Content SEO terms

Topic clusters, pillar pages, content gaps, audits and refreshes. 19 terms, each with what it means, why it matters for SEO and what to do about it.

AI-generated content

AI-generated content is text, images or other media produced with generative AI tools. Google judges it by quality, not by how it was made.

Comparison pages

Comparison pages compare two or more products or options side by side, such as “X vs Y” or “X alternatives”, to help people choose.

Content audit

A content audit is a review of every page on a site, with data, to decide which to keep, update, merge, redirect or remove.

Content brief

A content brief is a document that tells a writer what a page should cover, who it is for, which keywords it targets and what it must include.

Content decay

Content decay is the gradual decline in a page’s rankings and organic traffic over time, after an initial period of good performance.

Content freshness

Content freshness is how recent and up to date a page is. Google ranks fresher content higher for queries where recency matters.

Content gap

A content gap is a topic or keyword your audience searches for that your site doesn’t cover, often one your competitors already rank for.

Content marketing

Content marketing is creating and sharing useful content, such as articles, guides, videos and tools, to attract and keep customers.

Content pruningWhite hat

Content pruning is removing, merging or redirecting low-value pages so a site’s remaining content is stronger and easier to crawl.

Content refreshWhite hat

A content refresh is a substantial update of an existing page to make it current, accurate and more useful, so it regains or improves rankings.

Evergreen content

Evergreen content is content that stays relevant and useful for a long time, such as how-to guides and explainers, rather than news.

FAQ page

An FAQ page lists common questions about a product, service or topic with short answers, to help users and answer search queries.

Information gain

Information gain is the new, useful information a page adds beyond what other pages on the same topic already say.

Pillar page

A pillar page is a broad, in-depth page on a core topic that links to more detailed pages on each subtopic, forming the hub of a topic cluster.

Readability

Readability is how easy a text is to read and understand, shaped by sentence length, word choice, structure and layout.

SEO copywriting

SEO copywriting is writing web copy that ranks in search and persuades readers, by matching search intent and answering clearly.

Topic cluster

A topic cluster is a group of pages about one subject: a pillar page covering it broadly, linked to cluster pages that cover subtopics in depth.

Topical authority

Topical authority is a site’s perceived depth and expertise on a subject, built by covering it thoroughly and being cited on it.

User-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by a site’s users rather than its owners, such as reviews, comments, forum posts and Q&A.