Definitions for common terms used in browser extension reviews, SEO analysis, and web technology detection.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Browser extension | A small software program that adds functionality to a web browser. Also called a plugin, add-on, or toolbar depending on the browser and era. |
| Chrome Web Store | Google's official marketplace for Chrome extensions. Only install extensions from here to ensure they've been through Google's review process. |
| Mozilla Add-ons (AMO) | Mozilla's official extension marketplace for Firefox. The Firefox equivalent of the Chrome Web Store. |
| Extension permissions | The access rights an extension requests when installed — such as "read data on all websites" or "access your browsing history". Always review these before installing. |
| SERP overlay | Metrics added to Google search results by an extension — showing authority scores, traffic estimates, or backlink counts next to each result without opening a separate tool. |
| On-page audit | Analysis of a webpage's SEO elements: title tag, meta description, heading structure (H1–H6), canonical URL, robots meta tag, and internal/external link counts. |
| Redirect trace | Following a URL through every redirect hop to its final destination, showing the HTTP status code (301, 302, etc.) at each step. |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz's proprietary score (0–100) predicting how well a domain ranks in search. Based on Moz's link index. Not a Google ranking factor. |
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs' proprietary authority score (0–100) based on the number and quality of backlinks in Ahrefs' index. Not a Google ranking factor. |
| Authority Score (AS) | Semrush's domain authority score, used by SEOquake in its SERP overlay. Based on Semrush's link data and organic traffic signals. |
| Page Authority (PA) | Moz's score for an individual page's ranking potential, as distinct from Domain Authority which measures the whole domain. |
| URL Rating (UR) | Ahrefs' page-level authority score, analogous to Moz's Page Authority but based on Ahrefs' link index. |
| Spam Score | Moz's metric (0–100%) estimating the likelihood a site has spammy or penalised characteristics. Shown by MozBar. Higher = more suspicious. |
| Core Web Vitals | Google's set of performance metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Interaction to Next Paint (INP). Ahrefs Toolbar shows these for any page. |
| Hreflang | An HTML attribute that tells Google which language/country version of a page to show to users in different locales. SEO Minion checks hreflang implementation. |
| Canonical tag | An HTML element that tells search engines which version of a URL is the "master" copy — used to prevent duplicate content issues. |