A little clarity.

301 redirect

A 301 redirect is an HTTP response indicating that a resource has permanently moved to a different URL, directing the request to the new location.

A/B testing

A/B testing compares assigned groups experiencing different versions to estimate the effect of a change on a defined outcome.

AI agent

An AI agent is a software system that uses an AI model to choose and carry out steps towards a goal, often by working with connected tools and information.

AI hallucination

An AI hallucination is an output containing unsupported, false or fabricated information presented as if it were established.

AI workflow

A defined sequence of steps that uses AI for selected tasks within a wider business process.

Alt text

Alt text is a text alternative that communicates an image's purpose or meaning when the image itself is not available to the reader.

API

An application programming interface, or API, defines how software can request information or actions from another component or service.

Attribution

Marketing attribution assigns credit for a recorded outcome to selected interactions or channels under a defined reporting method.

Average order value

The average revenue per order within a defined period, using a consistent treatment of discounts, tax, delivery and refunds.

Backlink

A backlink is a link from another website to a page on your website.

Bounce rate

In GA4, bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that do not meet the configured definition of an engaged session.

Brand architecture

The structure that defines how a company's brands, products and sub-brands relate to one another and to the parent business.

Brand identity

Brand identity is the system of recognisable elements a business uses to express itself, including its name, visual language and other consistent cues.

Brand positioning

Brand positioning defines the place a business intends to occupy in its audience's mind relative to the alternatives they could choose.

Call to action

A call to action, or CTA, is a prompt that tells someone what they can do next, such as booking a call, exploring a service or buying a product.

Canonical URL

A canonical URL is the representative URL selected for a group of duplicate or substantially similar pages. A canonical link expresses a preferred version to search engines.

Churn rate

The proportion of customers or recurring revenue lost during a defined period, measured against a clearly specified starting base.

Click-through rate

Click-through rate, or CTR, is the percentage of recorded impressions that result in a click on an advert, link or search result.

Content delivery network

A content delivery network distributes delivery of content across multiple locations, often using caching to serve resources efficiently.

Content management system

A content management system, or CMS, is software for creating, organising, editing and publishing content through a managed interface.

Content marketing

Content marketing uses relevant, useful material to serve an audience and support a business's broader marketing objectives.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of a defined audience that completes a chosen action, such as buying a product, submitting an enquiry or booking a call.

Conversion rate optimisation

Conversion rate optimisation is the process of investigating and improving a digital journey so more of the right people complete a valuable action.

Conversion tracking

The process of recording meaningful actions, such as purchases or qualified enquiries, and connecting them with the activity that preceded them.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are Google's user-experience metrics for loading, interaction responsiveness and visual stability: LCP, INP and CLS.

Cost per acquisition

Cost per acquisition measures the cost of securing a defined outcome. In advertising reports, CPA often means cost per action, which may be a lead rather than a customer.

Cost per click

Cost per click, or CPC, is the amount paid for an advertising click. Average CPC divides total click cost by the number of clicks.

Cost per thousand impressions

CPM expresses advertising cost per thousand recorded impressions. The impression definition and delivery context determine what the figure represents.

Crawl budget

Crawl budget describes the extent of crawling a search engine is willing and able to perform for a website, influenced by capacity and demand.

Customer acquisition cost

The sales and marketing cost of acquiring a new customer, calculated using an explicitly defined set of costs and time period.

Customer journey

A customer journey describes the interactions and decisions a person experiences while trying to achieve an outcome with a business.

Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value estimates the value of a customer relationship over a defined period or its expected duration, using an explicitly stated revenue or contribution model.

Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management combines processes and systems for organising relationships, interactions and opportunities involving customers and prospects.

Customer retention

A business's ability to keep customers active and continue a valuable relationship over time.

Demand generation

Demand generation builds awareness, understanding and interest in an offer among an audience that may not yet be ready to enquire.

Design system

A design system combines reusable components, shared foundations and guidance for creating consistent interfaces.

DNS

The Domain Name System, or DNS, connects domain names with information used to locate websites, email services and other resources.

Domain Authority

Domain Authority is Moz's proprietary score estimating a domain's relative potential to rank. It is not a Google-issued rating.

Domain name

A domain name is a human-readable name within the internet's naming system, used to identify destinations and associated services.

Embeddings

Numerical representations of information used to compare patterns and relationships, including similarity between pieces of text.

Engagement rate

Engagement rate expresses recorded engagement relative to a defined audience or exposure measure. Its calculation depends on the platform and report.

Fine-tuning

Fine-tuning adapts a pre-trained model through additional training for a more specific task, behaviour or use case.

Generative AI

Generative AI is artificial intelligence that produces content such as text, images, audio, video or code in response to instructions and other inputs.

Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is Google's analytics product for measuring recorded interactions across websites and apps through an event-based model.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is Google's service for examining a website's presence and technical status within Google Search.

Heatmap

A website heatmap uses visual intensity to summarise recorded behaviour such as clicks, pointer movement or scroll depth.

Hreflang

Hreflang identifies alternative language or regional versions of a page so supporting search engines can understand their relationship.

Image optimisation

Preparing and delivering images so they provide suitable visual quality, accessibility and context without unnecessary loading cost.

Impression share

Impression share compares recorded advert impressions with an estimate of the eligible impressions available under the campaign's relevant conditions.

Information architecture

The structure, organisation and labelling of information so people can understand a website and find what they need.

Internal linking

Internal linking connects pages within the same website, helping people and search engines discover related information.

Keyword research

Keyword research investigates the language people use in search and the needs, competition and opportunities behind those queries.

Landing page

A landing page is a page someone arrives on after following a link. In marketing, it usually means a focused page designed around a particular audience, offer and action.

Large language model

A large language model is a machine-learning model trained at scale to model language patterns and support tasks involving text and related information.

Lead generation

Lead generation creates opportunities for suitable people or organisations to express interest in a business's offer.

Lead nurturing

Lead nurturing supports potential customers with relevant information and interactions as their understanding and readiness develop.

Lead scoring

Lead scoring applies a defined model to prioritise leads using selected information about fit, behaviour or other relevant signals.

Local SEO

Local SEO helps a business communicate its relevance to searches involving a place, service area or nearby need.

Long-tail keyword

A long-tail keyword sits in the lower-demand part of the search distribution, often expressing a specific need or circumstance.

Marketing automation

Marketing automation uses software to carry out defined marketing tasks and workflows in response to rules, events or schedules.

Marketing funnel

A marketing funnel is a model that groups the stages through which an audience may move towards a selected business outcome.

Meta description

A meta description is a page-level summary that search engines may use when generating the descriptive snippet in a search result.

Multimodal AI

AI that works with more than one type of information, such as text, images, audio or video, within its supported capabilities.

Noindex

Noindex is an instruction asking a supporting search engine not to include a page or resource in its search index.

Organic traffic

Visitors who reach a website through unpaid search results, rather than through a paid advertisement.

Paid social

Advertising bought on social media platforms to reach selected audiences and encourage a defined response.

Pay-per-click advertising

Pay-per-click advertising is a model in which an advertiser pays when someone clicks an advert, rather than simply when it is displayed.

Performance marketing

Marketing managed against measurable outcomes such as qualified leads, customer acquisition or sales.

Prompt engineering

Prompt engineering is the deliberate design and evaluation of instructions and context supplied to an AI model for a particular task.

Prototype

A prototype is a representation of a proposed product or experience built to explore and test selected assumptions.

Quality Score

Quality Score is a Google Ads diagnostic for Search keywords, using a 1–10 scale to summarise selected quality-related assessments.

Remarketing

Remarketing is the practice of reaching people again after an earlier interaction with a business, using an appropriately defined audience and channel.

Responsive web design

Responsive web design is an approach that allows a website's layout and content to adapt to the available screen space.

Retrieval-augmented generation

Retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, supplies a generative AI model with relevant information retrieved from a source collection when preparing a response.

Return on ad spend

Return on ad spend, or ROAS, compares attributed revenue or conversion value with advertising spend, usually as a ratio or percentage.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a file that gives supported web crawlers instructions about which website paths they may request.

Schema markup

Schema markup is structured information using a shared vocabulary to describe a page's content in a form that machines can interpret.

Search engine optimisation

Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the work of improving a website's ability to be discovered and understood in unpaid search results.

Search intent

Search intent is the purpose behind a search: what someone is trying to understand, find, compare or do when they enter a query.

Semantic search

Search that uses representations of meaning and context to find relevant information beyond exact keyword matches.

SSL certificate

A certificate used with TLS helps a browser authenticate a website's endpoint and establish an encrypted connection. SSL is the older name commonly used in sales language.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the work that helps search engines access, process and understand a website's pages, while maintaining a reliable foundation for search visibility.

Title tag

A title tag supplies a page's title in HTML metadata. Browsers and search engines can use it to identify and present the page.

Tone of voice

Tone of voice is the consistent way a brand expresses its character through language, adapted to the purpose and circumstances of a message.

Usability testing

Research that observes people attempting realistic tasks with a website or product to identify where the experience helps or obstructs them.

User experience

User experience, or UX, is the overall experience someone has when interacting with a product, service or organisation, including whether they can achieve their goal.

User interface

A user interface, or UI, is the part of a product or system through which someone interacts, including its controls, navigation and presentation of information.

UTM parameters

UTM parameters are labels added to a URL to help analytics tools identify campaign sources and other acquisition details.

Value proposition

A value proposition explains the useful outcome an offer provides for a particular audience and why that audience should consider it.

Web hosting

Web hosting provides the infrastructure and services used to make a website available over the internet.

Webhook

A webhook sends an event notification to a configured endpoint so another system can respond when something happens.

Website accessibility

Website accessibility means designing and maintaining web content and functionality so people with disabilities can perceive, understand and use them.

Website migration

A significant move or change to a website's platform, domain, URLs or infrastructure that requires planned transfer and verification.

Wireframe

A wireframe represents a page or interface's structure, content hierarchy and key controls before detailed visual treatment.

XML sitemap

An XML sitemap lists website URLs and related information to help search engines discover content the site wants them to consider.