Glossary
This digital marketing glossary explains 60 terms in plain English, from SEO and GEO to ROAS, consent mode and query fan-out. Each one has its real name, one plain line on what it means, and what to do about it. Platform terms link to the official source, like Google's guide to its AI features, so you can check the detail yourself.
Written by Dan Picken, founder. Last checked 6 November 2026.Mixed up most often
Most jargon is harmless. These pairs aren't. Mixing them up is how a report says an account is winning while the bank balance says otherwise.
ROAS versus Break-even ROAS
ROAS is revenue over ad cost. Break-even ROAS is the line it has to clear before you make a cent. A ROAS of 3 sounds good and loses money on a 25% margin.
Attribution versus Incrementality
Attribution shares out credit for sales that happened. Incrementality asks which sales the ads caused. A platform can be credited with a sale it didn't cause.
Quality Score versus Ad Rank
Quality Score is a report card for each keyword. Ad Rank is what decides the auction, each time someone searches. Fix what the report card points to, and Ad Rank tends to follow.
AI Overviews versus AI Mode
AI Overviews is the summary on top of normal results. AI Mode is a separate, chat-style search for longer questions. Same basics get you into both.
Key event versus Offline conversions
A key event happens on your site, like a form sent. An offline conversion is what happened next, like the job won. Bidding on the first finds people who enquire. Bidding on the second finds people who pay.
Google Tag Manager versus Google tag
Tag Manager is the box tags live in. The Google tag is one of the tags. Installing the Google tag both in the code and through Tag Manager is a classic double count.
A to Z
Showing all 60 terms.
A permanent forward from an old page address to a new one. Google's site move guide uses them to carry an old page's standing to the new one.
What to do: Before any new website or URL change, map every old address to its closest new one.
SearchSite migrations
The score that decides whether your Google ad shows and where. Google says Ad Rank looks at your bid, ad quality and the landing page, among other things.
What to do: Better ads and pages can win positions a bigger bid would otherwise have to buy.
AdsGoogle Ads
AI agents that research and buy for someone. Google's checkout in AI Mode and Gemini is open to selected merchants in the US, Canada and Australia. OpenAI shelved its Instant Checkout in March 2026.
What to do: Get product facts, prices and stock right in your feed and on the page. An agent can only buy what it can read.
AI searchAI search for online stores
Google's chat-style search for longer questions and comparisons. Google launched it in Australia on 8 October 2025.
What to do: Expect longer, more specific questions. Pages that answer one situation clearly do better than pages that cover everything a little.
AI searchThe search before the search
The AI-written summary Google shows above some results. Google says there are no extra requirements or special optimisation to appear: the page must be indexed and able to show a snippet.
What to do: Do the SEO basics well, and answer the question plainly near the top of the page.
AI searchAI SEO
Work to get a business named and cited when people ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI. Google says its AI features don't need special files or AI-specific formatting.
What to do: Same facts everywhere, reviews in more than one place, and pages that answer the questions before the sale.
AI searchAI SEO
The first number people see shapes how they judge the numbers after it.
What to do: Show the price in context, like the cost of the problem. Never invent a 'was' price.
CRO and psychologyAnchoring
The rules for giving a sale's credit to the ads and visits before it. Google Ads uses data-driven attribution by default for most conversion actions.
What to do: Remember every platform uses its own rules and credits itself. Added together, they often claim more sales than you made.
The ROAS where ads just pay for themselves: 1 divided by your margin after costs. A 40% margin means a break-even ROAS of 2.5.
What to do: Work it out per product range. Anything below it loses money, even if the dashboard looks green.
A keyword setting that lets Google show your ad on searches related to your keyword, including ones that don't contain its words. Google says pairing it with Smart Bidding is critical.
What to do: If you use it, read the search terms report every week and add negative keywords for the misses.
A line of code telling Google which address is the main version when several addresses show the same page. Google explains it under consolidating duplicate URLs.
What to do: Each page should point to itself. Filter, sort and tracking versions should point to the clean address.
SearchSEO for online stores
The linked source shown with an AI answer. ChatGPT search shows links to the sources it used.
What to do: Be the clearest source on the questions your buyers ask. Being cited can matter more than ranking tenth.
AI searchHow ChatGPT decides who to recommend
Google's way for tags to adjust what they do based on a visitor's consent choices. Google requires consent signals for ads to users in the European Economic Area.
What to do: Not a Google requirement for Australian traffic, but the OAIC's tracking pixel guidance still applies here.
MeasurementTracking tag checker
Meta's way to send results from your server or CRM instead of the browser, so fewer are lost to ad blockers and browser limits.
What to do: Add it once the pixel is right, and make sure the same result sent both ways is counted once.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
Google's three measures of how a page feels to use: loading, responding to taps and staying still. Good means LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less, and CLS of 0.1 or less.
What to do: Test your main pages in PageSpeed Insights on mobile, and fix the slowest first.
SearchWeb design
Ad spend divided by the results it brought in. Google's Target CPA bidding tries to get results at the cost you set.
What to do: Work out the most you can pay per lead from your margin and close rate before you set a target.
What you pay when someone clicks your ad. In Google Ads you usually pay just enough to beat the ad ranked below yours, not your full bid.
What to do: Judge clicks by what they lead to. A $9 click that books a job beats a $2 click that bounces.
Improving the share of visitors who take the next step, by removing doubt and effort rather than adding pressure.
What to do: Find the step where most people drop out, and fix that before buying more traffic.
CRO and psychologyLanding pages and CRO
Lots of near-identical pages made to rank for slightly different searches, like one per suburb with only the name swapped. Google's spam policies list them.
What to do: Build fewer pages that are genuinely different, with real local detail on each.
SearchCentral Coast SEO
The qualities Google says its systems look for in content. Google says E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor, but a mix of signals that point to it is.
What to do: Show who wrote the page, what real experience they have, and where each fact comes from.
SearchAbout Dan
A Google Ads feature that sends hashed customer details with a conversion, like an email address, so more results can be matched to ads.
What to do: Turn it on, and say in your privacy policy that you use it.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
Google's current analytics tool. It records visits and actions as events, and you mark the ones that matter as key events.
What to do: Mark only real outcomes as key events: an enquiry, a booking, a sale. Not scrolls or page views.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
The code auto-tagging adds to the address when someone clicks a Google ad. Google says auto-tagging is needed to track offline conversions.
What to do: Keep auto-tagging on, and save the GCLID with every lead in your form or CRM.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
Another name for AI SEO. The term comes from a 2023 research paper whose authors reported that methods like adding sources and statistics could lift visibility in AI answers by up to 40% in their tests.
What to do: Treat it as SEO plus being worth quoting. Be wary of anyone selling GEO as something separate from good pages.
AI searchAI SEO
Free Google Search ads for eligible charities, up to US$10,000 a month, with rules to keep the grant switched on.
What to do: Track real outcomes (donations, sign-ups, enquiries), not just visits, so the grant gets used well.
Your free listing on Google Search and Maps, with hours, reviews, photos and a call button. Businesses that meet customers in person are eligible.
What to do: Verify it, fill in every field, and compare it with the businesses that show above you.
Google's tag for Analytics and Ads. Tag IDs start with G- for Analytics and AW- for Google Ads.
What to do: Install it one way only: in the code or through Tag Manager. Both at once usually counts everything twice.
MeasurementTracking tag checker
A free tool for adding and managing tracking tags without editing your site's code each time. You install one container snippet, then add tags inside it.
What to do: Keep one container per site, in your own account, and note what each tag does.
MeasurementTracking tag checker
Keeping a group of people or regions away from your ads, then comparing their sales with everyone else's. Google researchers described the geo experiment version in 2011.
What to do: Use similar regions, run long enough to cover a normal buying cycle, and decide what counts as a win before you start.
MeasurementCause testing
The share of the times your ad could have shown that it did show. Lost share is split into lost to budget and lost to rank.
What to do: Lost to budget and profitable? There's room to spend. Lost to rank? Fix the ads and pages before raising bids.
AdsSpend Curve
The sales that would not have happened without the ads. Tools like Google's Conversion Lift measure it by comparing people who saw ads with people who didn't.
What to do: Ask it of your biggest spend first: 'if we switched this off, what would we lose?'
MeasurementCause Testing
What a page adds that the other pages on the same topic don't: a worked example, a tool, real data, a view based on experience.
What to do: Before writing, read the top results and list what they all say. Then add what none of them do.
SearchInformation Gain Scoring
GA4's name for an action that matters to your business. Google renamed GA4 conversions to key events, and they become conversions when you use them in Google Ads.
What to do: Check the Google Ads conversion list matches what you actually want more of.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
The page an ad sends people to. Google rates landing page experience as part of Quality Score.
What to do: Repeat the ad's promise in the first screen, and give one clear next step.
CRO and psychologyLanding page worked example
The settling-in period after you launch or change a Meta ad set. Meta says it usually needs about 50 results in a week to finish.
What to do: Avoid editing every few days, and pick a result common enough to reach that number.
A proposed file meant to guide AI tools around a site. Google says its AI features don't need special files.
What to do: Low priority. Readable pages, accurate facts and an open robots.txt matter more.
AI searchAI agent readiness check
People tend to weigh a possible loss more heavily than a gain of the same size.
What to do: Show what waiting costs, honestly, and take the risk off the buyer where you can.
CRO and psychologyLoss aversion
When the page says the same thing the ad, email or search promised, so the visitor knows they are in the right place.
What to do: Use the ad's headline words in the page headline.
CRO and psychologyMessage match
Code on your site that reports visits and actions back to Meta. Meta says to put its base code in the head of every page.
What to do: Check it fires once per page, and that the purchase or lead event fires only on a real result.
MeasurementTracking tag checker
A word or phrase that stops your ad showing for searches containing it, like 'jobs', 'free' or 'DIY' for a tradie.
What to do: Build a starter list before launch, then add to it from real search terms.
AdsGoogle Ads
OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT search. OpenAI says blocking it keeps a site's pages out of ChatGPT search answers.
What to do: Check your robots.txt. Blocking GPTBot (training) is a separate choice from blocking OAI-SearchBot (search).
AI searchAI agent readiness check
Results that happen away from your website, like a phone sale or a signed quote, sent back to Google Ads so it learns which clicks paid.
What to do: Start with one: jobs won or sales closed, uploaded weekly with the click ID.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
A Google Ads campaign type that runs across YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps from a single campaign, steered by your conversion goals.
What to do: Give it real sales values, add brand exclusions if you don't want it claiming people already searching your name, and check where it spends.
AdsGoogle Ads
The one category on your Business Profile that says what the business is. Google says the categories you pick affect your local ranking.
What to do: Pick the most specific one that describes the whole business: 'Electrician', not 'Contractor'.
A 1 to 10 rating for each Google Ads keyword, built from expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. It's a diagnostic, not the auction itself.
What to do: Look at which of the three parts says 'below average', and fix that one.
When Google's AI features run multiple related searches across subtopics behind one question, then pull the answers together.
What to do: List the follow-up questions behind your main search (price, timing, who it suits) and answer each one.
AI searchFan-out Mapping
The three things Google says decide local results: how well a profile matches the search, how far the business is from the searcher, and how well-known it is.
What to do: You can't move closer. Work on relevance (categories, services) and prominence (reviews, mentions, links).
SearchLocal SEO
Taking the risk of a bad decision off the buyer, with a guarantee, trial or easy way out.
What to do: Guarantee only what you control, and make it add to the consumer guarantees buyers already have.
CRO and psychologyRisk reversal
Revenue from ads divided by what the ads cost. $4,000 in sales from $1,000 of ads is a ROAS of 4. Google's Target ROAS bidding aims at the return you set.
What to do: Compare it to your break-even ROAS, not a round number. ROAS counts revenue, not profit.
A small file at yoursite.com.au/robots.txt that tells crawlers like Googlebot which parts of a site not to crawl.
What to do: Check it doesn't block Googlebot or the AI search crawlers by accident. Old staging rules are a common cause.
SearchAI agent readiness check
Things seem more valuable when they look limited.
What to do: Only when true. A countdown that resets can mislead under the Australian Consumer Law.
CRO and psychologyScarcity
Google's free tool that shows which searches your site appeared for, how often people clicked, and any problems Google found. The Performance report is the part most people need.
What to do: Set it up for your domain if you haven't, and look at the Performance report once a month.
SearchSEO
What the person is trying to do with a search: learn something, compare options, buy, or find a place nearby.
What to do: Match the page to the intent. 'Hot water system cost' wants a price range, not a sales pitch.
SearchBuyer State Mapping
The list of actual searches that triggered your ads, as opposed to the keywords you chose.
What to do: Read it monthly at least. It shows where money leaks, and your customers' exact words for your ads.
Making pages that Google can find, understand and choose to show for the searches your buyers make. Google's own SEO starter guide is a good plain-English start.
What to do: Start from the searches people make, not the words you like. One page per job a buyer is trying to get done.
SearchSEO
Tracking that is processed on a server you control, rather than in the visitor's browser. You decide what data goes to each platform.
What to do: Worth it once the basics are right and the volume justifies it. It needs hosting, which costs money.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
People look at what others like them have done when they're unsure.
What to do: Put real reviews from similar customers next to the decision, not on a separate page.
CRO and psychologySocial proof
Code that labels facts on a page, like your business name, address, hours or a product's price, so machines read them without guessing. Google documents types such as LocalBusiness.
What to do: Add the type that fits, and make sure it matches what people can see on the page.
SearchAI agent readiness check
Tags added to a link, like ?utm_source=newsletter, that tell analytics where a visit came from. OpenAI says ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to links, but since October 2026 many ChatGPT clicks have been reported arriving with no tag or referrer, so they show as Direct.
What to do: Tag every link you control (emails, social posts, QR codes) the same way each time.
MeasurementTracking and analytics
A search that ends without a click to any website, because the answer was on the results page. In SparkToro's 2024 study of US data, 58.5% of Google searches ended with no click.
What to do: Make sure what Google shows names you: a complete profile, reviews, and pages that get quoted.
SearchAI SEO
No term matches that. Try fewer letters, or ask me and I'll add it.
What I see most often
Page views, button clicks or a visit to a thank-you page counted as conversions. The bidding then learns to find more of the wrong thing.
A ROAS target picked because it sounds healthy, with nobody checking it against the margin.
The Google tag or Meta Pixel installed twice, often once in the site and once through Tag Manager or a plugin, so every result counts double.
AI search sold as a separate product with its own retainer, when most of the work is the same work good SEO already does.
The honest bit. Knowing the words won't fix an account on its own. It does let you ask the question that matters in any report: is this number money in the bank, or a platform's estimate?
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: work to get your business named and cited in AI answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI features. The name comes from a 2023 research paper. In practice it's mostly good SEO plus being worth quoting.
SEO aims to rank pages in search results. GEO aims to be named or cited inside an AI answer. They overlap heavily: Google says its AI features need no special optimisation beyond normal SEO.
AI Overviews is a summary shown above some normal Google results. AI Mode is a separate chat-style search for longer questions, launched in Australia on 8 October 2025.
Return on ad spend: revenue from ads divided by what the ads cost. $4,000 of sales from $1,000 of ads is a ROAS of 4. It counts revenue, not profit, so compare it with your break-even ROAS.
A search that ends without a click to any website, because the answer was on the results page. In SparkToro's 2024 study of US data, 58.5% of Google searches ended that way.
Start with the ones that touch money: ROAS or CPA, conversion (key event), attribution and search terms. They decide whether your reports tell the truth. Then the ones that decide whether you're found: Google Business Profile, AI Overviews and query fan-out.
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