The contractor's jargon decoder

This page is every word the web-and-marketing industry throws at you, translated into plain English. No sales pitch gets to hide behind a word you can look up.

Use it like a parts list: search the page. On a phone, your browser's find-on-page. On a computer, Ctrl+F. Type the word, read the plain version, get back to the call.

Every term links the page that teaches it in full — the definition here is the truck-bed version; the link is the whole lesson. A few words have no deeper page because this page is their home. Those are marked.

Getting found (search, maps, socials)

Appeal / reinstatement

The one formal request you get when Google pulls your listing: here's my proof, put me back.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-suspended/

Backlink

A link on somebody else's website that points at yours. Google counts them when it sizes up how established you are.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/seo-plain-english/ and /learn/found-locally/not-showing-up/ — the idea is taught there in plainer words; the word itself lives here.

Citation

Any place online that lists your business name, address, and phone number. A directory entry, a map listing — each one counts.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/five-places-address/

Distance / proximity

One of the dials Google turns for the map: how close you are to the person searching. The map centers on their couch, not your shop.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/not-showing-up/

Duplicate listing

A second Google listing for your one business, splitting your reviews between two boards.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/self-inspection/

Facebook Page vs. personal profile

Your profile is you. A Page is the separate public thing a business runs, controlled from behind a profile. Customers find the Page.

Taught on: /learn/socials/facebook-page/

Fake listing / spoofed number

A map listing for a business that doesn't exist — or one wearing your name with somebody else's number on it.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/fake-listings/

GBP chat & Q&A box

Features that once let searchers message your listing or post questions on it. Google shut both down — there's no message box to man anymore.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/google-listing-messages/

Google Business Profile (GBP)

Your free listing on Google's map and search results — hours, phone, photos, reviews. Works with or without a website.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-setup/

Google Posts / Updates

Short announcements — an offer, an event, a heads-up — shown on your listing's Updates area.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-posts/

Incognito / private window

A browser window that forgets who you are. It shows roughly what a stranger sees when they search you, though it still guesses your location.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/where-customers-look/

Insights

The built-in dashboard on a social account showing who saw your posts and what they did about it.

Taught on: /learn/socials/instagram-visual-trades/

Keyword

The words a person types into the search box. Ads bid on them; search work aims at them.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/google-ads-one-truck-shop/

Knowledge panel

The information box Google builds about a business on the results page. You don't build it — Google assembles it from what it knows.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/the-name-check/

Map pack / three-pack / local pack

Three names for the same thing: the box under the map with the three businesses Google picked for that search.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/not-showing-up/

Meta Verified

A paid monthly subscription that buys a checkmark and some support. Not the free steps that prove your business is real.

Taught on: /learn/socials/facebook-page/

Name / keyword stuffing

Bolting extra words onto your business name field — town, trade, "24/7." Google wants the real name only; stuffing can get the listing suspended.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-setup/

NAP consistency

NAP is Name, Address, Phone. Consistency means those three read identically everywhere online, so you don't look like two businesses.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/five-places-address/

Nextdoor recommendation / Fave

A recommendation is a neighbor naming your business in a post. A Fave is just a follow — a bookmark that looks like an endorsement.

Taught on: /learn/socials/nextdoor/

Postcard verification

The old way Google proved you were real: a code mailed to your address. Rare now — the video check is what trades get handed today — but don't bin a code if one arrives.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-setup/

Primary category

The one box on your listing that answers "what IS this business." It decides which searches you can show up for at all.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/categories-and-services/

Professional mode

A switch that dresses a personal profile up with business tools. Not a Page — some tools won't work with it.

Taught on: /learn/socials/facebook-page/

Prominence

Another map dial: how well-known you are, fed by things like reviews and other sites pointing at you.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/not-showing-up/

Ranking (local)

Where Google decides to place you when somebody searches. Decides is the key word — a spot can't be requested, bought, or promised.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/not-showing-up/

Recommendation algorithm

The sorting software that decides whose posts get shown, and to whom.

Taught on: /learn/socials/instagram-visual-trades/

Reels / carousels / Stories

Reels are short videos. Carousels are the swipe-through photo sets. Stories are the posts that don't stick around.

Taught on: /learn/socials/instagram-visual-trades/

Relevance

The first map dial: how well your listing's fields match what the person typed.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/not-showing-up/

SEM

Search Engine Marketing — getting found on search by paying, mostly ads. When a vendor's title says "SEM manager," the job is spending your ad money.

Taught on: right here — this is the word's home.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization — showing up when people search. Under the mystery it's a checklist of real, nameable work, not a spell.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/seo-plain-english/

Service-area business

A business that drives to customers instead of customers walking in. On Google, that means hiding your home address and naming the towns you cover.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/service-area-or-storefront/

Services list

The your-own-words field on your listing for the line items you do. The category says what you ARE; this says what you HAVE.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/categories-and-services/

Suspended / disabled profile

Your listing pulled off the board because something tripped a rule. It stays down until you clear it.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-suspended/

Verification (video)

Google's prove-you're-real check, these days usually one live, unedited take on your phone camera. Google picks the method; you don't.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-setup/

Virtual office

A rented mailing address you don't actually work from. Google treats it like a PO box — a suspension tripwire.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/gbp-setup/

Website mechanics

Accessibility / screen reader

Whether somebody who can't see the screen can still use your page. A screen reader speaks the page out loud — built wrong, it reads nothing.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

Brochure site

The basic tier of website: proves you're real, names your trade and towns, shows your number. Nobody at that tier promises the phone rings.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/what-web-work-costs/

Builder subdomain / free URL

The free address with the builder's name baked in. Stop paying and your address reverts to theirs — it was never yours.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/rent-vs-own/

Canonical

When several addresses show the same page, the canonical one is the address you've told Google to treat as the real copy.

Taught on: right here — the word appears in a Google quote on /learn/your-website/inspect-the-work/; this is where it gets defined.

Doorway page

A page built to catch a search, not to help the person who lands on it.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/city-pages/

Export

What you can carry out the door when you leave a website builder. Some let you take a partial copy, some nothing.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

Hosting / host

The computer your website's files sit on, and the company running it. Separate from the company holding your domain name — the two get confused on purpose.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

Hub-and-spoke

A way of building a site: one main page answers the big question plainly, and every deeper question gets its own linked page.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/what-web-work-costs/

Iframe

A window inside your page showing a piece of another page — picture-in-picture for websites. What's in the frame runs walled off from the rest.

Taught on: right here — this is the word's home.

Indexed / crawled

Crawled means Google's software read your page. Indexed means Google filed it where search results get pulled from. Neither is ever guaranteed.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/inspect-the-work/

Landing page

Whatever page a searcher hits first. Its one job is turning that visit into a phone call or a filled-out form.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/city-pages/

Lighthouse

Google's free automated once-over of a web page — speed, accessibility, basics — run by software, scored in the open.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

PageSpeed Insights / Largest Contentful Paint

PageSpeed Insights is Google's free speed test. Largest Contentful Paint is its main stopwatch: how long until the biggest thing on the page shows.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/self-inspection/

Plugin

A bolt-on that gives a website a feature it didn't come with. WordPress sites get most of their moving parts this way.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Schema / structured data

Labels in a page's code telling machines what each thing is — this is the name, this is the address, this is a service.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/read-a-proposal/

Sitemap

The list of your pages you hand Google so it knows what exists. Handing it over guarantees nothing.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/inspect-the-work/

SSL / security certificate

What puts the padlock in the browser's address bar: it scrambles the connection so nobody in between can read what passes. A basic utility, like a relief valve.

Taught on: right here — the word shows up bare on care-plan price lists everywhere; this is where it gets explained.

Stock photos

Posed pictures marketers buy — the smiling model in the clean hard hat. Banned on your Google listing; on a website they read as nobody-home.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/job-photos/

Tap-to-call

Your number built as a button that actually dials when tapped — not printed text, not a picture of a number.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/self-inspection/

Template

A pre-designed page your name and photos drop into. Fast and cheap because the bones are the same as every other shop that bought it.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

URL Inspection / Request Indexing

The Search Console button that asks Google to come read a page. Asking is all it does — asking twice doesn't speed it up.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/inspect-the-work/

Walled garden

A system that's easy to move into and hard to move out of. The hard way out is the real price.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

Website builder (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy)

A website you rent and edit yourself. Template in, live the same afternoon. What you save in money you pay in ownership.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

WordPress

Website software you — or your web person — run yourselves instead of renting from a builder. Most features come from plugins.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

Domains & email

60-day lock

Change the owner name or email on a domain's record and it can't move registrars for 60 days. Transfer first, tidy the paperwork after.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

A record

The line in your domain's settings pointing visitors at wherever your website lives. The website switch.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/email-own-domain/

Auth-Code / transfer code

The one-time code proving a domain transfer request is real. The registrar holding your domain owes it to you once you ask.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

Auto-renew & teaser pricing

The cheap first year that quietly renews at whatever they charge later. The anniversary bill is the real price.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/day-one-track/

DNS record (TXT / CNAME)

A line of text pasted into your domain's settings — usually to prove to some tool that you own the site.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Domain

The address people type to reach you. Think of it as the title to your patch of the internet — who holds it controls everything else.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

Domain ending (TLD)

The part after the dot — .com and the rest. Different endings renew at very different prices, so check the renewal, not the teaser.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/diy-builders/

Domain expiration / lapse

Let the name fully lapse and it drops back onto the open market, where anyone — including a competitor — can buy it.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

Domain privacy (REDACTED FOR PRIVACY)

A masking service hiding the owner's name in the public record. It hides a vendor's name exactly as well as yours — the billing settles ownership, not the mask.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/ownership-control/

Domain transfer

Moving your domain to a registrar you choose. The owner's right — a vendor ignoring the request doesn't stop it.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

ICANN

The nonprofit whose written rules govern domain names worldwide. Every registrar answers to those rules.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

MX records

The lines in your domain's settings telling the world where to deliver your email. The email switch.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/email-own-domain/

Nameservers

The domain's master switchboard. Point it somewhere new and the website and email switches move with it — how a site change can silently kill a company's email.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/email-own-domain/

Registrant

The owner named on a domain's record. Ends like "tenant." The registrant decides everything about the domain.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

Registrar

The company keeping a domain's official record. Ends like "car." The county clerk of your domain, not the owner of it.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

Registrar of record / reseller

Sometimes a web guy buys your domain through a middleman. The wholesale registrar underneath still answers to the owner — that's the door when the middleman goes quiet.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

SPF / DKIM / DMARC

Three records that vouch your email really comes from your domain. Your email host generates them; you paste them in once.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/email-own-domain/

WHOIS / ICANN lookup

The free, official public lookup showing who's on a domain's record. Anyone can run it on any domain. Especially yours.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/web-guy-vanished/

Numbers & tracking

Admin access (ad account)

The top permission level on an ad account — sees billing, users, every campaign. Every level below is a partial view.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/google-ads-one-truck-shop/

AI Assistants bucket

The report bucket where Analytics files visitors sent by AI chat tools. It catches some, not all — a low number doesn't mean nobody came.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/reading-your-numbers/

Analytics 360

The paid, big-company version of Google Analytics. The free version covers a contractor's site — so this word on an invoice earns a hard look.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Bots / crawlers

Automated visitors — software walking your site instead of people. Analytics filters the ones that announce themselves; the rest get counted like customers.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/reading-your-numbers/

Close rate

Of the people who contacted you, the share you actually booked. Counted off your own call log, not anybody's dashboard.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/one-math-judges-every-machine/

Conversion

Ad-world word for a visit turning into the thing you wanted — a call, a form fill, a booking. First question when a vendor says it: which of those are you counting?

Taught on: right here — this is the word's home.

Cost per closed job

What you spent on a channel over a stretch, divided by the jobs it closed. The one math that judges every lead machine on the same scale.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/one-math-judges-every-machine/

Direct traffic

The bucket for visitors who typed your address in — plus everyone who arrived untraceably. The junk drawer of traffic reports.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/reading-your-numbers/

Events (generate_lead, form_submit)

Named actions Analytics counts as leads — a form going through, a tap on your number. The names in the code decide what gets counted.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Form fill

A completed contact form. Money-column number, next to phone calls — a real person asked you for work.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/reading-a-report/

Google Analytics (GA4)

Google's free tool showing what people did once they reached your site. Yours to read, in your own account.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Impressions

How many times something showed up on a screen. Appeared. Nobody clicked, called, or hired. An impression has never once bought a water heater.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/read-a-proposal/

Internal traffic filter / IP address

Your IP address is your own connection's number. Label it in Analytics and switch the filter on, or you count yourself as a customer.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Manual actions report

The Search Console page saying whether a human at Google penalized your site. Green check means no human penalty — the automatic systems still act silently.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-ai-seo-scam/

Measurement ID

The "G-" code tying your website to your Analytics account. The thread — cut it or mistype it and the numbers stop.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Organic search

The bucket for unpaid search results. As of mid-2026, traffic from Google's AI answers gets filed in this same bucket, which can hide a real change under a steady-looking number.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/seo-plain-english/

Property (Domain vs. URL-prefix)

Your site as a Google tool sees it when you add it. Domain covers every version of your address at once; URL-prefix covers one exact spelling.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Realtime report

The live view in Analytics — the is-it-wired-up check. Open your own site on your phone and watch the visit appear.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Search Console

Google's free tool showing what people typed into Google before they found you. The other half of the picture from Analytics.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Search-terms report

The list of actual words people typed that your ad money paid for. Where the junk clicks show their faces.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/google-ads-one-truck-shop/

Tag Manager

Google's separate tool for juggling many tracking codes at once. One site with one Analytics code doesn't need the extra layer.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Tracking number / call tracking

A forwarding number a vendor installs so their dashboard can count your calls. It's theirs — it dies the day you part ways, so it never replaces the number customers know.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/ownership-control/

Vanity metrics

Numbers that count activity instead of money — clicks, reach, "visibility." They can all climb while the phone sits silent.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/reading-a-report/

Web data stream

The per-website feed inside an Analytics property. The property is the filing cabinet; the stream is the folder for one site.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/setting-up-numbers/

Ads & lead-gen

Background check (LSA screening)

The screening required for Google's pay-per-lead program. It reaches every worker who enters a customer's home, and one fail can sideline the whole shop.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/local-services-ads/

Boosted post

Paying a platform to push one of your regular posts in front of more people. Same post, wider throw, billed for the throw.

Taught on: right here — this is the word's home.

Carrier registration (A2P 10DLC)

The mandatory sign-up before a business can send automated texts. Nothing sends until it clears.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/missed-call-text-back/

Google Ads

Buying clicks on Google searches, billed per click. Clicks — not calls, not jobs.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/google-ads-one-truck-shop/

Google Guarantee

A money-back badge Google retired. The name still comes up on sales calls because the ghost of it still sells.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/local-services-ads/

Google Verified badge

The current badge: Google checked and screened the business. It says nothing about anybody getting their money back.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/local-services-ads/

Lead credit / Feedback Survey

The path for disputing a junk-lead charge. What counts as creditable is narrower than what feels like junk.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/local-services-ads/

Local Services Ads (LSA)

Google's pay-per-lead row at the top of local results. Charged when a real person calls or messages, not per click.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/local-services-ads/

Maximum / average CPC, bid adjustments

The maximum is the per-click cap you set. The average is what actually gets charged. Budget off the average.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/google-ads-one-truck-shop/

Missed-call text-back

An automatic text that goes out when a call to you rings out. Fine tool — as long as it runs on a number and account you own.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/missed-call-text-back/

Number porting

Moving your phone number from one service to another. Your right, and it works — on the carriers' clocks, not yours.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/missed-call-text-back/

Pay-per-click / CPC

Billed every time somebody taps the ad — call or no call. CPC is cost per click: the tap is the product.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/google-ads-one-truck-shop/

Pay-per-contact

Thumbtack's version of the meter: the charge fires the moment somebody reaches out, before a word is said about the job.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/thumbtack-and-pay-per-contact/

Pay-per-lead

A billing model: charged for each contact delivered, job or no job.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/

Review filter / "not recommended"

Yelp software that hides some of your earned reviews out of the visible count. The hidden ones sit behind a small link at the bottom of the page.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/yelp-the-meter/

Shared lead

One homeowner's request sold to several contractors at once. Everybody paid; the fastest dialer wins; the rest bought a busy signal.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/angi-and-homeadvisor/

Split test

Running two channels head-to-head over the same stretch and letting cost per closed job pick the winner.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/fee-versus-ads-split-test/

Valid lead

On pay-per-lead platforms, a contact that bills. Valid means a real person reached out — price-shoppers bill the same as buyers.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/local-services-ads/

Yelp Ads

Pay-per-click ads on Yelp, drawn against a monthly budget.

Taught on: /learn/lead-machines/yelp-the-meter/

Vendor-world words

Arbitration

Settling a dispute in front of a private referee instead of a court. The clause in a contract means you agreed to that path before any problem existed.

Taught on: right here — /learn/vendor-defense/leaving-clean/ tells you to hunt for the word; this is what it means.

Astroturf / planted peer

A staged show of grassroots support: a recommendation someone was paid to make, posted under a name that reads like an ordinary customer's. The friendly fellow-contractor in the group who just happens to know a great agency.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-planted-peer/

Auto-renewal clause

The contract line that renews you automatically when the cancel window slips past. One signature that keeps re-signing itself on your behalf.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/contract-red-flags/

BBB complaint database

The Better Business Bureau's searchable public file of complaints. Complaints get forwarded to the business, which gets a window to respond — read both halves.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/background-check-a-vendor/

Caller-ID spoofing

Putting any name or number on caller ID. Anyone can do it, so the caller ID settles nothing — either way.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/why-the-calls-started/

Care plan

A monthly tier covering upkeep only — updates, backups, the security certificate. Maintenance, not growth.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/what-web-work-costs/

Chargeback / card dispute

Telling the card company, in writing, to claw back a charge. The letter — not the phone call — is what starts the clocks.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/fighting-the-bill/

Data brokers / scraped filings

Outfits that pull public records — like your LLC filing — into call lists and sell them. That's how the calls found you.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/why-the-calls-started/

Deliverables

The actual built things a fee bought — pages, listings, fixes you can point at. If nobody can point at them, they weren't delivered; they were described.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/reading-a-report/

Do Not Call Registry

The federal do-not-call list — for personal phone lines. It does almost nothing for the shop line.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/make-the-calls-stop/

Exit clause / early-termination cost

What leaving a contract early costs, spelled out in the paper. Do the arithmetic and say the number out loud before signing.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/read-a-proposal/

Fake / incentivized reviews (FTC rule, 16 CFR 465)

Reviews that were bought, traded for a discount, machine-written and passed off as a real customer's, or posted by someone with no real experience of the business. A federal rule — 16 CFR Part 465 — bans creating, buying, or selling them.

Taught on: /learn/reviews/fake-review-economy/

Franchise territory

The stretch of map a franchise agreement hands you, along with the right to use the brand name inside it.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-franchise-trap/

Independent audit

A flat-price inspection of your marketing from somebody who does not sell the repair. The not-selling-the-repair part is the entire value.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/reading-a-report/

Internal do-not-call list

The stop-calling-me request you make to one specific company, which it's required to honor. Works on the callers the federal registry doesn't cover.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/make-the-calls-stop/

Notice window

How many days before renewal your cancellation has to land — by the exact method the contract names. Miss it and the auto-renewal clause does the rest.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/leaving-clean/

"Ongoing optimization" (fog words)

The phrase that bills monthly for work nobody can name, point at, or check. When the deliverable is a mood, the invoice is the only concrete thing you get.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/read-a-proposal/

Ownership clause

The contract line naming what's yours when it's over — your files, domain, phone number, listing, and the right to walk with all of it. Not in writing there? Assume no.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/read-a-proposal/

PACER

The federal court-records system, where lawsuits involving a vendor show up. The one background check that needs an account.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/background-check-a-vendor/

Private-equity roll-up

An investment outfit buying up independent shops, often keeping each local name on the door. The hometown company you think you're calling may be a branch office.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-wolves/

Proprietary platform

Their system, rented to you. Cancel, and the website stays behind while you start over somewhere else.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-scam-names/

QR code

A web link printed as a square of pixels. A phone camera reads it and the page opens.

Taught on: /learn/reviews/qr-cards-and-invoices/

Report theater

Our name for the glowing monthly report over a quiet phone. Charts up and to the right, jobs flat.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-scam-names/

Retainer

A set fee you pay every month for work that's supposed to keep going. Whether the month actually earned it is a separate question.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/what-web-work-costs/

Review gating

Screening who's happy before deciding who gets asked to review. That filter is the banned move.

Taught on: /learn/reviews/review-every-job/

Review link

The direct write-a-review link pulled from your own Google listing. Yours, free, and it keeps working no matter who you hire or fire.

Taught on: /learn/reviews/qr-cards-and-invoices/

Review suppression

Showing only your positive reviews while implying that's all of them. Displaying the good ones is fine; pretending the rest don't exist is the unlawful part.

Taught on: /learn/reviews/reviews-on-your-site/

Review widget

A vendor-hosted block of stars embedded on your site. It runs on their system, so it goes dark the day you leave.

Taught on: /learn/reviews/reviews-on-your-site/

Robocall

An auto-dialed recorded pitch. The rules protect your cell phone from them; your business line, barely.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/make-the-calls-stop/

ROSCA / click-to-cancel

ROSCA is the federal law governing recurring online charges — the real floor under every subscription you're signed to. "Click-to-cancel" was a newer rule that didn't survive; the page covers where that leaves you.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/read-a-proposal/

Scope of work

The signed list of exactly what they'll do. The vaguer the list, the more it protects the vendor — fog in the scope becomes fog in the invoice.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/contract-red-flags/

Secretary of State business search

Your state's free public roster of registered companies. Where you check a vendor is real before a dollar moves.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/background-check-a-vendor/

Term (contract)

How long the paper binds you. Line one to find in any proposal — and the paper beats whatever was said on the phone.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/read-a-proposal/

AI words

AI (artificial intelligence)

Software that writes text or makes images on command. A tool, not a tradesman — what comes out depends on who's holding it and who checks the work.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-ai-seo-scam/

AI Overviews / AI summary

Google's own answer, parked above the search results. When it answers the question, the click underneath often never happens.

Taught on: /learn/your-website/seo-plain-english/

AI-search optimization

The newer pitch: pay to get placed inside AI answers, with results proven by numbers you can't check yourself. The unverifiable proof is the tell.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-ai-seo-scam/

ChatGPT / AI assistants

The chat tools people type questions to — including who-should-I-hire questions. A place customers now look, which is exactly why vendors now sell it.

Taught on: /learn/found-locally/where-customers-look/

Scaled content abuse

Google's name for churning out piles of pages to game rankings instead of helping anybody. However the pages get made, the offense is the pile, not the tool.

Taught on: /learn/vendor-defense/the-ai-seo-scam/

A term you've met that isn't here — tell us and it gets added.