Loading
Skip to content
See how merchants use Ordiko
Ordiko
  • Solutions
  • About
  • Pricing
  • Compare
Get Started FreeBook Demo
Loading

We value your privacy

We use cookies to improve your experience, analyze site traffic, and personalize content. You can accept all cookies or choose which categories to allow. Learn more

Glossary

E-commerce vocabulary, decoded

Concise definitions for the terms commerce operators run into every day.

A

  • AEO — Answer Engine OptimizationAEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing content to be cited by AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
  • AggregateRatingAggregateRating is a schema.org structured data property representing the average rating value and total count of reviews for an item, used to display star ratings in search results.
  • AI OverviewAI Overview is Google's generative AI answer that appears at the top of Search Engine Results Pages for many queries, presenting a summary with citations to 1–5 source web pages.

B

  • BreadcrumbA breadcrumb is a navigation pattern displaying the hierarchical path to the current page (Home > Category > Subcategory > Product), with corresponding BreadcrumbList structured data for search engines.

C

  • Cache ComponentsCache Components is a Next.js 16 model for opting individual components into caching using the 'use cache' directive plus cacheLife and cacheTag primitives, enabling fine-grained cache control.
  • Canonical URLA canonical URL is the preferred URL for a page when multiple URLs serve substantially the same content, signaled via the rel='canonical' link element.
  • CLS — Cumulative Layout ShiftCLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) is a Core Web Vitals metric measuring the visual stability of a page through the sum of unexpected layout shifts that occur during the lifespan of the page.
  • Core Web VitalsCore Web Vitals is Google's set of three user-experience metrics — LCP, INP, and CLS — used as a page-experience ranking signal and as standalone performance quality indicators.
  • CTR — Click-Through RateCTR (Click-Through Rate) is the ratio of clicks to impressions for a URL in search results, expressed as a percentage.

E

  • E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, TrustworthinessE-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is Google's quality rubric for evaluating content and the source behind it, also influencing how AI engines decide which sources to cite.
  • Edge renderingEdge rendering is a rendering strategy that executes server-side code at CDN edge points-of-presence (POPs) geographically close to the user, minimizing Time to First Byte (TTFB) compared to origin-rendered alternatives.

F

  • FAQ schema (FAQPage)FAQ schema (FAQPage in schema.org) is structured data for question-and-answer content, signaling that a page contains a list of questions and answers eligible for FAQ rich snippets and AI citation.
  • Featured snippetA featured snippet is a direct-answer block at the top of Google's SERP (often called 'position zero') that displays a paragraph, list, or table extracted from a single web page.

G

  • GEO — Generative Engine OptimizationGEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing content to surface in generative AI responses, including being cited as a source.
  • Google Merchant CenterGoogle Merchant Center is Google's product catalog platform that powers paid Shopping ads and free shopping placements (Shopping carousel, Image Search, Google Lens) across Google's surfaces.

H

  • Headless commerceHeadless commerce is an architecture where the commerce backend (catalog, orders, inventory) and the storefront frontend are decoupled, communicating via GraphQL or REST APIs.
  • HreflangHreflang is an HTML attribute (or equivalent XML sitemap or HTTP header annotation) that signals to search engines which language and region a page targets.

I

  • IndexNowIndexNow is an open protocol for instantly notifying search engines of URL changes, supported by Bing, Yandex, Seznam, and Naver.
  • INP — Interaction to Next PaintINP (Interaction to Next Paint) is a Core Web Vitals metric measuring the longest interaction-to-paint latency on a page during the user's visit, replacing FID in March 2024.
  • ISR — Incremental Static RegenerationISR (Incremental Static Regeneration) is a Next.js rendering strategy that pre-renders static pages at build time and revalidates them incrementally — on a schedule, on demand, or via tag invalidation — without rebuilding the entire site.

J

  • JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a JSON-based format for embedding structured data in web pages, and the recommended way to emit schema.org markup.

L

  • LCP — Largest Contentful PaintLCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is a Core Web Vitals metric measuring the time from page navigation until the largest visible content element renders on screen.
  • llms.txtllms.txt is a Markdown file at the root of a domain that provides AI engines with a curated index of the site's content, structured like a hybrid of robots.txt and sitemap.xml.

M

  • Merchant return policy (hasMerchantReturnPolicy)hasMerchantReturnPolicy is a schema.org structured data property describing a merchant's return policy, required for Google Product rich-result eligibility starting in 2026.
  • Multi-storeMulti-store is an ecommerce capability where a single account operates multiple distinct storefronts — each with its own catalog, theme, domain, locales, and SEO settings — under unified administration.
  • Multi-tenant SaaSMulti-tenant SaaS is a software-as-a-service architecture where one application instance serves multiple isolated customer accounts (tenants), with logical or physical separation of each tenant's data.

O

  • Organic trafficOrganic traffic is website visits coming from unpaid search engine results, excluding paid ads, direct navigation, referral links, social media, and email.

P

  • PPR — Partial Pre-RenderingPPR (Partial Pre-Rendering) is a Next.js rendering strategy that combines static pre-rendered HTML shells with dynamic streamed islands, delivering fast first paint plus per-user freshness.
  • Product schemaProduct schema is the schema.org structured data type for ecommerce products, providing search engines with name, image, price, availability, brand, ratings, and 2026-required policy fields.

R

  • Rich snippetA rich snippet is an enhanced search result that displays additional information — star ratings, prices, images, availability, breadcrumbs — beyond the standard title, URL, and description.
  • robots.txtrobots.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a domain (`/robots.txt`) that tells crawlers which paths they may or may not access, following the Robots Exclusion Protocol.

S

  • Schema.orgSchema.org is a collaborative vocabulary of structured data types and properties that search engines (and AI engines) use to understand the meaning of web content.
  • Search Console (Google Search Console)Google Search Console (GSC) is Google's free webmaster platform for monitoring a site's search performance, index coverage, structured data, hreflang, and Core Web Vitals.
  • SERP — Search Engine Results PageSERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the page of results a search engine returns for a given query, including organic blue links, rich snippets, paid ads, AI Overviews, and special features like Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels, and image carousels.
  • Shipping details (OfferShippingDetails)shippingDetails is a schema.org structured data property on Offer describing shipping rates, destinations, and delivery times, required for Google Product rich-result eligibility starting in 2026.
  • SitemapA sitemap is an XML file enumerating the URLs on a site, used by search engines to discover, prioritize, and schedule crawl of those pages.
  • SSG — Static Site GenerationSSG (Static Site Generation) is a rendering strategy where pages are pre-rendered to HTML at build time and served as static files from a CDN, providing maximum performance and resilience but no per-request freshness.
  • SSR — Server-Side RenderingSSR (Server-Side Rendering) is a rendering strategy where HTML is generated on the server for each incoming request, delivering a fully-formed page to the browser rather than relying on client-side JavaScript to render content.
  • Structured dataStructured data is machine-readable annotation embedded in web pages that describes the page's content semantically — what is a product, who is the author, when was it published, what is it about.

T

  • TTFB — Time to First ByteTTFB (Time to First Byte) is a performance metric measuring the time from request initiation to the arrival of the first byte of the response, indicating server and network responsiveness.
Ordiko

Multi-tenant e-commerce platform for businesses of all sizes.

San Francisco, CA, United States

Stay updated

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Platform

  • Features
  • Solutions
  • Pricing
  • Compare

Resources

  • Blog
  • Guides
  • Customers
  • Glossary
  • Help center
  • Changelog

Company

  • About
  • Team
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Cookie Policy
SOC 2
GDPR
99.9% SLA

© 2026 Ordiko. All rights reserved.

Privacy PolicyTerms of ServiceCookie Policy
Book Demo