University
Log in
Search
⌘E
My learning
Try Webflow — it's free
Learn
Courses
Learning Paths
Videos
Docs
Resources
Certifications
Interactive Learning
Glossary
The Webflow Way
Engage
Support
Community
Accessibility
Switch to Light mode
Switch to Dark mode
High contrast
Glossary
AEO

AEO

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing how your brand and content show up in AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, similar to how SEO optimizes for traditional search results.

Instead of ranking for a search query, AEO is about getting cited, quoted, or recommended when someone asks an AI assistant a question related to your brand or industry. That means structuring content clearly, using accurate and specific language, and making sure the same signals search engines rely on, like schema markup, are in place for AI crawlers too.

Relevant courses

A glowing AI sparkle icon within a deconstructed pink neon box

AI guardrails for teams

Manage team AI access, understand the reach of AI-assisted changes, and review what changed before your site goes live.

Collaborate with your team

Learn how to set up roles, permissions, and workflows in Webflow so your entire team can work together safely, confidently, and efficiently.

Design & manage CMS content in Webflow

Learn how to create, manage, and style dynamic content and collections on your site using Webflow’s CMS.

Webflow 101

Introducing Webflow 101, the ultimate course to learn the fundamentals of web design and development.
Comment cursor hovering over a text box

Webflow for Reviewers

Learn how to review and give feedback with confidence in Webflow.
Publishing rocket icon flying through glass

Webflow for Marketers

Learn how to build, edit, and publish with confidence in Webflow.

Other glossary terms

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Locked site

→
When you have more unhosted sites in your Dashboard than your Workspace plan allows, those additional sites past your limit will be “locked” until you upgrade your plan. When you upgrade, you’ll be allowed more unhosted sites (up to the limit for your Workspace plan) and will be able to access your previously locked sites.

CRLF

→
On Windows-based systems, the sequence of two ASCII characters representing a line break in text files is called "Carriage Return, Line Feed," or CRLF.

Comment

→
A comment is a text note in source code that offers context, internal information, or other guidance to any developers using it.

Minified code

→
Minified code refers to the process of removing unnecessary characters and whitespace from the source code file without affecting its functionality.

Link

→
A link, short for hyperlink, is a clickable website element that enables navigation between different web resources.

Abstraction

→
In object-oriented programming (OOP), abstraction conceals irrelevant details so they don’t interfere with the task at hand.

ALPN

→
ALPN stands for Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation. It’s a Transport Layer Security (TLS) extension that aids client and server identification during secure data transfers.

Content management system (CMS)

→
A content management system (CMS) is a tool for creating and managing a website and its content.

Hyperlink

→
Hyperlinks are clickable elements that allow users to navigate between web pages, documents, or other types of digital content.

Blog

→
A blog, short for weblog, is a website or webpage where an individual or group regularly shares content about specific topics, typically in reverse chronological order.

Literal

→
In JavaScript, literals are fixed values written directly into the code.

IP address

→
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique string of characters identifying devices connected to the internet.

Webflow branding

→
A visible “Made in Webflow” badge displayed in the bottom right corner of Webflow sites. Webflow branding also appears in the site’s HTML. Learn more about Webflow branding.

Product attribute

→
Product attributes are specific characteristics that define purchasable merchandise or commodities and provide relevant information to customers.

Below the fold

→
Below the fold refers to the lower portion of a webpage that isn’t immediately visible to visitors upon loading until they scroll down.

Sorting Collection lists

→
You can sort your Collection items in multiple ways — select the field from the Collection you wish to filter from, then select the ordering option.

Site

→
What you create in Webflow! You can publish sites to a webflow.io staging subdomain for free, export the code on a paid plan, add hosting on any paid plan, or add a Site plan to any site to connect your custom domain and unlock hosting features.

Automagically

→
Automagically describes complex content or functions that appear as if they were created using magic.

Base tag

→
The base tag specifies the base URL for all relative links within HTML code for a specific page or document.

X-Ray mode

→
A grayscale view of your site’s canvas that visually displays each element’s border, margin, and padding when hovered over.

Webflow badge

→
A visible "Made in Webflow" badge displayed in the bottom right corner of Webflow sites on Starter plans.

Cloneable site

→
Cloneable sites are open source (made available under the CC0 (“no rights reserved”) license). When you enable cloning, you allow any user to copy, modify, and use any part of your site for personal or commercial purposes.Sites with cloning turned off do not give others access to copy your site or open it in the Designer.

Collection URL

→
The slug that represents the parent folder for your individual Collection item URLs. For example, if you created a Collection called “Blog posts,” the URL would be website.com/blog-posts, while a Collection item URL for a blog post called “Hello world” would be website.com/blog-posts/hello-world.

Help text

→
Help text is a user interface design element that provides additional information or guidance to users to clarify which content should go in a given Collection field.

Webflow forum

→
The place to go when you need help with your site's design, custom code, etc. Visit the forum.

Asynchronous

→
Asynchronous programming is an approach where programs simultaneously run multiple operations independently without waiting for previous tasks to complete.

Prefetch

→
Prefetch is a technique that proactively loads and caches resources to improve website performance and user experience.

Width: auto

→
The way browsers calculate an element's width automatically where Block level elements fill the available space of its parent and Inline elements shrink to the size of its children/content.

Navigator

→
A navigator, or a navigator window or panel, is a graphical user interface (GUI) that provides an overview of a website's structure and layout.

Free plan

→
The perfect Webflow subscription for getting started, giving you access to all Designer features, so you can start building a site right away.

Buffer

→
A buffer is a temporary storage area that holds data while transferring it between different components or systems.

Typography

→
A section in the Add panel that houses typography elements such as headings and paragraphs.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

→
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a web development language that controls the appearance of elements on a webpage.

Hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS)

→
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a secure protocol facilitating encrypted exchanges of information between web browsers and servers.

Plain text field

→
A plain text field is an input field for short-form text without formatting or styling.

Domain

→
A domain, or domain name, is the unique address that directs to a website on the internet.

Tag

→
A Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) tag is a code snippet that defines and describes the structure and content of web pages.

Reference field

→
A CMS field used in Collections. This powerful field allows you to link to other Collections within your website to populate fields in Collection lists and Collection pages.

Content network

→
A content network is a collection of websites where advertisers can pay to display digital ads.

Resolution

→
Resolution is a metric measuring clarity and detail through the number of pixels displayed on a screen or used to render an image.

JSON-LD

→
JSON-LD is a structured data format that describes a page's content in a machine-readable way, helping search engines and AI crawlers understand what's on the page.

Inheritance dropdown

→
A dropdown menu that displays all the selectors that affect a given element.

Export

→
A downloadable ZIP file that contains your Webflow site's HTML, CSS, JS, and image files.

Bounding box

→
A bounding box is a rectangular border around a website element (e.g., a heading, paragraph, or image) that appears during the design process.

CMS field groups

→
CMS field groups let you organize a Collection's fields into named, labeled sections, making large or complex collections easier for editors to navigate.

Cookie

→
Cookies are small text files sent by a website to a user’s web browser that enhance their browsing experience by remembering site preferences and activities.

Desktop breakpoint

→
A breakpoint, or media query, is the width at which a website’s design and layout adjust to fit screens of different sizes. When designing in Webflow, breakpoints for smaller devices inherit styles from the base — or desktop — breakpoint by default.

Element breadcrumbs

→
A navigational aid that displays in the bottom of the Webflow Designer to help you keep track of the element you're interacting with in relation to its hierarchy.

Primitive

→
A primitive is the simplest JavaScript data type, representing fundamental values that do not encapsulate any object, method, or property.

URI

→
A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a string of characters identifying an online resource.

Jank

→
Jank describes subpar functionality in a web interface that hinders or disrupts user activity.

Optimizely

→
A web app that helps you measure how different site designs impact user behavior.

Navbar

→
A navbar, or navigation bar, is an interactive user element with a menu or a set of links to a website’s main sections.

Robots.txt

→
A robots.txt file instructs search engine crawlers which webpages and sections they can or can't crawl and index.

Video field

→
Available in CMS Collections. You can add videos via a link — not an embed code — from an online video host like Vimeo or YouTube. Just paste in the video link and it’ll appear in the native video format from the 3rd-party video player.

External link

→
External links direct users to different websites and impact a site's search engine visibility and rankings.

Inheritance

→
Inheritance describes a principle where child elements adopt the style properties of parent elements.

Gutters

→
Gutters refer to the whitespace between content columns on a webpage.

Paginate items

→
This checkbox allows you to enable or disable pagination on the selected Collection list.

Folder settings

→
Allows you to manage your folders.

Web server

→
A web server is a computer program or hardware device that delivers web content to clients using HTTP. It handles client requests for web pages, images, and videos.

Display property

→
Display properties operate like instructions that tell a browser how to display the different parts of a webpage. You can customize an element’s appearance and layout by changing its display property.

Display: block

→
Display properties tell browsers how an element should behave on the page. The most common display property keyword category is display: block.

Link field

→
A link field is a form input field that enables you to add links to your designs dynamically. You can connect a link field to text links, buttons, or other link elements to turn them into active links.

Null

→
“Null” represents the absence of a value or the presence of invalid objects in computer science and web development.

DNS records

→
DNS records store important information about domains and hostnames. They function like maps, directing DNS queries to the desired endpoint.

Compile

→
Compiling is the process of converting code from a high-level programming language into a low-level language that computers can understand.

API

→
APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are common code protocols that let apps safely exchange data with other apps, software, and hardware.

404 page

→
A 404 page is an error page a visitor sees when they try to access a non-existent or broken URL on a website.

Document object model (DOM)

→
The document object model is a platform- and language-neutral interface that lets programs and scripts dynamically access and update the content, structure, and style of documents.

Second-level domain (SLD)

→
A second-level domain (SLD) is the part of a domain name that precedes a top-level domain (TLD).

Sitemap URL

→
The location your sitemap is stored in relation to your site, and what’s used when submitting your sitemap to search engines.

URL redirect

→
URL redirect, or URL forwarding, is a web server function that automatically sends users from one web address to another.

Font weight

→
Font weight refers to the thickness or density of a typeface’s strokes.

DHTML

→
DHTML, or Dynamic HTML, is a web-development technique combining HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create dynamic, interactive web pages and complex web applications.

SSL

→
SSL (secure socket layer) is the standard method for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser.

Public site

→
A Webflow site that is publicly visible in your public profile and in Made in Webflow search results.

Application context

→
An application context is a set of data that identifies an application’s tasks, where those tasks originate, and how those tasks are configured.

Tutorials

→
The fastest way to learn how to use Webflow.

Total Form Submissions

→
The amount of times a site visitor submits data using your site's form(s).

Total asset size

→
The total weight of your site's HTML, CSS, JS, and images.

Section

→
A section is an element of design layout that divides a web page into visually distinct segments.

Basic section

→
A section of the Add panel that contains the elements that act as a website's fundamental building blocks (e.g., div block, list, button, etc.).

Latency

→
Network latency is the time data needs to travel from one point to another, impacting the responsiveness and speed of web applications and services.

Flexbox

→
Flexbox is a CSS layout mechanism that offers precise alignment and stacking control for the content inside an element.

Deprecated

→
Deprecated HTML tags are old tags replaced by updated alternatives in modern web design and development.

Date/Time field

→
A field available in CMS Collections. This field lets you display a date and time in a Collection and/or Collection item.

Meta title

→
A meta title is an HTML element that defines a web page's title and appears in browser tabs and search snippets on search engine results pages (SERPs) as a clickable headline.

Collection list

→
A Collection list is a Webflow element that lets you dynamically display content from a CMS Collection.

Number field

→
Available in CMS Collections. It lets you insert an integer with or without decimals.

Pages panel

→
A panel in the left toolbar where you can add static pages and folders to your Webflow site. You can also manage and access Utility pages and Collection pages.

Website name

→
A website name, or domain, is the title of a website that appears in the browser tab and search engine results.

Map

→
A Webflow element that embeds an interactive Google Map in your site.

Right padding

→
The inside spacing between the right border of an element and the elements inside it.

Parameter

→
A parameter is a programming variable or value that transfers data between functions.

Meta description

→
An HTML attribute you can use to give a short description of the contents of a webpage. Search engines often display this in results pages (SERPs).

Dynamic element

→
Dynamic elements are web page components that can change based on user interaction or external factors, like a live news feed, without requiring a page refresh or reload.

Collection item

→
An individual item within a Collection. For example, in a “Blog Posts” Collection, the Collection items are individual blog posts.

Workspace

→
A space to hold and access sites, members, settings, and integrations. All users start with a Workspace that can become collaborative when and as needed.

Publish destination

→
The specific domain or subdomain where your Webflow site is displayed.
Hmm…we couldn’t find any results. Try a different search term or reset the filter.
Reset the filter
Load more