Conscious Solutions Guide to Search Engine Jargon Busting.
Search Engine Basics
Search Engine
A tool (like Google or Bing) that searches the internet to return results relevant to the user’s query.
SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)
The pages you see after performing a search. They include organic listings, paid ads, and sometimes maps or featured snippets.
The most widely used and accurate search engine globally.
Bing
Microsoft’s search engine, second in popularity behind Google.
Yandex
Russia’s most popular search engine.
Baidu
The leading search engine in China.
SEO, SEM & Paid Search
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
The process of improving your website to increase its visibility in organic (unpaid) search engine results.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
A form of digital advertising where you pay a fee each time your ad is clicked — typically through platforms like Google Ads or Microsoft Ads.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
A broad term that includes both SEO and PPC strategies to drive visibility and traffic from search engines.
DM (Digital Marketing)
An umbrella term for all online marketing efforts including SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media, and more.
Ads
Short for Google Ads, Google’s platform for running paid search and display campaigns.
AdSense
Google’s network that allows website owners to earn money by displaying ads from Google Ads.
Crawling, Bots & Indexing
Crawler / Bot / Spider
Automated programs used by search engines to explore and index web content.
Index
A search engine’s database of all the web pages it has crawled and deemed worthy of showing in search results.
Cache
A snapshot of a web page stored by a search engine when it last crawled the page.
Robots.txt
A file on your site that tells search engines which pages should or shouldn’t be crawled or indexed.
Links & Authority
Backlinks
Inbound links from other websites pointing to your site — a major factor in SEO authority.
Anchor Text
The clickable text in a hyperlink, which gives search engines context about the linked page.
Link Juice
An informal term for the value or equity passed through links from one page to another.
NoFollow
An attribute added to a link to prevent passing SEO value.
Canonical
A tag that tells search engines which version of a page is the “official” one to prevent duplicate content issues.
Barnacle SEO
A local SEO strategy using high-authority platforms (like directories) to rank for competitive keywords.
Citations
Mentions of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on external websites. Common on directories like Yelp.com.
Directory
A website that categorises businesses by niche or location (or both) — useful for SEO and citations.
Content, Keywords & Tags
Content Marketing
A strategy focused on creating valuable content to attract and retain visitors.
Meta Title
The main title shown in search engine results and browser tabs.
Meta Description
The snippet under your meta title in search results, summarising the page’s content.
Meta Tags
HTML tags that describe page content for search engines.
H1
The primary heading on a page — it should clearly describe what the page is about.
Keyword
A word or phrase people type into search engines. Optimising content around relevant keywords improves discoverability.
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)
Refers to semantically related terms that help search engines understand context. E.g., “car,” “vehicle,” “automobile.”
Short Head Keywords
Short, high-volume keywords (e.g. “solicitor”). They drive traffic but are more competitive.
Long Tail Keywords
Longer, more specific keywords (e.g. “family law solicitor in Bristol”). These typically have lower search volume but convert better.
SEO Cannibalism
When multiple pages compete for the same keyword, potentially hurting rankings for the most important page.
Metrics & Performance
Sessions
A single visit to your website. Ends after 30 minutes of inactivity.
Users
Unique visitors to your site.
Pageviews
Total pages viewed across sessions.
Unique Pageviews
The number of distinct pages viewed at least once during a session.
Clicks
The number of times users clicked your ad or link.
Impressions
The number of times an ad or page appeared in search results or on display networks.
CTR (Click Through Rate)
Percentage of clicks compared to impressions.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
The cost you pay each time someone clicks your ad.
CPM (Cost Per Mille)
The cost per thousand ad impressions.
QS (Quality Score)
Google Ads’ rating of the relevance and quality of your keywords and ads.
ROI (Return on Investment)
Profit made from marketing spend.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
Revenue generated per £1 spent on advertising.
Domain Rating (DR)
Domain Rating (DR) is a metric that scores a website's backlink profile strength on a scale from 0 to 100. A higher DR generally means a domain has more high-quality backlinks, which can indicate stronger authority and better ability to rank in search engines.
Design, Experience & Tools
Responsive Design
A design approach that ensures websites display well on all devices.
Core Web Vitals
Google’s user experience metrics that assess load speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
Schema / Structured Data
Code that helps search engines understand your content better, often used for rich results.
Screaming Frog
An SEO audit tool that crawls websites to identify errors and optimisation opportunities.
Local SEO
Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)
A free listing that helps local businesses appear in Google Maps and local search results.
Google Maps
Google’s mapping service that helps users find local businesses, directions, and reviews.
Still Confused?
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