SEO & Google Search Console glossary

Every term used in the Learn section, defined in one sentence and linked to a deeper guide. Bookmark this page.

Average position: The impressions-weighted average rank your site holds for a query or page in Google results. Learn more.
Cannibalization: When two or more of your own URLs compete for the same query, causing Google to rotate between them and rank neither well. Fix cannibalization playbook.
Canonical URL: The URL you've nominated as the authoritative version of a page when multiple URLs show substantially similar content. Learn more.
Clicks: The number of times a searcher clicked one of your results and landed on your site. Clicks vs. impressions.
Content decay: The slow loss of clicks on a page that used to perform, usually caused by newer competitors or stale content. Fix content decay playbook.
Core Web Vitals: Google's set of real-user performance metrics (LCP, INP, CLS) used as a ranking factor. Learn more.
Crawled - currently not indexed: GSC status meaning Googlebot downloaded the page but Google chose not to add it to the index. Learn more.
CTR (click-through rate): Clicks divided by impressions, expressed as a percentage. CTR and position.
Discovered - currently not indexed: GSC status meaning Google knows the URL exists but hasn't crawled it yet. Learn more.
Domain property vs. URL-prefix property: The two ways to add a site to GSC. Domain covers all subdomains and protocols; URL-prefix is scoped to one exact prefix. Learn more.
H1: The primary heading on a page, used as a strong on-page relevance signal. Title & H1 rewrites playbook.
Impression: One instance of your page appearing in Google's search results, whether or not the user scrolled to it. Learn more.
Indexing: Google keeping your page in its searchable database. Only indexed pages can rank. Indexing explained.
Meta description: The snippet HTML tag Google often uses under the title in search results. Strongly influences CTR. CTR recovery playbook.
noindex: A meta tag or header that tells Google not to include a page in its index. Learn more.
Performance report: The GSC report containing clicks, impressions, CTR, and position broken down by query, page, country, and device. Learn more.
Query: The search term a user typed into Google that triggered one of your results to appear. Learn more.
Robots.txt: A root-level file that tells search engine crawlers which paths they may or may not fetch. Learn more.
Sitemap: An XML file listing the URLs you want search engines to crawl. Submit a sitemap.
Soft 404: A page that returns a 200 OK status but reads as an error page to Google. Learn more.
Striking distance keyword: A query your site ranks for in positions 4-20 - close enough that small on-page tweaks can push it into the top 3. Striking distance playbook.
Title tag: The HTML <title> element. Usually the main clickable text Google shows in the SERP. Title tag rewrites playbook.
URL Inspection tool: The GSC tool that shows indexing status, crawl time, and render details for any URL on your property. Learn more.