Look, we need to talk about something that drives me up the wall. The search industry is absolutely stuffed with jargon. Acronyms everywhere. Terms that sound like they've been dreamt up specifically to make people feel confused.
So here's the Discovrd Glossary – a running list of all those search, SEO, and AI terms you might hear thrown about, but explained like an actual human would explain them. No showing off. No nonsense. Just what things actually mean and why you might care.
Bookmark this. You'll need it.
The Basics
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
This is just the practice of making sure people can find your website when they search for things you do. That's it. Yes, there's a lot that goes into it, but fundamentally, it's about being discoverable.
Organic Search
When someone finds your website through a search engine without you paying for an advert. These are the "free" results (though there's work involved in getting them, obviously).
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
The page you see after you type something into Google. It's got paid ads at the top, then organic results, maybe some featured snippets, images, videos – basically, it's the whole page of stuff that comes back when you search.
Algorithm
The set of rules search engines use to decide what shows up when someone searches for something. Google's is famously complex and constantly changing, which is why everyone in search is always banging on about "algorithm updates".
The Technical Stuff
Crawling
This is how search engines discover pages on the internet. They send out little bots (called crawlers or spiders – yes, really) that follow links from page to page, reading everything they find.
Indexing
After a search engine crawls your page, it stores it in its massive database. That's indexing. If you're not indexed, you won't show up in search results. Simple as that.
Core Web Vitals
Google's way of measuring how good your website experience is. It looks at things like how fast your page loads, how stable it is while loading, and how quickly people can actually interact with it. Basically, is your site annoying to use?
Schema Markup (Structured Data)
A way of labelling information on your website so search engines understand it better. Think of it like giving search engines a cheat sheet. "This is a recipe. This is how long it takes. These are the ingredients." That sort of thing.
Canonicalisation
When you have similar or duplicate content on different URLs, you use a canonical tag to tell search engines which version is the "main" one and stops you competing with yourself, which would be silly.
Backlinks
When another website links to yours. Search engines see this as a vote of confidence. The more quality sites linking to you, the more authoritative you look. Quality matters more than quantity, though.
Robots.txt
A file that tells search engine crawlers which parts of your site they can and can't look at. Like putting up a "staff only" sign on certain pages.
Content and Keywords
Keywords
The words and phrases people actually type into search engines. If you sell handmade candles in Leeds, "handmade candles Leeds" is probably a keyword you care about.
Keyword Research
Working out what people are actually searching for related to your business. It's detective work, basically. What questions are people asking? What terms are they using?
Long-tail Keywords
Longer, more specific search phrases. Instead of just "trainers", think "women's running trainers for flat feet". Less competition, more specific intent.
Search Intent
What someone's actually trying to do when they search for something. Are they trying to buy something? Learn something? Find a specific website? Understanding this is crucial.
Content Clustering
Organising your content around main topics (pillar pages) with related subtopics linking back to them. Helps search engines understand you're an authority on a subject.
Meta Description
That little snippet of text that shows up under your page title in search results. It's your chance to convince someone to click on your link instead of someone else's.
Alt Text
The description you add to images that tells search engines (and screen readers for visually impaired users) what the image shows. Good for accessibility and SEO.
The AI and Modern Search Stuff
LLM (Large Language Model)
The AI technology behind tools like ChatGPT, Claude (hi!), and others. They're trained on massive amounts of text and can understand and generate human-like responses.
ChatGPT / Perplexity / Claude
AI chat tools that people are using instead of traditional search engines. They give direct answers rather than a list of links. This is changing how people find information online.
AI Overviews
Google's AI-generated answers that appear at the top of some search results. They pull information from multiple sources to give you a quick answer without clicking through.
LLM Optimisation
The practice of making sure your brand gets mentioned and cited when people ask AI tools questions related to what you do. It's the new frontier of being discoverable.
Zero-Click Search
When someone gets their answer directly in search results without clicking through to any website. A bit annoying for website owners, but it's where things are heading.
Entity
In search terms, an entity is a thing or concept that's uniquely identifiable. Your brand is an entity. A person is an entity. A place is an entity. Search engines are getting better at understanding the relationships between entities.
Social and Alternative Discovery
Reddit SEO
Yes, Reddit is now a search engine. People add "Reddit" to their Google searches because they trust real people's opinions. Having your brand discussed positively on Reddit can drive serious traffic.
Video SEO
Optimising your videos (usually on YouTube) so they show up in search. YouTube is the second biggest search engine after Google, so this matters.
Social Listening
Keeping an eye on what people are saying about your brand or industry on social platforms. Helps you understand conversations and jump in where relevant.
UGC (User-Generated Content)
Content created by your customers or community – reviews, comments, forum posts. Search engines increasingly value this because it's seen as more authentic.
Measuring Success
Impressions
How many times your website showed up in search results. Doesn't mean people clicked – just that they saw you.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
The percentage of people who saw your listing and actually clicked on it. If 100 people see you and 5 click, that's a 5% CTR.
Organic Traffic
The number of people landing on your website from unpaid search results. This is what we're trying to grow.
Conversion
When someone does what you want them to do – buys something, signs up, downloads something, whatever your goal is.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of people who land on your site and leave without doing anything else. High bounce rate usually means something's not quite right.
Domain Authority
A score (created by SEO tool companies, not Google) that predicts how well a website will rank. It's based on things like age, backlinks, and overall site quality. Higher is better.
The Stuff Everyone Gets Wrong
"Google doesn't like..."
Google doesn't "like" or "dislike" anything. It's an algorithm trying to serve the best results to users. Think about what users want, not what you think Google wants.
"Black Hat" vs "White Hat" SEO
Black hat is dodgy tactics that try to game the system – buying links, hiding keywords, that sort of thing. White hat is doing things properly. Just do things properly.
"SEO is dead"
You'll hear this constantly. It's never true. How we do SEO changes, but the fundamental need to be discoverable never goes away.
Link Building vs Link Earning
Building sounds spammy (and often is). Earning means creating content so good that people naturally want to link to it. Aim for the second one.
New Terms We're Watching
The search world is changing fast. Here are some terms you might start hearing more of:
Multimodal Search – Searching using multiple types of input (text, image, voice) at once.
SGE (Search Generative Experience) – Google's AI-powered search features that generate custom answers.
AIO (AI Overviews) – Similar to above, the AI-generated summaries Google shows.
Prompt Engineering – Crafting questions for AI tools in ways that get you the best answers.
RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) - How AI tools fetch current information to supplement their answers. Technical but increasingly relevant.
