Global SEO Glossary
Ready to up your international SEO game? Check out our comprehensive glossary! From basic terms to more advanced techniques, we’ve got you covered!
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404 page
404 is a status code that tells a web user that a requested page is not available.
A
AI Overviews
AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the sources they draw on.
B
Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites to your site. Search engines treat relevant, trustworthy backlinks as a signal of authority.
Baidu Webmaster Tools
Baidu webmaster tools is a powerful platform provides lots of metrics that can help webmasters and SEOs improve their site's ranking in China's most popular search engine's organic search results.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service as part of Microsoft's Bing search engine which allows webmasters to add their websites to the Bing index crawler, see how their website is performing and it offers tools for troubleshooting.
C
Canonical tag
A canonical tag tells search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page when the same or very similar content is available at several addresses.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a group of geographically distributed servers that speed up the delivery of web content.
Conversion rate
The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors or clicks that complete a desired action, such as a purchase, sign-up or enquiry.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google's metrics for real-world user experience: loading speed (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and visual stability (CLS).
Cost per click (CPC)
Cost per click (CPC) is the amount an advertiser pays for each click on an ad. Average CPC is the total cost divided by the number of clicks.
Country Code Top Level Domains (CCTLDs)
Country Code Top Level Domains or CCTLDs are domain names that are assigned to countries and territories based on the ISO 3166 standard.
Crawl budget
The crawl budget concepts takes into consideration that search engines have limited crawling resources and cannot crawl every page on the www instantaneously.
E
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness – the qualities Google's quality raters use to judge how reliable content is.
G
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of making content visible and cited in AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is Google's current web and app analytics platform. It measures user behavior with an event-based data model and replaced Universal Analytics in 2023.
H
hreflang tags
Hreflang tags send signals to Google and other search engines about the language you are using on a specific page and optionally which geo-location it is targeting.
I
ICP Registration
All websites that are hosted in Mainland China must obtain ICP registration before going live.
International link building strategy
A good international link building strategy is to create relevant links from websites in all your targeting countries.
K
Keyword research
Keyword research is the process of finding and prioritizing the search terms your target audience uses, based on search volume, intent, competition and business value.
L
Local ranking signals
A well-thought-out global SEO strategy encompasses strong local ranking signals.
Localization
Localization adapts content, offers and websites to a specific market – going beyond translation to cover language variants, culture, currency, legal requirements and local search behavior.
N
Naver Webmaster Tools
The popular Korean search engine Naver also has its own Webmaster Tools, which offer similar features to those of Google Webmaster Tools.
P
Performance Max
Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that uses AI to show ads across all Google channels – Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps – from a single campaign.
Q
Quality Score
Quality Score is Google Ads' 1–10 rating of how relevant your keywords, ads and landing pages are compared to other advertisers.
R
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Return on ad spend (ROAS) measures the revenue generated for every unit of currency spent on advertising: revenue from ads ÷ ad spend.
robots.txt
The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which areas of a website they may or may not crawl. It controls crawling, not indexing.
S
Search Console International Targeting
Search Console International Targeting used to give webmasters the options to specify which country a website is targeting.
Search Engine Advertising (SEA)
Search engine advertising (SEA) means paid ads in search results, such as Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, usually billed per click.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving a website so it ranks higher in organic, unpaid search results and attracts more relevant visitors.
Search intent
Search intent is the goal behind a search query – whether the user wants information, a specific website, to compare options or to buy something.
Structured data
Structured data is code (usually Schema.org in JSON-LD) that describes a page's content to search engines and can make it eligible for rich results.
X
XML sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs of a website you want search engines to crawl and index, helping them discover pages faster.