AI search glossary
AI search, defined.
Plain-language definitions of the terms you'll hear around AI search, AEO, and GEO. Written for business owners, not engineers.
AI search glossary
Plain-language definitions of the terms you'll hear around AI search, AEO, and GEO. Written for business owners, not engineers.
The work of making your business the answer AI assistants give when people ask questions about your industry. It covers clear, consistent facts about your business, content that answers questions directly, structured data, and mentions on trusted sites. GEO describes the same work.
A bot that reads websites for an AI company, either to train models or to fetch pages while answering a question. Examples include OpenAI's GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot, Anthropic's ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot. Your robots.txt file controls which ones can read your site.
An optional setting in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads that lets Search campaigns match more searches than your keywords cover and tailor ad text automatically. Campaigns using it can also be eligible for ads in AI-generated results.
Google's conversational search mode, where you ask a question, get an AI-written answer with links, and keep asking follow-ups. It's built for longer, more complex questions than a standard search.
The AI-written summaries Google shows at the top of many search results. They draw on web pages and link to their sources, so earning a place among those sources is a big part of AI visibility.
Any search where an AI assistant writes an answer instead of, or alongside, a list of links. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, and Copilot all work this way.
Paid placements inside or beside AI-generated answers, such as ChatGPT ads, Google ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and ads in Microsoft Copilot. They're labeled and separate from the answer itself, which can only be earned.
How often, and how favorably, AI assistants mention your business when people ask the questions you'd want to be the answer to. It's measured by asking a fixed set of buyer questions and scoring the answers.
Writing that puts the direct answer to a question in the first sentence or two, then adds detail. It helps human readers, and it gives AI assistants a clean passage to quote.
Sponsored listings OpenAI shows below ChatGPT's answers to logged-in adults on its Free and Go plans. They're matched to the conversation, labeled as sponsored, and kept separate from the answer, so buying an ad doesn't change what ChatGPT says.
The web search feature inside ChatGPT. When it searches, it pulls current pages, can name specific businesses, and links to its sources, much like an answer engine.
A source an AI assistant links to or names when it answers. Being cited means the assistant used your page as evidence; being mentioned means it named your business. The two often go together, but not always.
Short for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, the qualities Google's guidelines use to judge whether content is reliable. Named authors, real credentials, and outside validation all support it.
A distinct, identifiable thing, such as a business, person, or place, that search engines and AI models keep track of. Making your business a clear entity means its name, location, services, and facts are stated the same way everywhere.
Asking an AI assistant a question with no chat history and no logged-in personalization. It shows you roughly what a new customer would see, which is why AI visibility checks use it.
Another name for AEO. The term comes from research into how generative AI tools choose which sources to use, and it means optimizing so assistants that write answers include and recommend your business.
Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps, with your hours, location, services, photos, and reviews. Google's AI features draw on it, and its details tend to get repeated across the web, so keeping it complete and accurate matters.
When an AI model bases its answer on information it looks up, such as current web pages, instead of only what it learned in training. Grounded answers usually include citations.
When an AI model states something false with confidence, like wrong hours or a service you don't offer. Consistent, clearly published facts about your business make this less likely.
A database of entities and the facts that connect them, such as Google's Knowledge Graph. It powers the information panels you see in search and helps AI systems confirm basic facts about a business.
The type of AI model behind assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. It's trained on large amounts of text so it can understand questions and write answers.
An informal name for AEO and GEO: optimizing so large language models mention and recommend your business.
A proposed standard: a plain-text file at the root of your website that summarizes your business and points AI tools to your most important pages. It's new and optional, and not every AI company uses it yet, but it's quick to publish.
Any time an AI assistant names your business in an answer. A mention can be neutral, a recommendation, or a caution, which is why AI visibility tracking scores more than whether you were named.
Keeping your business name, address, and phone number identical everywhere they appear online. Mismatches leave search engines and AI assistants unsure which details are correct.
A Google Ads campaign type that runs one campaign across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail, and Maps, with Google choosing where ads appear. It's one of the campaign types that can show ads inside Google's AI Overviews.
An AI answer engine that searches the web for each question and cites its sources in the answer. Because it shows those sources openly, it's a useful window into which sites AI tools trust in your industry.
The question or instruction someone types into an AI assistant. In AI visibility tracking, a buyer prompt is a question a real customer might ask, such as "best roofer in Tampa."
A technique where an AI search system splits one question into several related searches, then combines what it finds. It's one reason pages that clearly answer many related questions tend to get cited.
When an AI assistant puts your business forward as its pick ("for that, I'd look at...") instead of listing it among options. It's the outcome that moves revenue, and the hardest one to earn.
A method where an AI system first retrieves relevant documents, such as web pages, then writes its answer using them. Most AI search features work this way, which is why being easy to find and easy to quote matters.
A file at the root of your website that tells crawlers which pages they may read. If it blocks AI crawlers, those assistants may not be able to read your site when they answer questions.
Code added to your pages, usually in a format called JSON-LD, that labels facts like your business type, address, services, reviews, and FAQs. It helps search engines and AI tools read those facts without guessing.
A website an AI assistant draws on for its answer, such as a review site, directory, news article, or your own page. Knowing which sources assistants cite in your industry tells you where to earn mentions.
The large body of text an AI model learned from before release. Anything published after its training cutoff only reaches the model's answers when the assistant searches the web.
A search that ends without a click to any website, because the answer appeared on the results page or in an AI summary. It's why being named in the answer matters as much as ranking.