SEO & GEO Glossary

A function the AI can call via MCP: read (audit, GEO Score, cannibalization...) or action (apply a meta, create a cocoon, place links). Every action is logged and reversible.

Optimizing to appear in the direct answers of engines (featured snippets, voice assistants, AI). Very close to GEO; also called AI SEO or LLMO.

An AI able to chain actions autonomously — analyze, decide, execute — instead of just answering. Via MCP, an agent like Claude becomes an SEO consultant that acts on your site.

AI-generated answers shown by Google directly at the top of the results. They summarize several sources; getting cited requires clear, structured, factual content.

The alternative text describing an image. It serves accessibility and image SEO, and counts toward the GEO Score. Write it descriptively, with the keyword, without stuffing.

The clickable text of a link. To Google, the anchor describes the topic of the destination page: a descriptive anchor (“WordPress SEO plugin”) carries far more meaning than “click here”.

A link from another site to yours. It's a vote of confidence: the more backlinks you get from authoritative, relevant sites, the more your authority grows.

An automated program that explores the web. We distinguish search engine bots (Googlebot), SEO tools (Semrush, Ahrefs) and AI bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot).

When your brand is named in AI answers, with or without a link. Tracking these mentions — and your share of voice — becomes a key AI-visibility KPI.

The navigation line “Home > Blog > Category > Article”. It helps visitors orient themselves and Google understand site structure; it can appear in the SERP.

When two pages on the same site compete for the same keyword: neither ranks well. Resolved by merging, differentiating, redirecting or canonicalizing.

A tag that tells Google the “official” version of content reachable via several URLs, to avoid duplicate content and concentrate SEO value on one address.

Splitting a page into standalone passages so an AI can easily extract the right portion. Clear sections (H2/H3, FAQ) make this chunking — and citation — easier.

Your site being named as a source in an AI answer. It's the ultimate goal of GEO: not just to rank, but to be the source cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini.

The operation that automatically groups content by topic, comparing meaning (embeddings) rather than WordPress categories. It's the basis of a cocoon.

The amount of text an LLM can consider at once (question + documents + answer). The larger it is, the more content — including your pages — the AI can read before answering.

Google's experience-quality metrics: loading speed (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and visual stability (CLS). They are part of the ranking criteria.

A robot's pass through your pages, following links. A page that isn't crawled — an orphan, for instance — cannot be indexed.

The percentage of people who click your result after seeing it. A low CTR despite a good position = title and description to rewrite.

The Schema.org structured-data type for definitions — like this glossary. It helps AI cleanly extract each term and its definition.

An indicative score (0 to 100) estimating a site's overall SEO strength, based mostly on its backlinks. It's not an official Google metric, but a benchmark between sites.

The same content reachable under several URLs or copied elsewhere. Google doesn't “penalize” it but picks one version to index: the canonical lets you designate it.

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust: the credibility signals Google evaluates (named author, sources, dates, reputation). Decisive on sensitive topics.

A numeric “fingerprint” of a text's meaning. By comparing embeddings, the plugin measures how close two pages are and groups them by topic.

A concept, person, place or brand that Google recognizes in its Knowledge Graph. Semantic SEO means connecting your content to the right entities.

The schema type for a frequently-asked-questions section. Question/answer blocks are especially extracted by AI — it's the heaviest GEO Score criterion.

The answer block Google highlights at the top of the results (“position zero”). You earn it with a direct, concise answer to a precise question.

Retraining an AI model on specific data to specialize its behavior. Distinct from RAG, which brings external knowledge without retraining the model.

How recent a piece of content is. A recent or updated article (under 90 days) is valued higher, especially on time-sensitive topics, and counts in the GEO Score.

Optimizing your site to be cited by generative AI (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews), not just to rank on Google. It's SEO extended to the AI era.

The 0-100 score in the Hack The SEO plugin measuring how “citable” content is by AI, across 12 weighted criteria (FAQ, direct answer, figures, sources, structure...).

Google's free tool showing your site's real data: keywords that find you, clicks, impressions and positions. The source of truth for SEO steering.

Google's crawling robot. It discovers and reads your pages by following links to index them. Not to be confused with AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot).

Basing an AI answer on real, verifiable sources rather than memory alone. Being a “groundable” source — clear, structured, sourced — raises your chances of being cited.

When an AI generates false information stated with confidence. Structured, sourced, factual content (a good GEO Score) reduces the risk of the AI getting your topic wrong.

The hierarchy of a page's titles: a single H1 (main title), then H2/H3 to structure. Good structure helps Google and AI understand the content's outline.

The schema type for a step-by-step tutorial, eligible for Google rich results.

A tag telling Google a page's language and region, to serve the right version (FR/EN) to the right user and avoid mixing variants.

Adding a page to Google's database, a prerequisite for appearing in results. A page can be crawled without being indexed.

A protocol that instantly notifies engines (Bing, Yandex) when a page is created or changed, to speed up its consideration.

The moment an AI model generates an answer from what it has learned. It's the “in production” step, as opposed to training.

A link from one page of your site to another. It aids discovery, understanding and authority distribution. All internal links together form the site's linking.

The set of links between a site's pages. Good linking makes a well-linked 200-page site outperform a poorly linked 500-page site.

The format Google recommends for structured data: a discreet script in the page code, without touching the visible content. Hack The SEO generates it automatically.

The term or phrase a user types into Google. The foundation of any SEO strategy: identify those with volume that match your offer.

Google's knowledge base connecting entities (people, brands, places). Being in it strengthens brand authority and understanding of your site.

The steering metrics for SEO: positions, clicks, impressions, CTR, organic traffic and conversions. They measure the real return of SEO work.

Google's tool that measures a page's performance, accessibility and best practices (0-100 score). A good score improves experience and, indirectly, SEO.

An AI model trained on huge text corpora (GPT, Claude, Gemini) able to understand and generate language. It's what powers ChatGPT or Perplexity.

The technical subset of GEO focused on how LLMs retrieve and cite content. Other names for the same field: GEO, AEO, AI SEO.

The extended version of llms.txt, containing the full text of pillar pages to give AI far more material to cite you precisely.

A text file served at the site root that presents your content to AI (pillars, key pages, catalog). Like a robots.txt, but to help LLMs know what to read.

Precise, low-competition queries (e.g. “best French WordPress SEO plugin 2026”): less volume each, but highly qualified and far easier to rank.

The clean markdown version of a page, obtained by adding .md to the URL. Built for AI reading, which understands clean text better than HTML.

An open standard (created by Anthropic, adopted by OpenAI) that connects an AI agent — like Claude — to external tools and data. It's the “USB-C port of AI”: at Hack The SEO, it lets you pilot your SEO in natural language.

The component that exposes “abilities” (functions) to the AI agent. The Hack The SEO plugin is an MCP server: Claude connects to it (host + client) to read your data and act on your site.

The short text under the title in Google results. It doesn't directly affect ranking but strongly affects click-through rate. Ideal length: 120-160 characters.

An AI able to handle several content types (text, image, audio, video). Hence the importance of descriptive ALT tags and well-described media to be understood.

The branch of AI that analyzes the meaning of text. Google and the plugin use it to understand topics and entities, beyond exact keywords.

A link attribute asking engines not to pass authority (“link juice”) through that link. Often used for sponsored or unverified links.

A directive asking Google not to index a page. Useful for pages with no SEO value (legal notices, cart, internal search results).

The tags (og:title, og:image...) that control a page's preview when shared on social networks (title, description, image).

A page with no inbound internal link. Google struggles to discover it and it gets little authority. Target: at least 2-3 inbound links per page.

How fast a page displays. A fast site improves user experience and ranking (see Core Web Vitals). A light plugin like Hack The SEO doesn't affect it.

Google's historic principle: each link passes on part of its authority. Internal linking redistributes this “juice” toward your strategic pages.

The central page of a cocoon, on the main topic. One per cocoon; satellite articles point to it to concentrate topical authority.

A page's rank in the results for a query. The first page (top 10) captures the vast majority of clicks; moving from page 2 to page 1 changes everything.

The instruction given to an AI. “Prompt engineering” is the art of phrasing it to get the best answer. With MCP, your prompts directly drive SEO actions on your site.

What a user types into a search engine. A single page can rank for hundreds of different queries around one topic.

The technique that lets an AI fetch external documents — including your pages — before answering, instead of relying on memory alone. It's what makes your content citable in real time, the heart of GEO.

A permanent 301 redirect sends an old URL to a new one and transfers SEO value. Use it whenever you delete or move a page, to avoid 404s.

Google results enhanced with visual elements (stars, expandable FAQ, image, price), earned through structured data. They increase click-through rate.

The file that tells robots which parts of the site they may crawl. Handle with care: never block the whole site with Disallow: /.

The standard vocabulary of structured data, understood by Google, Bing and AI. It describes a page's content type (Article, Product, FAQ, Event...).

What the user really wants behind a query: to inform, compare, buy or navigate. Aligning content with intent is often more decisive than the exact keyword.

A set of pages on the same theme, linked together around a pillar. It proves deep expertise to Google and AI, which lifts topical authority.

A search that compares meaning (via embeddings and vectors) rather than exact words. It's how AI and Google match a query to relevant content, even without the same keyword.

Search Engine Optimization: the set of techniques to improve a site's visibility in the unpaid results of search engines.

The full analysis of a site to detect what holds back its ranking: missing tags, technical errors, weak content, linking. At Hack The SEO, the audit doesn't just flag — it fixes.

Search Engine Results Page: an engine's results page. It mixes organic links, ads, rich results and, increasingly, AI Overviews.

The former name of Google's generative search experience, now rolled out as AI Overviews. Optimizing for one means optimizing for the other.

The share of AI answers on your topic where your brand is cited, compared to competitors. An indicator of dominance on generative engines.

The readable part of a URL after the domain (e.g. /wordpress-seo-plugin/). A short, descriptive slug containing the keyword helps ranking and understanding.

A schema type that identifies the passages of a page readable aloud by voice assistants.

Information added to a page's code (JSON-LD format) so Google and AI understand its content and show rich results. See Schema.org.

The clickable SEO title shown in Google results, distinct from the H1 title visible on the page. Ideally 50-60 characters with the main keyword.

The basic unit an LLM processes (a word or word fragment). Models have a token limit per exchange (the context window) and often bill per token.

A site's “topical legitimacy” on a given subject, in the eyes of Google and AI. Built by covering a theme in depth (a cocoon) rather than at the surface.

The plan of topics to cover around a theme to build topical authority. Each entry = a future article. It's the starting point of a semantic cocoon.

The identity a visitor or robot declares to the server. The plugin uses it to recognize AI bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot...) that crawl your site.

The numeric representation of a text (see Embedding), stored in a vector database to find the content closest to a query. The basis of semantic search and RAG.

A file listing all a site's pages to help Google discover and index them. Generated and submitted automatically by Hack The SEO.

Topics touching health, money or safety. Google applies stricter E-E-A-T requirements there: credible author, reliable sources, up-to-date content.

A search whose answer shows directly in the SERP (featured snippet, AI Overview), without the user clicking. Hence the importance of GEO: being the cited source.