Digital Marketing Glossary
Definitions of key terms in AI marketing, design, and organic search strategy.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
The practice of optimising content to be cited by AI-powered answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. AEO extends traditional SEO by focusing on entity authority, structured data, and direct-answer content formats.
See AEO and the Future of Organic Ranking: How AI Search Is Rewriting the Rules
Attribution Modelling
The set of rules used to assign credit for a conversion across the touchpoints that preceded it. Last-click attribution gives all credit to the final interaction. Multi-touch and algorithmic models distribute credit across the path, which changes which channels appear to be working.
See AI-Driven Attribution Modelling: Moving Beyond Last-Click
Content Decay
The gradual decline in organic traffic to a page that once performed well, caused by ageing information, newer competing pages, or a shift in what the query means. Decay is diagnosed by comparing a page's traffic curve against its own earlier baseline rather than against the site total.
See Content Decay: Identifying and Reversing Traffic Decline in Ageing Content
Core Web Vitals
A set of metrics defined by Google to measure user experience on web pages. The three core metrics are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Core Web Vitals are a confirmed Google ranking factor.
See Core Web Vitals as a Ranking Factor: What the Data Actually Shows
Crawl Budget
The number of pages Googlebot will crawl on a website within a given timeframe. Sites with large numbers of low-quality or duplicate pages may have their crawl budget reduced, limiting how quickly new content is indexed.
See Site Architecture for Crawl Efficiency: Managing Large Sites with Limited Crawl Budget
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
A Core Web Vitals metric that measures how much visible content moves position during page load. It is scored without units. Layout shift is usually caused by images and embeds without reserved dimensions, or by fonts and banners injected after first paint.
See Core Web Vitals as a Ranking Factor: What the Data Actually Shows
Design System
A documented set of components, patterns and rules that a team uses to build interfaces consistently. A design system is more than a component library: it carries the decisions and the conditions under which each component is the right one to use.
Design Token
A named variable that holds one design decision, such as a colour, a spacing step or a type size, stored in a platform-neutral format. Tokens let web, iOS, Android and print pick up the same brand decision from a single source.
See Design Tokens: Building Scalable Brand Systems Across Platforms
E-E-A-T
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google's quality rater guidelines framework for evaluating the credibility of web content. Particularly important for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics including health, finance, and legal content.
See Google's Helpful Content System: What It Measures and How to Recover
Entity Authority
The degree to which an entity (a person, organisation, or concept) is consistently and accurately described across multiple authoritative sources on the web. Strong entity authority increases the likelihood of being cited by AI search systems.
See Entity SEO: Optimising for Knowledge Graphs and Semantic Search
Featured Snippet
A block at the top of a Google results page that answers the query directly, extracted from a page that Google also lists in the normal results. Snippets are won by structure: a heading that matches the question and a self-contained answer immediately beneath it.
See Featured Snippets: Earning Position Zero Through Content Structure
Generative AI
Artificial intelligence systems capable of generating new content (text, images, code, audio) based on patterns learned from training data. In marketing, generative AI is used for content creation, personalisation, and campaign automation.
See Generative AI and Content Strategy: Separating Signal from Noise
Hreflang
An HTML or sitemap annotation that tells search engines which language and regional version of a page to serve to which audience. Hreflang declarations must be reciprocal: every version has to point at every other version, including itself.
See International SEO and Hreflang: Serving the Right Content to the Right Audience
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
A Core Web Vitals metric that measures how long a page takes to render a visual response after a user interacts with it, reported across the whole visit rather than for the first interaction only. It replaced First Input Delay as the responsiveness metric.
See Core Web Vitals as a Ranking Factor: What the Data Actually Shows
JSON-LD
JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data. A method of encoding structured data using the Schema.org vocabulary, embedded in a web page's HTML. JSON-LD helps search engines and AI systems understand the content and context of a page.
See Entity SEO: Optimising for Knowledge Graphs and Semantic Search
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
A Core Web Vitals metric that records when the largest visible element in the viewport finishes rendering. It is the closest single proxy for the moment a page feels loaded to the person waiting for it.
See Core Web Vitals as a Ranking Factor: What the Data Actually Shows
Local SEO
The practice of optimising a website and online presence to rank for geographically specific search queries. Key components include Google Business Profile optimisation, local citation building, and location-specific content.
See Local SEO for Multi-Location Businesses: Scaling Organic Visibility
Log File Analysis
Reading a server's raw request logs to see exactly which URLs search engine crawlers requested, how often, and what status codes they received. Logs show crawler behaviour that no third-party tool can infer.
See Log File Analysis for Crawl Optimisation: Understanding How Google Sees Your Site
Micro-interaction
A small, single-purpose piece of interface feedback, such as a state change on a button or a confirmation on a saved field. Micro-interactions communicate that a system received an action and what happened as a result.
See Micro-Interactions and User Engagement: The Details That Define Quality
NAP Consistency
Name, Address, Phone number. The consistency of these three pieces of business information across all online directories, citations, and the business website. NAP consistency is a foundational local SEO signal.
See Local SEO for Multi-Location Businesses: Scaling Organic Visibility
Programmatic SEO
The practice of generating large numbers of web pages at scale using templates and structured data, targeting long-tail keyword variations. Effective when each generated page provides genuine value for a specific search query.
See Programmatic SEO: Building Scalable Content That Ranks at Volume
Progressive Disclosure
An interface principle that shows only what is needed for the current step and defers the rest until it is asked for. It reduces the apparent complexity of a system without removing any of its capability.
See Progressive Disclosure: Designing Complex Interfaces That Feel Simple
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A technique used by AI search systems that combines a language model's trained knowledge with real-time retrieval from indexed web content. RAG is why optimising for AI citations requires many of the same signals as traditional SEO.
See Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Marketing: Grounding AI in Real Data
Schema.org
A collaborative vocabulary for structured data markup on web pages, supported by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex. Schema.org markup helps search engines and AI systems understand the content, context, and relationships within a page.
See Entity SEO: Optimising for Knowledge Graphs and Semantic Search
Search Intent
What a person is actually trying to accomplish with a query, as distinct from the words they typed. Intent is usually grouped as informational, navigational, commercial investigation or transactional, and it decides what format of page can rank at all.
Technical SEO
The practice of optimising the technical infrastructure of a website to improve its crawlability, indexability, and performance in search engines. Includes site architecture, page speed, structured data, and Core Web Vitals optimisation.
See The Anatomy of a Technical SEO Audit That Actually Drives Results
Topical Authority
The extent to which a site demonstrates comprehensive coverage of a subject rather than isolated pages about it. It is built through clusters of interlinked pages that answer the full range of questions within a defined territory.
See Topical Authority Through Content Clusters: A Systematic Approach
YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)
A category of web content that could significantly impact a user's health, financial stability, safety, or wellbeing. Google applies heightened E-E-A-T scrutiny to YMYL content, making credibility signals particularly important for sites in these sectors.
See Google's Helpful Content System: What It Measures and How to Recover
Definitions written and reviewed by the Digital Pulse editorial team. Last reviewed 25 August 2026.
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