Glossary

All terms

AEO

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is a way of writing and structuring pages so that content gets reused as a direct answer: a featured snippet, a “People also ask” box, a voice assistant reply or an AI-generated answer. It is not an official Google term; it is an extension of ordinary search optimization.

AI agent

An AI agent is an artificial intelligence system that pursues a goal by choosing and chaining its own steps: it consults sources, uses tools, checks the result of each action and adjusts the next one. Unlike a simple text generator, it can act on other systems, which is why limits and human oversight matter so much.

AI hallucination

An AI hallucination is incorrect, inappropriate or fictitious content generated by an artificial intelligence model and presented as fact, as if it were genuine or matched the request. It stems from how generative models work: they predict plausible text without checking whether it is true, and they often sound confident either way.

AI Overviews

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some results to explain a complex topic, along with links to web pages. To be included, a page has to be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet; Google says no special optimization or extra technical requirement is needed.

AI receptionist

An AI receptionist is a conversational agent, by voice or text, that answers a business's calls and messages: it understands the request, asks the right questions, gives basic information and offers an appointment or hands off to a person. Current versions are usually built on a large language model connected to the business's own information.

API

An API, or application programming interface, is a set of features and rules that a piece of software exposes so another program can interact with it automatically, without going through a person's screen. It works like a contract: you know what you can ask for, in what format, and what you will get back.

Backlink

A backlink, or inbound link, is a link on another website that points to a page on your site. Search engines use backlinks to discover pages and as one sign of how well known a business is. Google's spam policies forbid links bought or built to manipulate rankings.

BI (business intelligence)

Business intelligence (BI) is the use of computing tools to collect, consolidate and analyse an organization's raw data in order to guide strategic decisions. It covers dashboards, analysis reports and predictive models. In French, Quebec's terminology office prefers informatique décisionnelle and discourages the literal translation intelligence d'affaires.

Canonical tag

A canonical tag is a link rel=canonical element in a page's head that names the URL you want shown in search results when several URLs serve the same or very similar content. Google treats it as a strong signal rather than a command, so it can still pick a different version.

CASL (Canada's anti-spam legislation)

CASL, Canada's anti-spam legislation (LCAP in French), is the federal law that prohibits sending commercial electronic messages without the recipient's express or implied consent. Each message must also identify the sender, give a way to contact them and include a simple, free unsubscribe mechanism.

CLS

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is a score for a page's visual stability: it adds up unexpected movements of visible content during the worst burst of shifts in the page's life. Web.dev rates a CLS of 0.1 or less as good and anything above 0.25 as poor, at the 75th percentile of visits.

Conversion rate

A conversion rate is the percentage of people who complete a target action out of everyone who had the chance to: submitting a form, booking, or accepting a quote. You calculate it by dividing conversions by opportunities, such as visits, clicks or requests, over the same period and multiplying by 100.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses to describe real-world page experience: Largest Contentful Paint for loading, Interaction to Next Paint for responsiveness and Cumulative Layout Shift for visual stability. A page meets the bar when each one hits the good threshold at the 75th percentile of visits.

CRM

CRM, or customer relationship management, is the set of actions an organization takes to attract new customers and keep existing ones. In everyday use, CRM also means the software that brings contacts, past conversations, quotes and follow-up tasks together in one place, so the whole team sees the same customer history.

CRP

CRP is an acronym occasionally used for customer relationship management, meaning the practices and software a business uses to win and keep customers. It is rare in Quebec, where people say CRM in English and GRC in French. In production management, CRP usually stands for capacity requirements planning instead.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the average amount a business spends to win one new customer over a given period. You add up marketing and sales spending, including staff time, and divide it by the number of new customers gained. It is not the same as the cost per conversion shown in ad platforms.

Customer lifetime value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value (LTV or CLV) is the revenue, or better the gross margin, a customer brings a business over the whole relationship. A simple estimate multiplies the average purchase value by purchases per year and by the number of years the customer stays. It is usually read side by side with acquisition cost.

Dashboard

A management dashboard is a visual display of the indicators an owner or manager needs to track the business and make timely decisions toward set objectives. It is more condensed than an operating report: a few figures, ratios or charts chosen for one person's decisions, with thresholds that flag problems early.

Dispatch

Dispatch is the process of assigning incoming service requests to available technicians or crews, based on their schedules, workload, skills and location. A dispatcher decides who goes where, when and in what order, and records that decision so the job, the customer and the technician all stay in sync.

E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google uses these four ideas to describe what makes content reliable. Trust is the most important of the four, and Google says E-E-A-T is not itself a specific ranking factor, even though its systems look for signals that point to it.

ERP

An ERP (enterprise resource planning) system is a software package that manages a company's processes by integrating all of its functions: accounting and finance, human resources, purchasing, sales, distribution and decision support. Because every function shares the same data, information entered once is reused everywhere instead of being typed in again.

Featured snippet

A featured snippet is a special Google box that flips the usual result layout: it shows a passage answering the search first, followed by the title and link of the page it came from. Google alone decides which pages appear there, and no markup lets a site request or reserve that spot for itself.

GEO

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is a set of practices meant to make content visible in answers written by generative engines, the tools that pull several sources together and summarize them with a large language model. The term comes from a 2023 research paper, not from a standard body or from Google.

Google Business Profile

A Google Business Profile is the free listing that presents a business in Google Search and Google Maps: name, category, contact details, hours, service area, photos and reviews. Google ranks these listings mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and there is no way to pay for a better local ranking.

hreflang

hreflang is an annotation that tells Google about other language or regional versions of the same page, such as en-CA and fr-CA. Every version has to list itself and all the others; if two pages do not point to each other, Google may ignore the annotations altogether.

Human-in-the-loop (human approval)

Human-in-the-loop is a way of designing an automated system or AI agent so that a person authorizes, corrects or rejects an action before it is carried out. It matters most for sensitive actions: writing to a customer, spending money, changing an official record or making a decision about someone.

IndexNow

IndexNow is an open protocol that lets a website instantly notify participating search engines that a URL was added, updated or deleted. The site publishes a verification key, then sends the list of affected URLs. Submitting speeds up discovery, but it does not guarantee that a page will be indexed.

Information system (IS)

An information system (IS) is a structured set of hardware, software and human resources that lets an organization collect, store, process and share information. It is broader than the computer system alone: the people, the rules they follow and even paper forms are part of it, because they shape how information actually flows.

INP

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a Google metric that assesses how responsive a page is overall: the delay between a click, tap or key press and the next visual update on screen. An INP of 200 milliseconds or less counts as good, while anything above 500 milliseconds is poor.

Internal linking

Internal linking is the set of links that connect pages within the same website, such as a service page linking to the FAQ or a town page linking back to the service offered there. It helps visitors move around and lets Google discover pages and understand what they cover through the link text.

KPI (key performance indicator)

A KPI, or key performance indicator, is a quantitative or qualitative measure used to assess how well an organization is performing against its strategic objectives. That means a KPI always starts from a goal, and comes with a formula, a data source, a time period and a target, so everyone calculates it the same way.

Large language model (LLM)

A large language model (LLM) is a very large language model trained on huge collections of general text and designed to handle a wide range of language tasks: drafting, summarizing, translating and reasoning. It writes by predicting, piece by piece, the most likely continuation of the text it has been given, which is usually right but not always.

LCP

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is the time from the start of navigation until the largest image, text block or video in the visible part of the screen is rendered. Web.dev rates an LCP of 2.5 seconds or less as good, and anything above 4 seconds as poor, measured at the 75th percentile of visits.

llms.txt

llms.txt is a Markdown text file placed at the root of a website (/llms.txt) that briefly introduces the business and lists its most useful pages, so large language models can find their way quickly. It is an open proposal from 2024 rather than an official standard, and it sits alongside robots.txt and the sitemap.

Local SEO

Local SEO is the part of search engine optimization that targets location-based searches such as “electrician in Laval”. It relies on a Google Business Profile, consistent contact details, genuine customer reviews and website pages that clearly name the areas the business serves, so nearby people can find and call it.

NAP

NAP stands for the name, address and phone number of a business. NAP consistency means showing exactly the same three details on your website, Google Business Profile, social media, directories and paperwork, so that customers and search engines recognize one single business rather than several conflicting versions.

No-show rate

A no-show rate is the share of confirmed appointments where the customer neither shows up nor cancels in advance. You calculate it by dividing missed appointments by appointments scheduled over a set period, then multiplying by 100. It tells a service business how much booked capacity goes unused.

OAuth

OAuth 2.0 is an authorization framework standardized by the IETF that lets a third-party application get limited access to a web service on its owner's behalf, without ever learning the owner's password. The person approves the access once, and the application receives a token restricted to specific scopes that can be revoked at any time.

People Also Ask

People Also Ask is a Google results-page box that groups questions related to the original search. When someone expands a question, Google shows a featured snippet taken from a web page, with a link to it. Site owners can't control which questions appear in the box or which pages answer them.

Process automation (RPA vs workflow)

Process automation means handing a sequence of repetitive tasks that a person used to do by hand over to software. It comes in two main forms: workflows, which connect applications through rules and APIs, and robotic process automation (RPA), where a software robot mimics a user's clicks and keystrokes on screen.

Quebec Law 25 (privacy)

Law 25 is the Quebec statute adopted in 2021 that modernized privacy rules, including the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector. It requires businesses to have a person in charge of personal information, obtain clear consent, report serious confidentiality incidents and be more transparent about what they collect.

Quote (soumission)

A quote is a written offer in which a business describes the work or services it proposes to provide and the price it asks. In Quebec French it is called a soumission, a word used both for answering a formal call for tenders and for the estimate given to a homeowner.

Revenue (sales)

Revenue, also called sales or turnover, is the total of a business's sales of goods and services over a given period. Revenue that includes recoverable taxes is called gross; revenue that excludes them is net, which is what the income statement shows unless stated otherwise. Revenue measures activity, not profit, since no expenses are deducted.

robots.txt

robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of a website, at the address /robots.txt, that tells crawlers which URLs they are allowed to fetch. Its main job is to keep crawlers from overloading your server. It does not hide pages from Google and does not secure anything.

SaaS

SaaS, or software as a service, is standard software hosted on a provider's servers and used over the internet, usually for a subscription. The customer installs nothing and does not manage servers, storage or updates; it only controls a limited set of settings for its own users and decides what data goes in.

SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) is the work of making a website easier for search engines to find, understand and show in their unpaid results. It covers three areas: the technical health of the site, the usefulness of each page, and the signals that tell a search engine your business can be trusted.

SME (PME)

An SME, or small and medium-sized enterprise, is a business of limited size, usually defined by its number of employees. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada defines SMEs as businesses with 1 to 499 paid employees, while Quebec's language office describes a PME as having fewer than 250 employees.

Structured data (schema.org, JSON-LD)

Structured data is a standardized format that describes a page's content to search engines: business type, address, hours, questions and answers. Sites usually use the schema.org vocabulary, most often written in JSON-LD, the format Google recommends when a site's setup allows it. Valid markup never guarantees a rich result.

Webhook

A webhook is a mechanism in which a piece of software automatically sends an HTTP request carrying data to a web address you chose, as soon as a specific event occurs, such as a payment going through or a booking being created. The receiving system therefore does not need to keep checking the source system for changes.

Work order

A work order is a document that sets out how a job is to be carried out: what to do, where, with which tools and by when. In a service business, it links the quote the customer accepted, the technician who was dispatched and the final invoice, and it records the hours and materials actually used.

XML sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file that gives search engines a list of a site's pages, videos and other files, along with details such as when each page was last modified. It helps crawlers find the pages you consider important, but it does not guarantee they will be crawled or indexed.