E-commerce SEO glossary — the terms, finally clear

SEO has a vocabulary problem: every term has three synonyms and no definition thinks about e-commerce. Here are the 22 terms you'll actually run into, defined simply, each with the online store angle.

Anchor (text)

The clickable text of a link. Google uses it to understand the destination page: "our sport filter guide" informs, "click here" says nothing.

Authority

The "weight" a page or a domain accumulates through its inbound links, its age and user behaviour. Authority flows between your pages through internal links — hence the importance of placing them deliberately.

Backlink

A link on another site pointing to yours. It's the most powerful trust signal — and the hardest to earn. In e-commerce it's your content (guides, comparisons) that attracts backlinks, almost never your product pages.

Title tag

Your page's title in search results (not to be confused with the H1, the heading shown on the page). 70 usable characters; one of the two texts that decide the click.

Cannibalisation

Two of your pages targeting the same query: Google hesitates, alternates them, and neither settles. Prevented by a "one query = one page" mapping, detected in Search Console.

Canonical

A tag declaring the "official" URL of content reachable at several addresses (filters, sorting, variants). Essential in e-commerce, where parameter URLs proliferate.

Semantic silo (or cocoon)

A group of contents from the same universe, densely linked to each other: the buying guide links the comparisons, which link the product pages, which link back to the guide. The aim: concentrate the thematic signal.

Duplicate content

The same text present on several pages or several sites — the textbook case being the supplier description reused by 200 stores. Google filters the copies and shows only one: rarely yours. The full article on the subject.

Core Web Vitals

Google's performance metrics (loading speed, visual stability, responsiveness). A modest ranking factor, a major conversion factor.

Crawl (and crawl budget)

Google's robots passing over your pages. The "budget" is how many pages they explore per visit: a fast site, well linked and without useless indexable pages, gets explored better.

CTR (click-through rate)

The percentage of people who click your result when it's shown. At equal position, it's decided by the title tag, the meta description and structured data.

Structured data (Schema.org)

Markup that translates your page into machine language: product, price, stock, reviews. It triggers rich results (prices and stars in Google).

H1, H2, H3 (heading tags)

The hierarchy of a page's headings: one H1 (the subject), H2s (the sections), H3s (the sub-points). Google uses it to understand structure; your readers use it to scan.

Indexing

A page entering Google's database. A crawled page isn't necessarily indexed: the famous "Crawled, currently not indexed" status usually signals content judged to add nothing — duplicated, empty or near-empty.

Search intent

What the user actually wants behind their query: to understand (informational), to buy (transactional) or to get somewhere (navigational). Each intent calls for a different type of page.

Long tail

Precise queries with low individual volume ("clio 3 rs intake kit" vs "intake"). Low competition, strong intent: the natural hunting ground of independent stores.

Internal linking

All the links between your own pages. It drives discovery, understanding and the circulation of authority — the most underrated SEO lever a store has.

Meta description

The text under the blue link in Google. 160 characters; it doesn't influence ranking but strongly influences the click. Leave it empty and Google picks a snippet — rarely the right one.

Orphan page

A page no internal link points to. Poorly discovered, poorly understood, never reinforced: every piece you publish should receive at least one link from existing content.

Rich snippet (rich result)

An enhanced search result (price, stock, stars, FAQ), triggered by structured data. At equal ranking, it takes the click.

SERP

Search Engine Results Page: Google's results page. "Analysing the SERP" means looking at what ranks for a query to deduce the intent and the expected format.

Search Console

Google's free tool showing your queries, positions, clicks and indexing problems. The first reflex in any SEO diagnosis — and the source of your quick wins (the queries where you sit on page two).

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A term missing? Tell us. And if you prefer practice to theory: the complete PrestaShop SEO guide puts all these concepts in execution order, and the app handles the longest part — producing the content.