Plain definitions of the 159 terms the checker and the handbook use, from search basics and AI visibility to measurement and the rules on health advertising and patient data in the US and Europe. Each entry gives a definition and, for most, a note on what it means in practice on a physician's website. Entries are sorted alphabetically within each section. The glossary is informational; the Rules and limits section is not legal advice. Last updated: September 29, 2026.
The core ideas behind how a page gets found in search results.
The average of a page's or a query's rankings over the measurement period. It summarizes a spread, not a single rank.
In practiceAn average position of 18 does not mean "I am 18th"; the page can be 3rd for some queries and 40th for others.
Searches for a person's or an organization's name. The most honest indicator of whether other channels, such as video, social media and referrals, are working.
In practiceIf searches for your name are rising, patients have heard of you somewhere else and are checking.
The crawling resources a search engine allots to a site. Unnecessary, duplicate or low-value URLs use it up.
In practiceOn sites with hundreds of parameter URLs or empty tag pages, the real service pages get crawled late.
Search engine software (a bot) visiting the site and downloading its pages. A page that has not been crawled cannot even be considered.
In practiceThe most common reason a new service page stays invisible for weeks is simply that it has not been crawled yet.
Answer box
A short answer box shown above the results, quoted from one page. Text that can be quoted as it stands has a better chance of getting in.
In practiceA clear two- or three-sentence answer right under a question heading works better than a long wind-up. A short FAQ section at the end of an article produces exactly this kind of quotable answer.
Storing a crawled page in the search engine's database. Crawled does not mean indexed: the engine can look at a page, judge it not worth keeping and leave it out.
In practiceThe "Crawled - currently not indexed" status in Search Console means the page exists but is shown to no one.
Search term
The word or phrase a user types into the search box. Keywords define which phrases a site wants to be found for.
In practiceThe physician's term and the patient's term are often different: "nephrolithiasis" is the physician's word, "kidney stones" is the patient's.
A tool's score for how hard it is to reach page one for a query, usually computed from the link profiles of the pages already there.
In practiceOn a new practice site, starting with low-difficulty long-tail queries is the realistic path.
A rarely searched but very specific query, usually longer than three words. Each one has little volume; together they make up a large part of a site's traffic.
In practiceCompetition is thin here. A small practice site wins on these queries, not on broad terms.
Visits that come from the unpaid listings in search results. Ad clicks are not included.
The expandable question boxes in the middle of the results. They show the follow-up questions users actually have, and the list grows each time one is opened.
In practiceLook here before writing a condition page: it shows, for free, the sentences patients really type.
A search engine revisiting a page it has already crawled to see whether it changed. How often depends on the page's history of changes.
In practiceYou cannot fix an article and see the result the same day; a change can take days to be processed.
The real expectation behind a query: information, a place, or an action. Two queries containing the same word can need entirely different content.
In practice"Kidney stone treatment" looks for information; "kidney stone doctor near me" looks for a physician. One page cannot answer both well.
An estimate of how many times a query is searched on average over a period. It is a model, not a measurement, and it differs from tool to tool.
In practiceA low-volume query with clear intent can bring more appointments than a high-volume general one.
Some queries rise and fall at regular points in the year. Part of any swing in traffic comes from the calendar, not from the work done.
In practiceBefore overhauling a page whose traffic dropped in summer, compare it with the same month last year.
Search engine optimization
Organizing a page's content, technical setup and outside references so it becomes more visible in search results. The aim is not to buy placement but for the page to earn the position it deserves.
In practiceHealth advertising is closely policed and paid clicks on medical terms are expensive, so organic visibility is the main long-term channel for most practice websites.
Search engine results page
The full results screen shown for a query. It is no longer ten blue links: it also holds AI summaries, the map pack, question boxes and videos.
In practiceFor health queries the top half of the screen is often taken by map and summary boxes; the classic first organic result can end up mid-screen.
Everything on the results page besides the ten blue links: answer boxes, the map pack, image strips, video blocks, People Also Ask.
In practiceThese blocks take up much of the screen for health queries; ranking first is no longer enough on its own.
Shortcuts to inner pages shown under a main result. They cannot be requested; they appear when the site structure is easy to understand.
In practiceService pages appearing under a search for your name are a sign that the site architecture is sound.
The user finds the answer on the results screen and leaves without clicking any site. The page gets an impression but no click.
In practiceCommon for informational health queries: visibility continues while traffic falls. Measurement that looks only at clicks will mislead you.
Terms for the surfaces where the answer arrives as an assistant's sentence instead of a list of results.
Answer engine optimization
Writing content so it can be picked as a direct answer instead of being ranked in a list. Question headings, short self-contained paragraphs and explicit definitions are its tools.
In practiceSections in which the physician answers patient questions plainly are naturally suited to it.
Software that collects pages on behalf of language models, identified by user agents or robots.txt tokens such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended. They are controlled separately from search engine bots.
In practiceA site that is open to Google is not automatically open to these; each one is addressed separately in robots.txt.
A search mode that answers in conversational form instead of a results list: one text and a few sources instead of ten links.
In practiceRanking loses its meaning here; you are either in the answer or not there at all.
Google's summary answer block above the results, compiled from several sources, with source links shown alongside.
In practiceIt appears often for health queries and pushes classic results down; even a top-ranked page can drop out of the visible screen.
Visits that arrive from links in AI assistants. Some assistants pass no referrer, so the measured number is always a floor.
In practiceJudging assistant visibility by visitor count is the wrong metric; it is a reputation channel more than a traffic channel.
Passage
A meaningful block of text that a page is split into so AI systems can process it. Systems usually quote a single chunk, not the whole page.
In practiceThe text under each heading should make sense on its own. A paragraph that starts with "as described above" means nothing once it is split off.
Source link
A link shown as a source inside or under an AI answer; the basic currency of visibility on AI surfaces. In an article, a citation is also the reference to the guideline or study a statement rests on, and a page that cites its sources is easier for AI systems to trust and quote.
In practiceFor a physician a citation has value even without a click: the patient may never visit, but your name appears as a trusted source. On your own pages, list the two or three guidelines or studies you relied on, with links, at the end of the article.
The amount of text a model can take into account at once. Whatever does not fit cannot enter the answer.
In practiceOn very long pages, keeping the key information near the top protects it when the page is split into chunks.
A representation that turns the meaning of a text into a sequence of numbers. Systems find texts with similar meaning by how close those numbers are.
In practiceThe practical consequence: you get found by covering a topic together with its related concepts, not by repeating the same word.
A person, organization, place or concept that search and AI systems recognize with a defined identity. Unlike a keyword, the system knows what it is and what it is related to.
In practiceThe goal is for your name to be a recognized entity, not a string of letters: the same name, credentials and practice everywhere, tied to persistent identifiers such as your ORCID iD or your NPI record.
Matching a name in a text to a specific entity the model knows. When many people share a name, the model decides from the surrounding details.
In practiceWriting your name the same way everywhere, with the same credentials and practice, is what makes this match possible.
Your name or your practice's name appearing in the text of an AI answer. It is separate from your page being cited as a source.
In practiceA page can be cited again and again without your name ever appearing. The patient reads the answer, remembers names and rarely looks at the source list.
Generative engine optimization
Organizing content so AI assistants use it as a source and cite it in the answers they generate. The goal is being quoted, not being ranked.
In practiceThe measure is not visitor count but whether your name and your site appear in the assistant's answer.
Tying a generated answer to a specific source that can be shown. The system derives the answer from a document instead of making it up.
In practiceIf your page clearly shows a date, an author and its sources, it is more likely to be chosen as a basis.
An AI system confidently producing information that does not exist, as if it had a source. An invented study title, a wrong dose or a regulation that does not exist are typical examples.
In practiceThis is the real risk in health content: AI output should never be published without physician review.
The structure that stores entities and the relations between them. It is where a search engine keeps facts such as "this person is a physician, works at this practice, writes about this topic".
Large language model
An AI model trained on very large amounts of text that answers questions by generating text. ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are products built on such models.
A proposed plain-text file at the site root that tells AI systems what the site is and lists its important pages. It is not an official standard, and the major search engines have not said they use it.
In practiceIt costs little, so it is worth trying; be wary of any claim that it brings visibility on its own.
The question or instruction a user gives a model. Different prompts on the same topic can produce very different answers.
In practiceMeasuring your visibility with a single prompt misleads; try the different sentences a patient might actually write.
The assistant splits one user question into several background subqueries and gathers sources for each. The user asks one question; the system runs many searches.
In practiceThat is why one main page is not enough: each subquestion needs a page that answers it.
Retrieval-augmented generation
The model builds its answer not only from what it learned in training but from sources it retrieves at that moment from the web or a document store. The links it cites are chosen at this step.
In practiceBeing retrievable at this step matters more than being in the training data; this is where current, well-structured content pays off.
A numeric measure of how close two texts are in meaning even when their words differ, computed from the distance between their embeddings.
In practice"Infertility" and "trouble getting pregnant" are different words that a model treats as close; you do not need to cram both into every paragraph.
How often AI answers on a topic mention you compared with your competitors. The total is fixed: what one gains, another loses.
In practiceRead the trend more than the absolute number: is the gap closing or widening?
The smallest unit a model works with when it reads text, roughly a piece of a word. Length and cost are counted in tokens.
In practiceLimits in AI tools are counted in tokens, not in words or characters, and the same sentence can use more tokens in some languages than in English.
Turning text into number sequences and finding the passages closest in meaning. It relies on meaning, not on matching words.
In practiceThis is the mechanism at work when AI answers choose sources; using the exact same word as the question is not required.
An answer the model produces without linking to any source. The information is used, but where it came from stays invisible.
In practiceCommon for health questions, which is why citation counts alone do not fully measure visibility.
What makes a site count as a trustworthy source on its topic.
Alternative text
A written description of what an image shows. Screen readers read it aloud; for machines it is the only clear description of the image.
In practiceAlt text on medical diagrams and anatomy images is a gain for accessibility and for visibility at the same time.
Link text
The clickable text of a link. It is the strongest outside hint about what the target page is about.
In practiceWhen you receive a link, a phrase that names the topic is worth more than "click here". The same applies to every in-text link on your own pages.
Author bio
The block that shows who wrote the content, with the author's credentials, specialty and verifiable identifiers.
In practiceName, credentials, specialty, practice and ORCID iD on the page give readers and machines the same information. A line such as "Written by Jane Doe, MD, board-certified urologist" is enough to tie the text to a person; the same person should appear in the page's structured data.
The A in E-E-A-T
Being recognized as a go-to source on a topic. It comes from what others say about you, not from your own claims.
In practiceProfessional society pages, university and hospital listings, news and trade publications, publication and conference records. It is less what your site says and more what is written about you elsewhere.
Inbound link
A link from another site to your page. For a long time it has been counted among the strongest ranking signals.
In practiceReal references for a physician are professional society pages, university and hospital profiles, news interviews and professional directories. Bought links do not work and carry risk.
A topic your audience searches for that has no page on your site. It is usually found by comparing the queries competitors appear for and you do not.
Updating an existing page: correcting outdated information, adding missing subtopics and renewing the date. A visible "last reviewed" line records that the refresh happened.
In practiceUsually more productive than writing a new article: improving a page that already earns impressions shows results faster than starting from zero. Change the date only when the content actually changed.
A tool for telling Google to ignore unwanted, low-quality links pointing to your site.
In practiceUsually unnecessary, since Google already ignores most such links. It becomes relevant if you have received a manual action.
A page made only to appear in search results that offers little of its own or sends the user somewhere else. It goes against search engine spam policies.
In practiceCopying the same text for every nearby town and changing only the place name fits this definition.
The same text at more than one URL. Less a penalty issue than a question of which page gets evaluated.
In practicePublishing the same article on the blog and on a service page turns the two into competitors.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
The four criteria Google's search quality rater guidelines use to describe content quality. It is not a direct ranking score but the name of the target the systems try to approximate; each letter has its own entry in this glossary.
In practiceA natural advantage for physicians: real expertise, real clinical experience and a verifiable identity already exist. What is usually missing is making them visible on the page.
The first E in E-E-A-T
First-hand contact with the subject: having done, seen or performed it. It marks the difference between having read about something and having done it.
In practiceA physician has it, but it has to show on the page: how many years you have performed a procedure, your own case series, what you see at follow-up. A summary compiled from other sources has none of this.
The second E in E-E-A-T
The depth of knowledge and competence in the field: education, credentials and qualifications. For health topics, formal qualifications are expected.
In practiceBoard certification, subspecialty training and your ORCID iD belong on the page and in the schema. Writing only within your own specialty is the strongest signal of expertise.
Frequently asked questions
A section, usually at the end of an article, answering questions patients actually ask in a few sentences each.
In practiceThe easiest text format to get into answer boxes and AI answers; three questions are enough.
dofollow
A link without any attribute that switches off the passing of value. HTML has no dofollow attribute; the word means the absence of nofollow, sponsored or ugc.
In practiceWhether a link from a directory or a news site actually passes value can only be seen in the source code.
Nesting a page's headings in H1, H2, H3 order. It shows the skeleton of the text to readers and machines.
In practiceA page should have one H1. Using heading tags just to make text look bigger breaks the structure.
Internal linking
A link between pages of the same site. It guides visitors and tells search engines which pages are central. Menu, home page and blog index links reach every page anyway; the links that carry meaning sit inside the text, between related content pages.
In practiceLinks from informational articles to the related service page are the most neglected and cheapest gain on most practice sites. Place two or three in natural sentences, with anchor text that says what the target page is about.
Two or more pages on the same site competing for the same query. The search engine cannot decide which one to show, and both weaken.
In practiceVery common on practice sites that have piled up articles on the same topic over the years; the usual fix is to merge them into one page and redirect the rest to it.
Forcing the same word into a text over and over. An old tactic that now works against you.
In practiceIt also costs trust with the patient reading the text; natural repetition is enough.
Medically reviewed line
A line showing that a physician reviewed the content, with the reviewer's name and the review date. It usually sits near the standard medical disclaimer, which states that the text does not replace diagnosis or treatment.
In practiceEven when you write the article yourself, state the date and who is responsible for it; readers need to know when the information they are reading was current.
The summary shown under the title in search results. It does not set rankings directly, but it drives clicks.
In practiceA sentence of 110 to 165 characters that summarizes the answer, without promises, works best.
An attribute by which the site owner says a link should not pass value. Visitors still arrive; authority transfer should not be expected.
In practiceMost physician directories and comment sections use it; do not mistake such links for authority gains.
A page that no other page on the site links to. A page reachable only through the XML sitemap or a site-wide menu behaves much the same way, because nothing in the text points to it.
In practiceLong articles that took real effort often end up orphaned, and search engines and AI surfaces then assume they do not matter. The fix is not a new article but in-text links from three related ones.
The hub page that covers a whole topic in outline and routes readers to subpages. It is the backbone of a topic cluster.
In practice"Kidney stones" makes a pillar page; treatment options, diet and follow-up each get their own linked page.
How easily a text is understood, judged by sentence length, density of terms and layout. A writing discipline more than a score.
In practiceWhen writing for patients, use the medical term but give its everyday equivalent next to it once.
A link routed through the linking site's own intermediate URL instead of pointing straight at the target, so the target URL does not appear in the source code.
In practiceWith this setup, machines may not recognize the link as pointing to you; watch for it when auditing your links.
How current, peer-reviewed and independent the cited sources are. Quality counts, not quantity.
In practiceOne citation of a current clinical guideline is stronger than ten links to blogs.
sponsored / ugc
Attributes marking a link as paid (sponsored) or added by users (ugc). Neither is meant to pass value.
In practiceA paid promotional link given without the attribute creates risk for both the site that gives it and the site that receives it.
A page that adds little of value for the reader: short, generic or assembled from other sources. It raises the page count and lowers the site's overall value. Its opposite is coverage: a page that answers the questions a patient has on the topic, such as how the diagnosis is made, the treatment options, risks, recovery and follow-up.
In practiceOpening a three-paragraph, near-identical page for every service is the typical example. The fix is not more words but the missing subtopics.
The title in the page's source code that appears as the headline in search results. It does not have to match the H1 word for word.
In practiceIt is the first sentence the patient sees: keep it between 30 and 70 characters, with the topic near the start.
A group of linked pages covering a main topic and its subquestions. Models read how well a site covers a topic from the cluster, not from a single article.
In practiceSplitting subtopics into separate, linked pages usually works better than one very long article.
The strength a site gains from covering one subject area deeply and completely. Carrying all the subtopics of one subject beats scattered coverage of many.
In practiceFifteen pages that answer every subquestion of one condition group are stronger than one article each in ten different areas.
The T in E-E-A-T
The last letter, and the one Google's rater guidelines put at the center: the site and its content being accurate, honest and clearly accountable. The other three exist to support it.
In practiceClear identity and contact details, a real address, an update date, cited sources, language free of exaggerated promises and a secure connection. It is the letter health sites stumble on most.
The technical ground search engines and AI systems need before they can read a page at all.
Permanent redirect
A response saying a URL has moved permanently. It carries most of the value the old URL built up over to the new one.
In practiceThe most common mistake in a site redesign is shutting old URLs down without redirects; years of visibility disappear at once.
Temporary redirect
A response saying a URL has moved temporarily. Permanent moves use a 301 redirect.
In practiceMaking a permanent URL change with a 302 may not carry the old URL's value to the new one.
A 404 says the URL truly does not exist. A soft 404 is a page that says "not found" but still returns a normal response, so the system cannot tell which it is.
rel=canonical
A tag that names the main URL when the same or very similar content can be reached at several URLs.
In practicewww and non-www, with and without a trailing slash: each version multiplies the same page, and the canonical tag gathers them into one.
Page content built in the browser by JavaScript instead of arriving ready from the server, so the text is not in the source code.
In practiceOn some website builders your article is not in the source at all; audit tools and some bots then cannot see the text.
Cumulative Layout Shift
Content moving around while the page loads, such as text jumping down while someone reads it.
In practiceImages without a set width and height are the most common cause, and a one-line fix.
Three measures of page experience: LCP, how long the largest content takes to appear; CLS, how much the layout shifts; INP, how long the page takes to respond to an interaction.
In practiceAn appointment page that loads slowly on a mobile connection loses the patient, whatever its ranking.
Schema type
The structured data type that describes a page's question-and-answer section.
In practiceAdding questions to the schema that do not appear on the page goes against search engine guidelines; the schema should mirror the page.
A tag that links versions of the same content in different languages and tells search engines which version to show to which visitor.
In practicePractices with pages in two languages, English and Spanish for example, see the versions swap places in results when it is set up incorrectly.
Encrypted transport of traffic between the browser and the server, shown by the lock icon next to the address.
In practiceIf a health site has a form or any contact field, an unencrypted connection is not acceptable.
Interaction to Next Paint
The time between a user's tap or click and the page's visible response. It measures unresponsiveness, not loading time.
In practiceAn appointment form that stalls when tapped is a poor experience even if the page loaded fast.
Largest Contentful Paint
The moment the largest visible element of the page appears on screen; roughly when the user feels the page has opened.
In practiceAim for under 2.5 seconds on mobile. On practice sites the usual culprit is an uncompressed hero image.
Schema type
The structured data type that describes a page with medical content, including its subject, audience and review details.
In practiceOn condition and treatment pages it is a more accurate description than the generic Article type.
Google evaluating a page by its mobile version rather than its desktop version.
In practiceMost health searches happen on phones; content shown on desktop but hidden on mobile is, in practice, ignored.
Schema types
Structured data types that describe the physician and the practice: name, credentials, specialty, address and services offered.
In practiceShowing the information on the page is not enough; to be recognized as an entity, it has to be marked up.
A URL redirecting to another URL that redirects again. Each hop adds delay and loses value.
In practiceChains that pile up after redesigns use up, on the way, the value older articles earned. Point every old URL straight at its final destination.
The file at the site root that says which sections you do not want crawled. It blocks crawling; it does not guarantee that a page stays out of the index.
In practiceIf a page should never appear in results, it needs a noindex tag on the page itself, not a robots.txt rule.
The vocabulary structured data is written in. The most used types on health sites are Physician, MedicalClinic, MedicalWebPage, MedicalCondition, FAQPage, Article and BreadcrumbList.
In practicePicking the wrong type is worse than leaving it empty: mark up what the page really is instead of putting MedicalWebPage on every page.
The server's record of every request made to the site. It shows exactly which bot requested which page, and when.
In practiceThe only way to verify that AI bots actually crawl your site.
JSON-LD
Restating the page's information in a separate code block that machines can understand precisely. JSON-LD is the common format for it.
In practiceEven if your name, credentials, address and services appear in the text, without this block the system has to guess that it is looking at a physician.
Time to First Byte
The time from sending a request until the first data arrives from the server. It reflects the quality of the server and the hosting.
In practiceOn slow shared hosting every speed measure starts from behind, however good the content is.
URL structure
The readable, short, descriptive part of the address that names the topic: lowercase, no accented letters, words separated by hyphens.
In practiceOnce a URL is published it should rarely change; if it must, move it with a 301 redirect.
sitemap.xml
A file listing the site's important URLs with their last update dates. It tells search engines where to look.
In practiceIt speeds up the discovery of new or heavily changed pages; keep one even on a small site.
Patients often search with a place name or "near me", so this is where a practice website sees the most direct effect.
A user asking for directions from the business profile; one of the strongest signals of intent to visit.
In practiceIf calls are low but direction requests are high, patients are coming in without calling first.
The business listing Google shows in Maps and local results: name, address, phone number, hours, category, photos and reviews.
In practiceFor many practices it is viewed more often than the website itself; many first searches start and end on the map.
Your practice's name, address and phone number appearing in directories and listings outside your site. It counts even without a link.
In practiceInconsistent listings are one of the most common problems in map rankings, and one of the easiest to fix.
Map pack
The block of results with a map and, usually, three business listings.
In practiceFor searches such as "urologist near me" it is the most valuable spot on the screen, above the classic website results.
A page for a specific office or city, with its address, directions and service information.
In practiceA physician with one office who produces dozens of town pages runs into doorway page risk.
Name, address, phone
The practice name, address and phone number written exactly the same way everywhere they appear.
In practiceAn old address or number left in a single directory leaves the system unsure which record is right.
The main line of business chosen on the business profile. The single field that most determines which map searches you appear in.
In practiceChoosing the narrowest accurate category, such as "Urologist" instead of "Doctor", makes a clear difference.
Monitoring and responding to patient reviews. The response rate is a signal in itself.
In practiceIn a reply, never mention the patient's treatment, diagnosis or visit, and do not confirm that the reviewer is your patient; that alone can disclose protected health information.
The number, average rating, recency and response rate of the reviews on a business profile.
In practiceCollecting and using patient reviews is sensitive: fake, paid or selectively solicited reviews create risk under platform rules and consumer protection law. See endorsements and testimonials.
The geographic area you serve, defined on the business profile separately from the address.
In practiceKeep it realistic: describe the area patients actually travel from, not every town in the region.
Where visibility turns into numbers. Work that is not measured cannot be managed.
How far back Search Console keeps performance data. Older periods cannot be compared in the panel.
In practiceIf you want comparisons over several years, export the data regularly and keep it.
A record of where things stood before the work started. Every later comparison is made against it.
In practiceWithout a baseline, three months later you cannot tell real improvement from a change of season.
In GA4, the share of sessions that were not engaged; in older tools, the share of visits that viewed one page and left. Neither good nor bad on its own.
In practiceA patient who found the answer and left counts as a bounce too; that is not a failure.
An action on the site that counts as meaningful for the practice: a form submission, a tap on the phone number, a click on a messaging link.
In practiceUntil these events are defined, the return on any visibility work cannot be measured. Setting them up is a small job.
Click-through rate
Clicks divided by impressions: how often a page that appears in results gets chosen.
A visit that lasts beyond a set time, views more than one page or triggers a conversion event.
In practiceWatch this rate more than total sessions; it shows whether the content is actually read.
Recording interactions other than page views, such as scrolls, clicks and video plays, one by one.
In practiceThe three events that matter most on a practice site are calls, forms and messaging links; many sites measure none of them.
Google Analytics 4
Measuring behavior on the site and recording valuable actions, such as phone taps, messages and form submissions, separately.
In practiceThe most common gap on practice sites: visits are counted but contact taps are not, so no one knows which page brings patients. Keep patient health details out of analytics entirely; see HIPAA and GDPR.
Google's free panel for site owners. It shows which queries you appear for, which pages are indexed and which technical problems exist.
In practiceAny judgment about visibility made without it is a guess. Setup takes minutes; do it before any other work, so you have a baseline.
Impressions: how often your page appeared in results. Clicks: how often it was clicked. Average position: where it ranked on average.
In practiceHigh impressions with low clicks point to the title tag and meta description, not to visibility; when both are low, the problem is the content itself.
Anonymized queries
Search Console hiding queries that very few people searched. They count in the totals but do not appear in the query list.
In practiceQuery-level shares are therefore always a floor: "not in the list" is not the same as "never searched".
Visits that arrive by clicking a link on another site.
Analytics tools estimating from part of a large dataset instead of all of it.
In practiceRarely a problem on small sites; if a report does use sampled data, say so.
The record of where a visit came from: a search engine, a social network, direct entry or another site.
In practiceVisits from AI assistants have started to show up separately in this breakdown; track them apart from organic search.
Tags added to the end of a URL that record where a visit came from: source, medium and campaign.
In practiceIf the website link on your business profile is not tagged, traffic from the map shows up as direct visits.
The frame around health advertising and patient data in the US and Europe. Informational, not legal advice: which rules apply depends on where you practice and where your patients are.
Photos comparing a patient before and after treatment. They are among the elements that health advertising rules restrict most clearly.
In practiceIn the US they must not be altered or unrepresentative, and identifiable photos need the patient's written authorization. Several European countries restrict them, especially for cosmetic procedures. Consent alone is not always enough.
BAA
A vendor that creates, receives, stores or transmits protected health information on behalf of a covered entity. HIPAA requires a written business associate agreement (BAA) with such vendors.
In practiceForm builders, scheduling systems, chat widgets and some analytics or advertising tools can fall into this category. If a vendor will not sign an agreement, keep PHI out of that tool.
Permission asked of users before non-essential cookies are set. In the EU and the UK, cookies used only for analytics generally fall under this requirement too.
In practiceSites that avoid cookies and use server-side or cookieless measurement may not need a consent banner; check the rules in the countries you serve.
Under GDPR, the person or organization that decides why and how personal data is processed. The obligations fall on the controller.
In practiceEven if an agency runs the site, when the physician or the practice makes the decisions, the responsibility stays with them.
Patient testimonials
Patient reviews, stories, videos or quotes used to promote a practice. In the US they fall under FTC endorsement guidance and, where patient information is involved, HIPAA; many European professional codes restrict or prohibit them.
In practiceOne of the riskiest areas. A testimonial may not suggest that one patient's result is typical unless you can support that; fake or selectively gathered reviews are unlawful; and using protected health information needs written authorization. Get advice before you use them.
EU Medical Device Regulation
The EU framework that governs medical devices, including CE marking. Among other things, it prohibits claims that mislead about a device's intended purpose, safety or performance.
In practiceIf your page names a device, keep the claims within its CE-marked intended purpose. The manufacturer's marketing text is not necessarily safe to copy.
Consent given through a clear, affirmative statement for a specific purpose, after the person has been informed. A pre-ticked box or a general agreement to terms does not count.
In practiceIt is one of the conditions that can allow health data to be processed under GDPR. Using a patient's story, photo or review in promotion needs its own consent, separate from consent to treatment.
In the US, "approved" means the FDA reviewed evidence of safety and effectiveness, as it does for drugs and high-risk devices. "Cleared" means a device was shown to be substantially equivalent to one already on the market. "Registered" or "listed" says nothing about effectiveness.
In practiceMany devices used in office procedures are cleared, not approved, and writing "FDA approved" for a cleared device is a misleading claim. Check the exact status and the indication before you write it.
General Data Protection Regulation
The EU's data protection framework, which the UK applies in a similar form. It governs how personal data is collected and used and gives people rights over their data.
In practiceOn a practice website it shows up as a privacy notice, a lawful basis for every form, minimal data collection, cookie consent for non-essential cookies and care over where analytics data is sent.
The US federal framework that protects health information held by covered entities, such as most healthcare providers, and by their business associates. It sets rules on privacy, security and breach notification.
In practiceOn a website, HIPAA questions come up mostly around contact and booking forms, patient portals and third-party tracking tools. A public article about a condition is not covered; a form in which a patient describes symptoms can be. See business associate.
Disclosure
Any relationship between an endorser and the business that could affect how people weigh the endorsement: payment, free or discounted treatment, employment, family ties. Under FTC guidance it must be disclosed clearly.
In practiceA review from a staff member, a patient who received a discount or a paid influencer needs a plain disclosure placed where people will see it, not hidden in a footer.
A standard statement that the content is for information only and does not replace diagnosis or treatment by a clinician.
In practicePlace it at the end of every clinical article. It tells readers and reviewers what the page is for; it does not make misleading content acceptable, and it does not replace a medical review line.
Professional codes
In most European countries, a national or regional medical chamber, council or order sets its own rules on how physicians may present themselves. Factual information is usually allowed; comparative, laudatory or misleading promotion usually is not.
In practiceThere is no single European rule: the same page can be acceptable in one country and not in another. If you practice or advertise across borders, check the code of each country involved.
Promoting a drug or device for a use, dose or patient group that the regulator has not approved or cleared. Physicians may generally use products off label in their clinical judgment; promoting that use is restricted, most strictly for manufacturers.
In practiceOn a practice site, describe an off-label treatment accurately as such, do not suggest regulatory approval, and do not present it as established when the evidence is limited.
A promise of a specific result: "guaranteed", "100% success", "no risk", "permanent cure". Medicine rarely allows that certainty, so such claims are treated as misleading in most jurisdictions.
In practiceDescribe results in terms of what is typical and what the evidence shows, and name the risks.
In the EU, advertising prescription-only medicines to the general public is prohibited. In the US, manufacturers may advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers under FDA rules.
In practiceIn a treatment article for a European audience, use generic names and neutral wording; a brand-name drug praised on a practice page can read as advertising.
Privacy policy
The text explaining what personal data is collected, for what purpose, how long it is kept and who receives it, provided when the data is collected. US covered entities also provide a Notice of Privacy Practices under HIPAA.
In practiceThe minimum document every practice website with a contact form needs.
Information vs. advertising
The line at which informational health content turns into advertising. In the US, physician advertising must be truthful and backed by evidence under FTC standards and state medical board rules; in most European countries, professional codes allow factual information and restrict promotion more tightly. What pushes a page over the line: superiority claims, an outcome guarantee, before-and-after images, discounts and price pushes, and repeated calls to book.
In practiceThe test for a practice page is not "does it sell well" but "does it stay informational". One plain line on how to make an appointment is enough in an informational article, and the same topic, without the claim language, can almost always be written as information. For the rules that bind you, check with your state medical board or your national medical chamber.
PHI
Individually identifiable health information held by a covered entity or a business associate: anything that links a person to a condition, a treatment or payment for care, including names, photos, dates and contact details connected with care.
In practiceConfirming that someone is your patient, for example in a reply to an online review, can itself disclose PHI. Using a patient's photo or story in marketing generally requires the patient's written authorization.
Personal data that GDPR protects more strictly, including data concerning health. Processing it is prohibited unless a specific condition applies, such as explicit consent or the provision of healthcare.
In practiceA contact form in which a patient describes symptoms collects health data. Ask only for what you need, and do not route that data into analytics or advertising tools.
The body that licenses and disciplines physicians in a US state. Many state boards treat false or misleading advertising as grounds for discipline and set rules on how specialty and certification may be stated.
In practiceRules differ from state to state. Many boards limit the phrase "board certified" to certification by a recognized specialty board, and some require specific disclosures in advertising. Read your own board's advertising rules before launching a site or a campaign.
The evidence an advertiser must have before making a claim. For health claims, US regulators generally expect competent and reliable scientific evidence.
In practice"Proven", "clinically shown", "painless" and "permanent results" each need evidence you can point to. If you cannot cite it, soften the claim or remove it.
Words that rank you above others: "best", "leading", "number one", "the only", "most experienced". Unless they can be objectively verified, they are treated as misleading.
In practiceThey also weaken patients' trust. Replace them with facts that can be checked: training, board certification, years in practice, the procedures you perform.
FTC standard
The US Federal Trade Commission principle that advertising must be truthful, must not mislead and must be backed by evidence. It applies to health services and to the online content that promotes them.
In practiceA practice website, social post or video that promotes a service is advertising in this sense. What counts is the overall impression on a reasonable patient, not whether each sentence is technically true.
Your Money or Your Life
Topics such as health, law and finance, where wrong information can cause real harm. Google's quality guidelines hold them to a noticeably higher standard.
In practiceAll clinical content falls here. A text that is fine on a cooking blog can be judged inadequate on a health site.
The second format physicians produce most. Video follows its own rules in search and on AI surfaces.
Splitting a video into timestamped sections. Viewers jump to the part they want, and the platform understands the content better.
In practiceA simple edit that helps viewers stay with long explainer videos.
Short, vertical videos. People find them through recommendation feeds more than through subscriptions.
In practiceShort videos that give one answer to one patient question reach a wider audience than long explainers.
The cover image a video shows in lists. It directly affects how often the video is clicked.
In practiceIn health content, exaggerated text and disturbing images put viewers off and can conflict with advertising rules.
The spoken content of a video in written form. The most reliable way for machines to read what a video says.
In practicePutting the transcript on the page as text makes the video visible in search and on AI surfaces too.
Setting up a video's title, description, tags and text so it can be found both on the video platform and in search results.
In practicePhysician videos are often well made, but their descriptions are left empty; that is where most of the loss is.
Schema type
The structured data type that describes a video on a page: title, duration, upload date and a link to the transcript.
In practiceEmbedding a video is not enough; without markup, its chance of appearing in the video block of search results is lower.
The total time viewers spend watching a video. For platforms it weighs more than the view count.
In practiceAnswering the question within the first thirty seconds is one of the most effective habits for watch time.
The entries explain what each concept is. How to apply them on a practice website, in what order, with checklists and templates, is covered in the handbook Medical Visibility: SEO, AEO and GEO for Healthcare Websites. A Practical Handbook.
About the handbook · Check your article · Scope and limits
Definitions are for information only. The entries under Rules and limits are not legal advice and do not cover every jurisdiction; for a binding assessment, consult a health law attorney, your state medical board or your national medical chamber.