Knowledge with substance.
Terms that matter.

.htaccess is a configuration file for Apache web servers that lets you set rules per directory: redirects, access protection, error pages, HTTPS or caching. Changes take effect immediately; a very large number of rules can slow down performance.

Anchor texts (link texts) are the clickable words of a link. They give users and search engines context, improve accessibility and influence SEO: vary them naturally for external links, and link clearly and consistently internally.

AJAX loads content interactively and makes pages faster. For SEO this can be a problem if crawlers only pick up the initial content. Server-side rendering, dedicated URLs for important content and checks in Google Search Console help.

Above the fold is the area of a web page that is visible immediately without scrolling. It should load quickly, be clearly structured and prioritise content over advertising – important for users and for SEO.

An API (application programming interface) provides functions and data so that software can communicate with other systems. Web APIs embed external services such as Google Maps or YouTube. Shopware 6 is built API-first with the Admin, Sync and Store APIs.

Affiliate marketing connects merchants and affiliates: the partner places tracked links or ads and, depending on the model, earns commission for clicks, leads or sales – performance marketing, as with Amazon, for example.

AI SEO is the umbrella term for search engine optimisation in connection with artificial intelligence. It means either optimising for AI search systems such as Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT, or using AI as a tool in SEO work.

AI content SEO describes how AI-generated text is planned, reviewed and revised so that it ranks on Google and works as a source in AI search systems – from Google's evaluation criteria to the workflow for optimising AI text.

Bounce rate in GA4 measures the share of sessions without engagement. High values on important landing pages can point to problems with search intent, content, design, loading time or tracking.

Bad neighbourhood refers to dubious websites (spam, malware, link farms, illegal content). Backlinks from them can harm rankings. Check link sources and remove or disavow harmful links via Google Search Console if necessary.

Backlinks are links from other websites to your domain and an important SEO factor. They consist of a URL and anchor text; good links come about naturally and from relevant topics. Beware of buying links, bad neighbourhoods and incorrect link attributes.

Backlink analysis checks the quality, origin and risks of your links: tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Sistrix show referring domains, anchor texts, deep links and country sources. This helps you spot risks and plan link building in a targeted way.

A CMS (content management system) makes it possible to create and maintain websites without programming skills. Content is managed in the backend, and functions are added via themes and plugins – e.g. WordPress, TYPO3, Drupal or headless CMS such as Storyblok.

Keyword density is the percentage share of a search term in all the words of a text. As a target value, it is outdated: Google doesn't name an optimal value, and too many repetitions count as keyword stuffing. Topic coverage and usefulness are what matter.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the styling language of the web: it controls layout, colours and fonts and separates design from content. This makes code leaner, changes easier and pages faster – important for users and Core Web Vitals.

A crawler (bot/spider) automatically searches the web, follows links and passes pages to the search engine index – e.g. Googlebot. What matters for SEO is that the bot reaches important content; areas can be excluded via robots.txt or noindex.

Cookies are small text files that websites store in the browser – for the shopping cart, login, settings or tracking. There are first-party and third-party cookies. In the EU, only technically necessary cookies are permitted without consent.

The conversion rate indicates what percentage of visitors carry out a desired action, in an online store usually a purchase. It is calculated as conversions divided by visits times 100. It only becomes meaningful together with order value and revenue per visit.

Conversion rate optimisation improves a website or shop when too few conversions are generated despite many visitors. It covers analysis, usability, content, technology, checkout and tests (e.g. A/B tests) to achieve more purchases, leads or sign-ups.

Content covers everything on a website: text, images, audio and video. It is central to SEO and user satisfaction because it answers questions and prompts action. Paid content costs money; user-generated content builds trust but is hard to control.

Content marketing wins and retains target groups with helpful content instead of direct advertising. It uses text, videos, images and more, supports SEO and pursues clear goals such as leads, sales or brand building – planned and measurable via KPIs.

Cloaking shows search engines different content than users in order to manipulate rankings. It is considered black hat SEO, violates Google's guidelines and can lead to ranking losses or de-indexing.

CTR (click-through rate) shows how many clicks an ad or search result receives per impression (e.g. 10 out of 1,000 = 1%). An important KPI for ads, SEO and newsletters – but only really valuable in combination with conversions.

The canonical tag specifies which of several URLs with the same content is the main version. Google consolidates the signals on it and shows only that version in search results. It is a strong hint, not a directive, and indispensable for stores with filters, variants and parameters.

ChatGPT SEO covers all measures that help a store be named, linked or recommended as a product in ChatGPT’s answers. What matters most are the OAI-SearchBot crawler, content that answers questions directly, complete product data and mentions outside your own store.

Duplicate content is identical or almost identical content under several URLs. Google usually doesn’t penalise it, but selects one version and filters out the others. The consequences are still noticeable: the wrong pages rank, signals are spread and crawling is wasted.

The meta description is a short description of a page in the source code, which Google often shows as the text below the title in search results. It isn’t a ranking factor, but it helps decide whether people click. 120 to 155 characters is a good guideline.

Doorway pages are bridge pages created only for search engines – such as dozens of almost identical pages with a changing search term, or pages with redirects. Google considers them spam: they risk ranking losses or de-indexing.

A domain is the easy-to-remember name of a website (e.g. example.com) instead of the IP address. It consists of a top-level domain (.de, .com), a second-level domain (the name) and optionally a subdomain (www). The extension signals the target market to Google.

Normal (dofollow) links pass on link equity; nofollow links shouldn't – since 2019 Google has treated this as a hint. There are also ugc for user content and sponsored for paid links. A natural link profile contains a mix of all of them.

A data centre bundles servers and IT resources for the secure processing of large volumes of data. Redundancy, cooling, power supply and security are central, and energy demand is high. Alternatives are the cloud, colocation or hybrid solutions.

Entity SEO aligns search engine optimisation with entities – clearly identifiable things such as brands, people, products or places – rather than individual keywords. This helps Google and AI systems understand who you are and what you stand for.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a protocol for uploading and downloading files over TCP/IP, dating back to 1971. Because it transmits data and passwords unencrypted, SFTP or FTPS should be used today.

Google SEO refers to search engine optimisation according to Google’s rules and ranking systems. Because Google handles around 90% of all searches in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Google SEO is almost synonymous with SEO in everyday use. Google discloses what it pays attention to, but not how heavily it weights the individual factors.

Google Sandbox refers to the suspected effect that new websites don't rank for competitive terms for months despite optimisation. Google denies such a filter; new websites first have to build trust – with good content, natural links and patience.

The Google ranking is the order of the search results. It is based on many, partly secret factors such as relevance, content quality, links and technology, and changes with updates. SEO aims for better positions for the search terms that matter to the business.

A Google penalty is a devaluation by algorithm or manual action. It can affect search terms, URLs, directories or the whole domain – up to de-indexing. Common causes: spam, unnatural links, black hat SEO, thin content.

Google PageSpeed Insights measures a page’s loading time and usability. It combines field data from real visitors with the Core Web Vitals and a simulated lab measurement with a score. Google’s assessment uses the field data; the score helps with troubleshooting.

PageRank is a link evaluation principle developed by Larry Page: links pass on authority, and quality counts more than quantity. Google has not displayed the public PageRank value since 2016; internally, the concept continues to feed into rankings.

Google optimisation covers all measures that make a business visible across Google’s different surfaces: organic search, Shopping, image search and Google Lens, Maps, YouTube and AI Overviews. For online stores, it is broader than classic search engine optimisation, because many customers see a product on Google before they even open a website.

The Google guidelines – now Google Search Essentials – consist of technical requirements, spam policies and best practices. Violations, such as cloaking or buying links, risk devaluation up to removal from the index.

Google Dance described strong ranking fluctuations in the early 2000s, when Google updated its index monthly across many data centres. Today, updates are continuous; fluctuations mainly result from tests and core updates.

Googlebot is Google’s web crawler. It automatically fetches pages, reads and renders them and passes them on for inclusion in the Google index. Whatever Googlebot cannot find, is not allowed to fetch or does not understand cannot appear in Google Search, no matter how good it is.

Google Images shows pictures that match a search query; Google Lens works the other way round: a photo turns into information, similar images and matching products with prices. For online stores, both are a separate route to the customer, and the stores that get found are those whose images are clearly understandable to Google, fast and linked to clean product data.

Google Analytics 4 uses a tracking code to measure where visitors come from, how they behave and what they buy. Particularly important for shops: e-commerce tracking, linking with Google Ads and privacy-compliant integration with consent.

An algorithm controls processes in programs and, at Google for example, determines which pages appear at the top of the search results. Because some ranking factors are secret and updates change the criteria, SEOs have to keep optimising content, technology and links.

Google Ads (formerly AdWords) brings paid traffic via ads in Google Search, Shopping, YouTube and the Display Network. An auction based on bid and ad quality determines the position. Key campaign types: Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Display, Video, Demand Gen.

Google AdSense is Google’s advertising programme for website owners. They provide space on their pages, Google fills it with ads from Google Ads and gives the owners a share of the revenue. For merchants, AdSense is the other side of their own campaigns: this is where it is decided whether their ads appear next to a relevant expert article or on a site built only for ad clicks.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. The concept from Google’s quality guidelines describes how a trustworthy page can be recognised. Trust is at its centre.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) ensures that your store is named and recommended in the answers of AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews. The goal is no longer just the click from a list of results, but a place in the answer itself.

Hyperlinks are clickable references that lead users and crawlers to internal pages or external destinations. Internally, they structure the website; externally, backlinks act as recommendations and influence rankings.

HTTP is the standard protocol of the web: the browser (client) sends requests to the server, which responds with a status code and content. HTTPS is the encrypted variant and standard today; status codes such as 200, 301 and 404 are central to SEO.

HTML is the markup language that structures web content with tags (e.g. headings, paragraphs, links). CSS styles its appearance. Clean, semantic HTML helps search engines, AI systems and screen readers understand content.

An IP address is the unique address of a device on the internet. Servers usually have fixed addresses, private connections changing ones. IPv4 consists of four numbers, IPv6 of eight hex blocks; DNS translates domains into IP addresses. IP addresses are considered personal data.

In-house SEO means search engine optimisation is carried out by internal employees rather than an agency. In-house SEOs develop the strategy and coordinate content and technology; combining them with an agency is often most effective.

Keyword tools provide search volume, competition and ideas for related terms. They help with planning websites and categories, with content and with trends. Comparing several tools makes sense, such as Keyword Planner, Search Console, Sistrix or Semrush.

Keyword research finds out which words your customers use to search for what you sell, and how many of them do so. It is the foundation for category structure, content and Google Ads campaigns. Skip it, and you build a store in the merchant’s language instead of your customers’ language.

Keyword optimisation means aligning a page with a main keyword plus suitable secondary terms. The terms belong in the title, H1, URL, text, alt texts and internal link texts – naturally phrased and without keyword stuffing.

Local SEO improves visibility for location-based searches. Google evaluates relevance, distance and prominence. Key levers: a well-maintained Google Business Profile, consistent NAP data, reviews, keywords with a local reference, local links and directory listings, and a mobile website.

Link exchange means linking to each other. Excessive link exchanges violate Google's guidelines and are usually devalued. Natural partner links that benefit visitors are unproblematic; voluntary recommendations through good content are more sustainable.

Link juice describes the power passed on via links. Strong backlinks bring link juice to a website, and internal linking distributes it. Important pages should be linked prominently, and lost backlinks redirected with a 301.

Link building is the deliberate acquisition of links from other websites to your store. For Google, each of these backlinks is a recommendation, and recommendations from within your own topic area remain among the strongest ranking signals. Today, good links are not bought or swapped, but earned through content and relationships that genuinely deserve a recommendation.

A landing page is the page a visitor lands on after clicking an ad, a search result or a link. A good landing page has exactly one goal: it answers the question the visitor came with and leads them to the next step, whether that is a purchase, an enquiry or a sign-up.

Matt Cutts headed Google's webspam team for many years and was the company's most important voice for SEOs. He joined Google in 2000, helped develop SafeSearch and left Google in 2016 to join the US Digital Service.

Google evaluates websites using mobile-first indexing – the mobile version is what counts. Responsive design with the same content on all devices, fast loading times and good mobile usability are a must and also improve local visibility.

Meta tags are pieces of information in a page’s header that give search engines and browsers details about the page. For SEO, the title, description and robots tag count most, plus viewport for mobile display. Google no longer evaluates meta keywords.

Negative SEO refers to attempts to deliberately damage another website’s Google rankings instead of improving your own. Typical methods are spam links, copied content, hacking, fake reviews and spam via a store’s internal search. Google detects most of these attacks itself. It becomes truly dangerous mainly when attackers get into the store itself.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) aligns websites so that they are found for the right search terms. Because Google keeps its algorithm secret, knowledge about what works is based on several sources: official statements from Google, court proceedings and documents, data analysis, tests and experience. Good SEO knows how reliable each of these sources is.

On-page optimisation covers all content and technical measures directly on a website: keywords in title, H1 and text, meta information, helpful content, structured data, internal linking, fast loading times and good usability.

Online store SEO is search engine optimisation for online stores: technology, category structure, content, product data and authority, so that categories and products are found on Google and in AI assistants by people with buying intent.

Off-page optimisation covers SEO measures outside the website: above all natural link building, mentions, reviews and brand building. The aim is to strengthen trust and awareness, gain qualified traffic and improve rankings.

Professional search engine optimisation is an ongoing process of analysis, technology, content, link building and performance tracking that is measured by revenue, not by promises. It is transparent, follows Google’s rules, guarantees no rankings and lets you see at any time what was done and why.

Google Penguin (since 2012) targets link spam: paid links, link farms, too rapid link growth and over-optimised anchor texts. Since 2016, Penguin has worked in real time as part of the core algorithm and devalues unnatural links. Natural links through good content are sustainable.

Google Panda (February 2011, in Germany August 2011) devalues thin, copied or low-quality content and excessive advertising, and rewards helpful, unique content. Since 2016, Panda has been part of the core algorithm.

A PageRank update was the public update of Toolbar PageRank. The last took place in 2013, and Google stopped displaying it in 2016. Internally, Google still evaluates links; for SEO, link quality, content and user experience count.

Page impressions (PI) are page views: every page loaded counts. One visit can generate several page impressions. They are the basis for CPM advertising and help analyse the use of individual pages – meaningful above all together with engagement and conversions.

robots.txt in the root directory of a website uses user agent, Allow and Disallow to specify which areas crawlers may access. It controls crawling, not indexing, and doesn't protect against access; noindex is responsible for exclusion from the index.

Responsive design automatically adapts layout, text and images to the screen size – with flexible grids, CSS media queries and responsive images. Google explicitly recommends it; it's the foundation for mobile-first indexing and a good mobile user experience.

Reconsideration request: request in Google Search Console to lift a manual action. First fix violations across the whole website (links, spam, cloaking etc.), document the measures and submit the request briefly and factually. There is no request for losses caused by algorithm updates.

SEA (search engine advertising) places paid ads in search engines; an auction based on bid and ad quality determines the position. Advantages: immediate visibility, controllable budget, precise measurability. Most important formats: text ads and shopping ads.

Classic search engine submission is no longer necessary today, but verification in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools is highly recommended: submit a sitemap, request indexing for important URLs and monitor indexing and search performance.

A search term is what a person actually types into a search engine, an on-site store search or an AI assistant, in their own words and sometimes with typos. For merchants, it is the most honest source there is: it reveals what customers want before they buy it.

Search queries are all the inputs people use to look for information, products or providers in search engines and AI assistants. Taken together, they show what a market wants right now, when it wants it and how that changes. For merchants, they are the largest market research in the world, and it is free.

A subdomain is a prefix such as blog.domain.com. It separates areas such as language, shop or login technically and organisationally. For SEO, it is often treated as a separate website; content meant to strengthen the main domain usually belongs in a subdirectory.

Sitelinks are additional links below a Google result that lead directly to important subpages. In Google Ads they can be controlled freely; organically, Google selects them automatically. A clear structure, good internal linking and unambiguous page titles improve the chances.

SERP stands for search engine results page, the results page of a search engine such as Google. Today it no longer consists of ten blue links, but of ads, products, AI answers, maps, questions and only then the organic results. For merchants, it is the shop window every customer passes before entering your store.

An SEO workshop teaches the basics or in-depth knowledge of search engine optimisation – half or full day, on site, online or in-house. Ideally, the workshop is tailored to the team and your own website. Check references and practical experience.

SEO copy today is helpful, user-oriented content: geared to target group and search intent, unique, well structured, with a sensibly placed main keyword, descriptive meta data, alt texts and internal links – without keyword stuffing.

SEO managers plan and manage search engine optimisation: analyses, keyword strategy, coordination of technology, content and link building, as well as monitoring and reporting. Entry is usually via marketing, media or IT; continuous learning is a must.

SEO conferences bundle knowledge on SEO, SEA, AI search and online marketing. Well-known in Germany are SEODAY, SMX Munich and OMR, internationally BrightonSEO, Pubcon and Google's Search Central Live.

SEO keywords are the search terms a specific page is meant to be found for. Every important page has one main keyword and a few secondary keywords that together form a topic. What matters is not how often a word appears on the page, but whether the page fulfils the intent behind the search better than any other.

SEO services include analysis and goals, keyword and competitor research, technical and content optimisation, link building and regular reporting. SEO succeeds in close cooperation with IT and marketing.

SEO, short for search engine optimisation, ensures that your store is found when customers search for your products, without you paying for every visit. It covers technology, content and trust, and today also visibility in AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.

SEO consulting is strategic advice: clarifying goals, analysing the website, defining keywords and priorities and guiding the internal team in implementation. Unlike SEO management, the client implements the measures themselves.

SEO checklist: basics (Search Console, GA4, sitemap, robots.txt), technology (HTTPS, redirects, loading time, mobile), content (title, description, H1, keywords, images, internal links, content audit) and off-page (backlinks, mentions, business profile).

Source code is the human-readable code of a website or program; for websites, mainly HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Search engines read the code, not the visible page – clean, semantic code helps with crawling and indexing.

The index is a search engine's directory: crawlers such as Googlebot capture pages, and Google decides on inclusion. Only indexed URLs can rank; Google Search Console shows which pages are in the index.

Search engines crawl web pages, store content in an index and deliver matching results for search queries, sorted by relevance and quality. Google dominates with around 90% market share in German-speaking countries; AI search systems are increasingly changing search.

Search engine marketing (SEM) combines SEO and SEA: SEO improves organic rankings, SEA brings immediate visibility through paid ads. Both are pull marketing and reach customers exactly when they are searching.

SSL (now TLS) encrypts data between browser and server, visible as HTTPS. It combines asymmetric key exchange with fast symmetric encryption. HTTPS is a ranking signal and a must for shops; however, protection ends at the server.

Structured data describes a page’s content in machine-readable form using the schema.org vocabulary, preferably in JSON-LD format. Search engines thereby understand products, prices and reviews unambiguously and can show rich results with price, availability and stars.

Semantic SEO aligns content with the meaning of search queries rather than individual keywords: cover topics completely, match search intent, make entities and connections clear – for Google as well as for chat-based AI search.

Traffic refers to the visitors and visits to a website. Important metrics are sessions, users, page views, engagement and conversions, measured with Google Analytics 4 and Search Console, for example. What matters is qualified traffic that leads to revenue.

The title tag is a page’s title as defined in the source code. It appears as the clickable headline in search results and in the browser tab, is one of the most important signals of a page’s topic and helps decide whether people click.

Universal Search (since 2007) blends images, videos, news, maps, products and today AI answers into Google's results alongside organic results. This reduces the visibility of classic results but creates new opportunities for images, videos, products and local listings.

Unique content is original content that doesn't exist in this form on any other website. It's particularly important for shops because manufacturer texts lead to duplicate content. Sensible approach: prioritise categories and bestsellers, use templates and have AI drafts reviewed by experts.

Unique visitors (in GA4: users) count each visitor only once in the period, visits (sessions) every visit. Measurement is usually via cookies or IDs; consent refusal, ad blockers and multiple devices lead to inaccuracies.

Voice search SEO optimises content for spoken search via voice assistants such as Google Assistant, Gemini, Siri or Alexa. Instead of many results, there is usually only one answer – and it comes from content that answers questions directly.

WordPress SEO: enable visibility for search engines, use descriptive permalinks, choose a fast responsive theme, manage structure and archive pages, optimise content in a targeted way and use an SEO plugin such as Yoast, Rank Math or The SEO Framework.

White hat SEO is rule-compliant optimisation according to Google's guidelines: helpful content, clean technology, good user experience and natural link building. Black hat SEO uses tricks such as cloaking, keyword stuffing or buying links and risks devaluation up to exclusion from the index.

Website optimisation covers technical, content and design measures to improve loading time, user experience, visibility and conversions: Core Web Vitals, mobile usability, SEO, helpful content, good user guidance and A/B tests.

XML sitemap: machine-readable list of important URLs, optionally with lastmod and image, video, news and hreflang information. Limit 50,000 URLs or 50 MB per file; larger websites use a sitemap index. Only include indexable, canonical URLs.