Glossary: Web, Performance & Search Terms

A

AI Overviews: SEOAI-written summaries that Google shows above the regular results for some searches, answering the question directly and linking to the web pages they draw on.
Astro: Web DevelopmentAn open-source web framework that builds pages as ready-to-serve HTML and sends JavaScript to the browser only for the parts of a page that need it.

Canonical URL: SEOThe address search engines should treat as the main version of a page that can be reached at several URLs, so its ranking signals gather in one place.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): StrategyIncreasing the share of visitors who take a step that matters to the business, such as buying or sending an inquiry, by finding and fixing what stops them.
Core Web Vitals: PerformanceGoogle's three measures of real-user experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (stability).
Crawl Budget: SEOHow many pages a search engine can and wants to fetch from your site in a given period; it matters mainly for very large sites or sites that change daily.
Critical CSS: PerformanceThe few styles a page needs to show its first screen, placed directly in the HTML so content appears without waiting for a separate stylesheet to download.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): PerformanceA Core Web Vital measuring how much visible content moves unexpectedly while someone uses a page, such as text jumping when an image loads above it.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): SEOMaking a business's website easy for AI assistants and AI search features, such as ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews, to find, understand and cite accurately.
Google Core Update: SEOA broad change to Google's main ranking systems, made several times a year, that can move many sites up or down without targeting any particular site.

Headless CMS: Web DevelopmentA content management system that stores and organizes content and delivers it through an API to a separate front end, instead of generating the website's pages itself.
Headless Commerce: Web DevelopmentAn ecommerce setup where a custom storefront handles what shoppers see, while a platform such as Shopify runs products, checkout and payments behind it through APIs.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP): PerformanceA Core Web Vital measuring how quickly a page visibly responds to clicks, taps and key presses across a visit; it replaced First Input Delay in March 2024.
Internal Linking: SEOThe links between pages on your own website, which help visitors find related information and help search engines discover pages and judge which ones matter most.

Jamstack: Web DevelopmentAn approach where pages are generated ahead of time and served from a CDN, with dynamic features such as forms, search and payments added through APIs.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): PerformanceA Core Web Vital measuring how long the largest image or text block in the first screen takes to appear: the closest single measure of when a page feels loaded.
Lazy Loading: PerformanceDelaying the download of images, embedded videos and other content further down a page until the visitor scrolls near them, so the first screen loads sooner.
Local SEO: SEOThe work of making a business appear in Google Maps and in the local results Google shows when someone searches for a product or service in a particular area.

Plugin Bloat: WordPressThe slowdown, security risk and upkeep that build up when a WordPress site runs more plugins than it needs, especially overlapping or poorly maintained ones.
Progressive Web App (PWA): Web DevelopmentA website that can be installed on a phone or computer and used like an app, with its own icon and window, offline support and, where supported, push notifications.

Render-Blocking Resources: PerformanceStylesheets and scripts that the browser must download and process before it can display a page, so the visitor sees a blank screen while they load.

Static Site Generation (SSG): Web DevelopmentBuilding every page of a website into ready-made HTML before anyone visits, so pages are delivered quickly from a CDN instead of assembled on each request.
Structured Data (Schema Markup): SEOCode added to a page, usually JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary, that tells search engines exactly what the page describes, such as a business or an article.

Technical Debt: StrategyThe future cost of shortcuts taken when building or maintaining software, paid in slower changes, more bugs and higher risk until the shortcuts are fixed.
Technical SEO: SEOWork on a site's structure and code that lets search engines crawl, index, understand and display its pages: speed, URLs, redirects, sitemaps and structured data.
Time to First Byte (TTFB): PerformanceThe time from a visitor starting to load a page until the first byte of the server's response arrives, reflecting the connection, any redirects and server speed.
Topical Authority: StrategyAn SEO term for how thoroughly a site covers a subject, based on the observation that sites covering a topic in depth tend to rank more easily for it.

Website Migration: Web DevelopmentMoving a website to a new platform, domain, URL structure or hosting setup while preserving its content, its links and the search visibility it has earned.
WordPress Page Builder: WordPressA WordPress plugin or theme tool, such as Elementor, Divi or WPBakery, that lets people design pages by dragging and dropping elements instead of writing code.
WordPress-to-Astro Migration: WordPressRebuilding a WordPress site on the Astro framework so pages are served as prebuilt HTML, while carrying over its content, URLs and earned search visibility.

YOUR NEXT CHAPTER

A few lines about the idea, the business and what is getting in the way.

Good work starts with a conversation.No brief needed. A few lines are enough.