Every technical word I use on this site, in plain English, so you can check what you are actually buying.
Every industry hides behind its words, and mine is worse than most. This page is the plain English version of everything I say on this website, so you can check what I am actually selling you.
If a term I use is missing from here, tell me and I will add it. That is a fair thing to ask for and it takes me two minutes.
Google storing a copy of your page so it can be shown in results. A page that is not indexed cannot appear for any search, no matter how good it is. This is the single most common thing wrong with a small business website.
Google visiting your pages to read them. Crawling comes first, indexing comes after. A page can be crawled and still not indexed, which is Google deciding it is not worth storing.
Type site:yourdomain.com into Google and it shows roughly what it has indexed from your site. If the number is smaller than the number of pages you built, the missing ones are invisible. Google labels the count “about” for a reason, so treat it as a signal rather than an exact figure.
Search engine results page. The page of results you get after searching. Everyone in this industry says SERP, which is why it is here.
The words somebody types into Google. Worth thinking about as a question rather than a phrase, because that is closer to how people actually search now.
From Search Console. An impression means your page was shown, a click means somebody chose it, and CTR is clicks divided by impressions. High impressions with a low CTR usually means your title and description are not giving anybody a reason to pick you.
A Search Console figure averaged across every search where you appeared. It is not your rank. Google says so in their own documentation, because results vary by who is searching and where they are standing.
A line in your page that tells Google which address is the real one when several show the same content. This is the fix for a site that answers at four different addresses, and the single most common thing missing on the sites I audit.
A server configuration file that controls redirects and rules for your website. Every website folder needs its own. An add on domain inherits nothing usable from the main one, which is how four client sites of mine ended up with none at all.
A permanent forward from one address to another. Used when a page moves, so the people and the search ranking both follow it rather than hitting a dead end.
The padlock in the address bar. SSL is the certificate, HTTPS is the secure address it enables. Browsers now warn visitors away from sites without it, so it is not optional.
example.com and www.example.com look identical to you and are two different addresses to Google. If both load and neither redirects, Google has to guess which is real, and it often guesses wrong.
A file, usually sitemap.xml, listing every page you want found. It does not force Google to index anything. It tells Google what exists so it does not have to discover pages by luck.
A file at the root of your site telling automated visitors what they may read. This is where AI crawlers get blocked, usually by accident, by a hosting default nobody looked at.
The same content reachable at more than one address. Usually not sabotage, usually old backup files a previous developer left behind that your server is happily serving as real pages.
Google’s measurements of how fast a page loads and how stable it is while loading. They matter most on phones on ordinary connections, which is where your customers actually are.
The clickable blue line in search results. Different from the heading on your page, and it is what a person reads first when deciding whether to click.
The grey summary under the title in search results. Google may rewrite it, but writing a good one is still worth it. Most small business sites either leave the builder default or reuse the same one on every page.
A dead tag. Google has publicly ignored it since 2009. It is not the same thing as a meta description, and anybody selling you meta keyword optimization in 2026 is selling you nothing.
A written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers and used by Google to understand the picture. Accessibility first, search benefit second.
A search listing with extra detail attached, like star ratings, prices or FAQ dropdowns. Earned through structured data, never guaranteed.
Three words for roughly the same thing. Code in your page that states plainly, in a format built for machines, what your business is, where it is, what it charges and what its hours are. JSON-LD is the format Google prefers. It must describe what a visitor can actually see on the page.
A plain text file describing your business for AI assistants. Worth being blunt: Google does not use it. Google has published that no special file is needed for AI Overviews. It is there for the assistants that are not Google.
GPTBot for ChatGPT, ClaudeBot for Claude, PerplexityBot for Perplexity, CCBot for Common Crawl. If your robots.txt blocks one, that assistant cannot read your site at all and cannot recommend you even when you are the right answer.
Google’s separate crawler control for AI training. Not the same as blocking Googlebot, and not the same as GPTBot. Different companies, separate rules.
Google’s AI generated answers above the normal results. Google states there are no special requirements to appear in them beyond ordinary good indexing, which means anybody selling a dedicated AI ranking package is selling you a story.
A free tool showing which of your pages Google has indexed, what people searched before landing on you, and what it could not read. Most owners either do not know it exists or set it up once and never opened it again.
The right kind of Search Console setup, covering every version of your address at once. A URL prefix property covers only one, which splits www from non-www and makes years of data harder to read.
Your listing on Google Maps and in local results. Free, owned by Google rather than by you, and for a local business it is often working harder than the website.
The three business listings Google shows on a map above the normal results. Which three you see changes depending on where you are standing, so nobody can promise you a fixed spot in it.
The highest leverage field on a Business Profile. It decides which searches you are considered for at all. A detail shop filed under car wash is not ranking badly, it is competing for the wrong thing.
Your address on the internet. You rent it yearly from a registrar. Every Fouro client’s domain is registered in their own name and transfers to them whenever they ask.
The company you buy a domain from, such as GoDaddy. Different from your host, though they are often the same company, which is where a lot of confusion comes from.
The system that points your domain at the machine holding your website and the one holding your email. Changing hosts means changing DNS, and it is the step where sites go dark if somebody is careless.
The machine your website actually lives on. Renting a domain and renting hosting are two separate bills, which is why cancelling one does not cancel the other.
Gmail on your own domain, so you are you@yourbusiness.com rather than a Gmail address. Runs on my account for Fouro clients, which is why cancelling means moving your mail before you lose it.
The chip in a Fouro Tap. Hold a phone near it and a link opens. No app, no QR code, and it is the same technology as tap to pay.
Paying for links to your site. Google’s guidelines treat bought links as manipulation and the penalties land on you rather than on whoever sold them. I do not do it at any price.
Nobody can guarantee a ranking position, because nobody except Google decides them. The usual trick is guaranteeing page one for a phrase nobody searches for, which is technically true and worth nothing.
Paying for reviews, or only asking happy customers, violates Google’s policies and risks a suspension on the listing your phone depends on. Not worth it at any volume.
If a term here explained something you did not know was broken on your own site, the Search Visibility Setup page has a free ten minute check you can run yourself before you spend anything. If you want the whole thing built properly from the start, that is a website build.
Questions about any of this? Email hello@fourodigital.com. You get me, not a support queue. Hablamos español.