance report

The Search Console report with clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, broken down by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date, for the last 16 months (What is Google Search Console?).

Property

What you add to Search Console. A Domain property covers every subdomain and protocol and is verified through DNS; a URL-prefix property covers only addresses that start with one exact prefix (Domain vs URL-prefix).

Query

The words someone searched with that showed one of your pages. Each query row in Search Console totals every time it was searched in the period (Clicks vs impressions).

Crawling and indexing

Canonical URL

The one address Google treats as the main version of a page when several addresses show the same content. You can suggest it with redirects, a rel="canonical" tag and your sitemap, but Google makes the final choice (Indexing explained).

Crawl budget

How many of a site's URLs Google can and wants to crawl. Google says it only becomes a concern for very large or fast-changing sites (Technical indexing issues).

Crawled - currently not indexed

A Page indexing status: Google fetched the page but decided not to index it for now. It is a judgement about the page, usually fixed by making it clearly useful or merging it into a stronger page (Technical indexing issues).

Crawling

Googlebot fetching a page so it can be analysed. Google finds pages to crawl mainly through links and sitemaps (Indexing explained).

Discovered - currently not indexed

A Page indexing status: Google knows the URL but has not crawled it yet. On most sites the fix is better internal links to the page (Technical indexing issues).

Indexing

Google analysing a page and storing it so it can appear in results. Only indexed pages can be shown (Indexing explained).

IndexNow

A protocol for telling search engines that a URL is new or changed. Bing and several other engines take part; Google does not (IndexNow in AutoPSEO).

noindex

A rule, in a robots meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag header, telling search engines to keep a page out of their results. It only works if the page can be crawled, because a blocked page's rule is never read (Technical indexing issues).

Page indexing report

The Search Console report that splits your known URLs into indexed and not indexed, with Google's reason for each group (Indexing explained).

Permanent redirect (301 or 308)

A server response that sends visitors and crawlers from an old address to a new one for good. Google treats it as a strong signal that the new address should be the canonical (Fix keyword cannibalisation).

Rendering

Google running a page's JavaScript, with a recent version of Chrome, to see content that only appears after scripts run (Indexing explained).

robots.txt

A file at the root of a site that tells crawlers which paths they may fetch. It controls crawling, not indexing, so it cannot reliably keep a page out of results (Technical indexing issues).

Sitemap

A file listing the canonical URLs you want search engines to know about. Each file holds at most 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed, and Google uses <lastmod> when it is accurate (Indexing explained).

Soft 404

A page that answers with a success status but looks like an error or an empty page. Missing pages should return a real 404 or 410; real pages need content Google can see (Technical indexing issues).

URL Inspection

The Search Console tool that shows what Google knows about one URL: whether it is indexed, which canonical Google chose and when it last crawled. Its live test checks the page as it is now, and Request indexing asks for a recrawl (Technical indexing issues).

Validate fix

The Page indexing button that asks Google to recheck every URL affected by an issue once you have fixed it. It typically takes up to about two weeks (Technical indexing issues).

Results pages and snippets

AI Overview

An AI-generated summary at the top of some Google results. In Search Console it counts as a single position that all its links share (CTR and average position).

H1 (main heading)

The main visible heading of a page. Google can draw on it when building the title link, so it should agree with the title (Title tag rewrites).

Meta description

A short summary of a page in its HTML head. Google shows it as the snippet when it describes the page better than any passage of the page itself (Improve CTR).

SERP (search engine results page)

The page of results shown for a search, including ads, AI Overviews and other features alongside the ordinary results (SEO basics in 10 minutes).

Snippet

The text under a result's title link. Google builds it mainly from the page's own content, matched to each search (Improve CTR).

Title link

The clickable headline of a search result. Google builds it mostly from your <title> element but can also use headings and link text, and may change titles it finds unhelpful (Title tag rewrites).

Opportunities and problems

Content decay

A lasting fall in the clicks a page earns from search while the page itself stays the same, usually because newer or better pages overtook it (Fix content decay).

Keyword cannibalisation

Two or more of your pages answering the same search, so Google splits impressions between them and often alternates which one it shows (Fix keyword cannibalisation).

Long tail

The many specific, rarely searched queries a site appears for. Together they can bring a lot of traffic, and new long-tail rankings can pull the average position down while clicks rise (CTR and average position).

Potential clicks

An estimate of what a ranking improvement is worth: impressions multiplied by the difference between the expected CTR at a target position and the current CTR. It is a ceiling, not a forecast (Striking distance keywords).

Scaled content abuse

Google's spam-policy term for generating many pages mainly to manipulate rankings rather than help people, however the pages are made (SEO basics in 10 minutes).

Search intent

What the searcher actually wants from a search: a quick fact, a guide, a product, a comparison. When a page and the intent do not match, editing the snippet will not help (Striking distance keywords).

Seasonality

Regular rises and falls in searches through the year. Compare with the same period a year earlier before treating a drop as decay (Fix content decay).

Striking distance keyword

A search where one of your pages ranks just below the results that collect most clicks, usually between positions 4 and 20 (Striking distance keywords).

Other engines and assistants

Bing Webmaster Tools

Microsoft's counterpart to Search Console, with Bing's search data and crawl reports (Bing in AutoPSEO).

Brave Search

A search engine with its own independent index, built by a crawler that follows the permissions you give Googlebot and by data from Brave browser users who opted in (Rank in Brave Search).

LLM traffic

Visits from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity, identified in GA4 by the referring site (LLM Traffic report).

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

An open standard for connecting AI assistants to tools and data. An MCP server is how ChatGPT, Claude and others can read your Search Console data (Connect Search Console to ChatGPT).

Web Discovery Project

An opt-in feature of the Brave browser that sends anonymous search and browsing data to help build Brave Search's index (Rank in Brave Search).

AutoPSEO terms

Backlog and queue

In AutoPSEO's content engine, the backlog holds topics that passed the gates and wait for review; reviewed topics move into the queue, where writers pick them up (How topics are chosen).

Content engine

AutoPSEO's automated writer. It finds searches your site should win in its Search Console data, writes articles in your site's format and languages, delivers them to your site and keeps them fresh (Content engine).

Index Tracker

An AutoPSEO tool that re-inspects a list of up to 1,800 URLs and can alert you when one drops out of Google's index or comes back (Index Tracker).

Merge

Taking one article down in favour of another that answers the same searches. AutoPSEO tells your site to send the old address to the remaining page with a 301 and counts its topics as that page's from then on (Maintenance).

Optimisation task

A content-engine task to sharpen an article's title, meta description and direct answer when it ranks at positions 8 to 20 but is rarely clicked (Maintenance).

Refresh task

A content-engine task to bring an article up to date when its clicks in the last 28 days are at least 40% below the 28 days before, from at least 20 (Maintenance).

Topic gates

The checks every candidate topic passes before it is planned: not a brand search, on topic for the site, not already covered by one of its pages, and not a search it already ranks for in the top three (How topics are chosen).

Topic review

The model check that follows the gates. It compares each topic with your closest pages and decides whether to write it, turn it down (covered, duplicate or not worth an article), or add it to one of the engine's articles as a new section (How topics are chosen).

Webhook delivery

How AutoPSEO sends finished articles, updates and takedowns to your own site: signed requests your site receives, stores and renders, so the content stays yours (Delivery).