Glossary
The vocabulary of AI search.
GEO, AEO, citation share, share of voice: the language is still being written. Here's how we use these terms.
- AI Engine
- A general term for the AI assistants and answer products that synthesize responses from multiple sources: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode.
- AI Mode
- Google's conversational AI search mode, which answers a query with a generated response and linked sources instead of a results page.
- AI Overviews
- Google's AI-generated answer block that appears above traditional search results for many queries.
- AI Referral Traffic
- Human visitors who reach your site by clicking a link inside an AI engine's answer, tracked by the engine's own referrer host.
- AI Search
- The shift from typing keywords into a search box to asking AI assistants conversational questions.
- Answer Engine
- A search product that returns a direct synthesized answer instead of a list of links: Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
- The practice of optimizing your brand and content so that AI answer engines cite you when users ask direct questions.
- Brand Mention
- Any reference to your brand by name inside an AI-generated answer.
- ChatGPT
- What a person who is not signed in sees on chatgpt.com, measured through a licensed data provider.
- Citation
- A specific URL or source that an AI engine links to when supporting a claim in its answer.
- Citation Gap
- The difference between the content AI engines cite for a question and the content your own site offers: the specific, missing pieces that keep you out of the answer.
- Citation Readiness
- A score for how likely a page is to be cited by AI engines for a target prompt, based on answer completeness, entity and statistic coverage, schema, internal linking, and source support.
- Citation Share
- Your share of the links to you and your tracked competitors, counting each answer once per brand.
- Entity SEO
- Optimization that helps search engines and LLMs recognize your brand as a distinct, well-defined entity rather than just a string of keywords.
- Gemini
- What a person who is not signed in sees on gemini.google.com, measured through a licensed data provider.
- Generative Engine
- An AI system that generates answers (rather than retrieving them), typically powered by an LLM.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
- The practice of optimizing your brand and content to be cited, recommended, and described favorably by generative AI engines.
- Hallucination
- When an AI engine states something confidently that is factually wrong, including incorrect details about your brand.
- Large Language Model (LLM)
- The underlying AI model that powers AI engines: examples include GPT-5.6, Gemini 3.8, Claude Sonnet 5.5, and Grok 4.7.
- llms.txt
- A plain-text file at the root of your site that tells AI crawlers what your site is and points them to the pages that matter most.
- On-Page Optimization (for AI Search)
- Editing an individual page (its structure, schema, and content) so AI engines cite it, based on the pages they already cite for a given prompt.
- Prompt
- The question or instruction a user gives an AI engine: equivalent to a search query.
- Prompt-to-Page
- Deciding what page should exist to win a specific AI prompt (a new article, an update to an existing page, a comparison, an FAQ block, or nothing) before any content is written.
- Schema Markup
- Structured data added to your pages (in JSON-LD format) that tells search engines and LLMs exactly what your content is about.
- Share of Voice (SoV)
- Your share of the mentions of you and your tracked competitors in AI answers, counting each answer once per brand.
- Shown Rate
- How often Google showed an AI answer (an AI Overview, or an AI Mode answer) when your prompt was searched.
- Source Authority
- How much weight an AI engine gives a particular source when generating answers: analogous to traditional domain authority but specific to LLM trust signals.
- Topical Authority
- The depth and breadth of credible content your brand has on a specific topic: a key signal for both Google ranking and AI inclusion.
- Visibility (brand visibility)
- The share of analysed AI answers that name your brand.
See how these terms apply to your brand.
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