Glossary

AI search terms, in plain English.

What AEO, GEO, AI Overviews, llms.txt and other AI search terms mean, and where to learn more.

AI citation: An AI citation is a link or source an AI assistant shows alongside its answer. Being cited means the assistant used your page; being mentioned means it named your business.
AI crawler: An AI crawler is a bot that reads websites for an AI company. Answer crawlers (such as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot) fetch pages for live answers; training crawlers (such as GPTBot) collect data for future models.; Read: GPTBot vs OAI-SearchBot: which AI crawlers should you allow?
AI search visibility: AI search visibility is how often AI assistants mention or recommend your business when people ask them relevant questions, such as “best dentist near me”. It's the AI-era version of ranking on Google.; Read: How to track your AI visibility over time
AI share of voice: AI share of voice is how often AI assistants recommend you compared with your competitors for the same questions. It shows who AI recommends instead of you.
Answer engine: An answer engine is a tool that replies to a question with a direct answer instead of a list of links. Examples are ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Siri and Alexa.
Answer engine optimization (AEO): Answer engine optimization is the practice of making your content and business easy for answer engines, such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and voice assistants, to find, understand and quote as a direct answer.; Read: What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
E-E-A-T: E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: the qualities Google's guidelines use to judge whether content is reliable. Clear credentials, real examples and accurate facts help both search and AI.
FAQPage schema: FAQPage schema is structured data that marks up a list of questions and answers on a page, making each answer easy for search engines and AI assistants to identify and quote.; Read: How to write an FAQ page AI assistants will quote
Featured snippet: A featured snippet is a short answer Google shows in a box at the top of the results, taken from one web page. Pages that answer a question clearly in the first sentence are the most likely to be chosen.
Generative engine optimization (GEO): Generative engine optimization is improving how AI assistants that write answers, such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, understand, trust and recommend a business. It overlaps heavily with AEO; GEO stresses being named in AI-written answers.; Read: What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
Google AI Overviews: AI Overviews are AI-written summaries that Google shows above its normal search results for many questions, with links to the pages used. AI Mode is Google's separate, fully conversational search experience.; Read: How to get recommended by Google Gemini and AI Overviews
Google Business Profile: Google Business Profile is your free business listing on Google Search and Maps, with your hours, photos, reviews and services. Google's AI features rely on it heavily for local questions.; Read: The business listings AI assistants rely on
Grounding (live search): Grounding is when an AI assistant searches the web before answering, so its reply is based on current pages rather than only on what it learned during training. Most local recommendations are grounded.
JSON-LD: JSON-LD is the format Google recommends for adding structured data: a small script block in the page's HTML that lists facts as name-value pairs.; Read: How to test your structured data (and fix common errors)
Large language model (LLM): A large language model is the AI system behind assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. It's trained on large amounts of text and writes answers word by word.
llms.txt: llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file at yoursite.com/llms.txt that summarises your website for AI tools: who you are, what you offer and your key pages. It's optional and not yet a standard.; Read: What is llms.txt, and does your business need one?
LocalBusiness schema: LocalBusiness schema is structured data for a business with a physical location or service area. It states the business type, address, phone, hours and area served. Specific types such as Dentist or Plumber are better than the generic one.; Read: Local business schema: a plain-English guide
Mention rate: Mention rate is the share of AI answers that name your business across a fixed set of customer questions. For example, named in 4 of 10 answers is a 40% mention rate.; Read: How to track your AI visibility over time
NAP consistency: NAP consistency means your business name, address and phone number are written exactly the same on your website and every listing. Mismatches make it harder for search engines and AI to trust which details are right.; Read: The business listings AI assistants rely on
noindex: noindex is a tag that tells search engines not to show a page in their results. It's useful for sign-in or thank-you pages, but on an important page it hides that page from search and AI answers.
robots.txt: robots.txt is a text file at the root of your website that tells crawlers which pages they may read. Blocking AI answer crawlers in it can keep you out of ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude answers.; Read: GPTBot vs OAI-SearchBot: which AI crawlers should you allow?
Structured data (schema markup): Structured data is code on a page that describes its content in a standard vocabulary (Schema.org), such as your business name, address, hours and FAQs, so search engines and AI can read the facts without guessing.; Read: Local business schema: a plain-English guide
Voice search: Voice search is asking a question out loud to an assistant such as Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant. The assistant usually reads back a single answer, so clear, concise, factual answers win.; Read: What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
Zero-click search: A zero-click search is one where the person gets their answer on the results page or from an AI assistant and doesn't click through to any website. Being named in the answer matters more than ever.