A/B Testing
A/B testing, also called split testing, is a way to compare two versions of a web page or app to see which one works better. It’s like a controlled experiment where variant A is…
Glossary
Learn about the technology that supports your online activities with our glossary. It will help you understand terms like domain name, hosting software, mobile apps, web terminologies, digital marketing, and more.
Above the Fold
Above the fold refers to the portion of a web page that is visible without scrolling. It is a critical area for placing important content and calls to action.
Accessibility
The practice of making websites accessible to all users, including those with disabilities and assistive technology users. Accessibility ensures equal access to web content for…
Ad Relevance Diagnostics
A system to measure how well your ads rank compared to others competing for the same audiences.
Ad Schedule
A feature that determines when your ads will show, allowing you to specify the day of the week and time of day for ad display.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Answer Engine Optimization is the work of becoming the source that answers a question rather than one of ten links offered. It matters because search increasingly replies with a written answer, and only one or two businesses get named inside it.
Affiliate Marketing
A strategy where individuals or organizations outside the business are rewarded for bringing new customers or visitors through promotion on their website. Personal or lifestyle…
Agentic Browsing
An AI navigating a website on somebody’s behalf: finding the price, checking availability, sometimes buying. Sites that rely on hover menus and unlabelled buttons are hard for an agent to use.
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
The development of computer systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision making, and…
AI Agent
An AI that does things rather than only answering — browsing a site, filling a form, completing a booking. It is why websites are starting to be judged on whether a machine can use them, not only read them.
AI Bias
When a system produces unfair results because its training data reflected an unfair world. It matters commercially as well as ethically: a biased model makes confidently wrong decisions about real people.
AI Brand Mention
Your business being named in an AI answer, with or without a link. Worth tracking separately from traffic, because a mention can win the customer without ever producing a click.
AI Citation
When an assistant names your website as the source of something it said, usually with a link. A citation is the AI-era equivalent of a first-page ranking — it is the thing worth competing for.
AI Content Detection
Tools that claim to identify AI-written text. Unreliable in both directions, and worth knowing about mainly because somebody may point one at your content and draw a confident wrong conclusion.
AI Crawler
A bot that reads websites on behalf of an AI company, either to build an index or to answer a live question. They arrive under their own names and obey robots.txt, so you can decide which are welcome.
AI Overviews
The written summary Google now places above its search results, assembled from several pages and citing a few of them. Appearing inside one can bring visitors; being left out of one can quietly cost you the clicks you used to get.
AI Policy Page
A public page stating how a business uses AI and what it does with customer data. Increasingly expected, and cheap to write honestly.
AI Readiness
Whether a website can be reached, understood and quoted by AI assistants. It covers crawler access, structured data, clear headings, published contact details and speed — the unglamorous things that decide whether a model will name you.
AI Referral Traffic
Visitors who arrive from an AI assistant rather than a search engine. Usually small in number and unusually well-qualified, because they clicked after reading a recommendation.
AI Search
Searching by asking a question in ordinary language and getting a written reply, rather than typing keywords and choosing from links. It changes what a website has to do: be readable and quotable by a machine, not just findable.
AI Share of Voice
How often your business is named when assistants are asked about your category, compared with competitors. There is no official figure, so it is measured by asking the same questions repeatedly and counting.
AI Visibility
How often, and how accurately, AI assistants mention your business when someone asks about what you do. Unlike search rankings there is no official scoreboard, so it is measured by asking the assistants and by watching which crawlers visit.
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
AJAX is a technique used in web development to create asynchronous web applications. It allows data to be retrieved from the server without interfering with the display and…
Algorithm
A set of rules followed by a search engine to rank web pages in the search results. Google’s algorithm considers factors like relevancy, quality, and user experience to determine…