GLOSSARY

SEO and AI search terms, in plain English.

Reference definitions for the terms we use across our services and blog. No jargon left unexplained.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): Optimizing content so it can be directly cited or quoted by AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, rather than just ranked in a list of links.
Backlink: A link from another website pointing to yours. Search engines treat backlinks from credible sites as a signal of trust and authority.
Canonical URL: The version of a page's URL that a site owner wants search engines to treat as the primary one, used to avoid duplicate-content confusion when several URLs show similar content.
Core Web Vitals: Google's set of metrics for measuring a page's loading speed, interactivity and visual stability, used as one input into search ranking.
Crawlability: How easily search engine and AI bots can discover, access and read the content on a site. Poor crawlability means content can exist but never get indexed.
Featured Snippet: A highlighted answer box shown at the top of some Google search results, pulled directly from the content of a ranking page.
Indexation: The process by which a search engine adds a page to its searchable database after crawling it. A page can be crawled but still not indexed.
JSON-LD: A structured data format used to describe page content, such as an Organization, Article or FAQ, in a way machines can parse directly rather than inferring it from prose.
Keyword Difficulty: An estimate of how hard it would be to rank for a given search term, based on the strength of the pages already ranking for it.
llms.txt: An emerging convention, similar in spirit to robots.txt, that gives AI systems a plain-text summary of a website's key pages and purpose.
On-Page SEO: Optimizing individual page elements, such as title tags, headings, content and internal links, to help that specific page rank for relevant searches.
PSG (Productivity Solutions Grant): A Singapore government grant, administered through the Business Grants Portal, that can subsidize part of the cost of eligible pre-approved digital solutions for qualifying local SMEs.
Robots.txt: A file at the root of a website that tells search engine and AI crawlers which parts of the site they're allowed to access.
Structured Data: A standardized format, most commonly schema.org, for labeling page content so search engines and AI systems can understand it precisely instead of reading it as plain text.
Technical SEO: The behind-the-scenes work, such as site speed, crawlability, structured data and indexation, that lets search engines properly access and understand a site in the first place.

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