Every technical term in your reports, explained in plain words — and above all why it affects your sales. No jargon: if a word trips you up, it's here.
Indexing is the process by which Google files a page into its huge catalogue so it can offer it in response to a search.
If a page isn't indexed, it simply doesn't exist for Google: nobody can find it through search, so it generates no organic sales.
↑ Back to topnoindex is a small technical instruction placed in a page's code. It explicitly tells Google: “never show this page in your search results”.
On a product page it's a serious, often invisible failure: the page stays online and works for visitors, but it has completely vanished from Google. It's almost always set by mistake (an SEO app, an import, a theme change).
↑ Back to topThe canonical tag designates the reference URL of a page when several addresses show identical or very similar content (variants, filters, tracking parameters).
If it points to the wrong page, Google may index a version you didn't want, or split your page's ranking strength across several addresses.
↑ Back to topStructured data (often in JSON-LD format) is a block of code, invisible to visitors, that precisely describes your product to Google: name, price, availability, rating, currency.
It's what lets Google show rich results (price, stars, stock) right in the search page. Missing or broken markup means no rich result, so a page that's less visible and less clicked than a competitor's.
↑ Back to topA rich result is a listing that appears in Google with extra information beyond the plain title: price, review stars, availability, image.
These draw the eye and sharply increase click-through. Losing them (through broken markup) turns you into an ordinary blue link among competitors who do show their stars and prices.
↑ Back to topRobots directives are instructions to search engines, placed either in a meta robots tag in the page or in an X-Robots-Tag server header.
They can, among other things: block indexing (noindex), hide the snippet in results (nosnippet), exclude images (noimageindex) or stop links being followed (nofollow). Misconfigured, they quietly degrade your Google presence.
hreflang is a signal that links together the versions of a page in different languages or countries (for example your French page and its English version).
Set up well, it lets Google show the right version to the right customer. Set up badly, it can show your English page to a French customer (or vice versa), hurting experience and conversion.
↑ Back to topCore Web Vitals are three user-experience measures tracked by Google: LCP (time until the main content shows), INP (responsiveness to clicks) and CLS (stability — the page doesn't “jump” while loading).
A slow or unstable page loses visitors before checkout and can be slightly demoted by Google. It's a direct lever on mobile conversion.
↑ Back to topMixed content is when a page served over HTTPS (secure) loads an element — script, image, style — via an insecure http:// address.
Modern browsers flat-out block active mixed resources: a script or widget can therefore stop working (empty review counter, dead button) with no visible error message for you.
↑ Back to toprobots.txt is a small file at the root of your site that tells search engines which parts they're allowed to crawl.
An overly broad rule can accidentally block crawling of your product pages or whole collections — Google then no longer sees them at all.
↑ Back to topA sitemap is a file listing your store's important pages to help Google discover and crawl them efficiently.
If it's missing, incomplete or erroring, some pages can take a long time to be discovered — or never be.
↑ Back to topThe GTIN is a product's international identifier (the number under the barcode, EAN/UPC).
Google Merchant Center uses it to recognise a product and match it against competing offers. A wrong or invalid GTIN can get your product disapproved in Google Shopping.
↑ Back to topMerchant Center is the Google tool that receives your product catalogue to display it in the Shopping tab and related campaigns.
An inconsistency on your listing (mismatched price, currency, availability, GTIN) can lead to the product being disapproved — it then disappears from Shopping.
↑ Back to topA 301 redirect permanently signals that a page has changed address: visitors and Google are automatically sent to the new URL.
It's the right method when a product is renamed or removed. Without it, an old link leads to an error page (404) and the ranking built up on the old address is lost.
↑ Back to topA 404 error means the requested address matches no page: the visitor hits a “page not found”.
On a product page still listed as active, a 404 means an impossible sale and a negative quality signal to Google, which eventually drops the page from results.
↑ Back to topReview stars come from AggregateRating markup that declares a product's average rating and review count to Google.
They clearly lift click-through. But if the markup declares a rating with no real reviews behind it, Google may reject it and, if repeated, penalise the listing.
↑ Back to topStoreCanary checks these points across your whole catalog, every night, and alerts you the same day with the fix ready to apply.
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