A comprehensive glossary of key terms in Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), AI citation strategy, and AI search marketing. Bookmark this page as your reference guide to the evolving world of AI search.
The practice of optimizing your brand, content, and digital presence to appear in AI-generated answers from platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Claude. GEO focuses on making your brand the source AI systems cite when answering user queries.
The strategy of structuring your content to be selected as the direct answer by search engines and AI platforms. AEO targets featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, voice search results, and AI-generated answers.
A systematic approach to making your brand the primary source that AI platforms cite in their responses. It involves building machine-readable authority through structured data, entity profiles, authoritative content, and strategic distribution.
A comprehensive strategy combining traditional SEO, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) to maximize brand visibility across both traditional search engines and AI-powered platforms.
A comprehensive approach to making your brand findable across AI-powered search platforms. Combines content strategy, technical architecture, and distribution planning to maximize generative search visibility.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness - Google's framework for evaluating content quality. AI systems also use these signals to determine which sources to cite in generated responses.
Machine-readable code (typically JSON-LD using schema.org vocabulary) added to web pages that helps search engines and AI systems understand the content, entities, and relationships on a page.
The process of establishing your brand as a recognized, machine-readable entity in the knowledge graph. Entity profiles help AI systems identify, verify, and cite your brand as an authoritative source.
A database used by search engines and AI systems to store and connect information about entities (people, places, brands, concepts). Being part of the knowledge graph increases your chances of being cited by AI.
A highlighted search result that appears at the top of Google's search results (position zero), providing a direct answer to a user's query. Featured snippets are a key target of Answer Engine Optimization.
Google's AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results, synthesising information from multiple sources to answer user queries. Previously known as Search Generative Experience (SGE).
Content structured in a way that AI systems and search engines can easily parse, understand, and extract information from - including clear headings, definitive statements, structured data, and extractable expertise.
The strategic process of creating and distributing content across platforms that AI models actively reference and trust, increasing the likelihood of your brand being cited in AI-generated responses.
A specific vocabulary of tags (from schema.org) that you can add to your HTML to improve how search engines and AI read and represent your page in results. Common types include Organization, Service, FAQPage, Article, and Person.
How visible and frequently cited your brand is in AI-generated search results across platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Claude.
The practice of optimizing content and digital presence for large language models (LLMs) such as GPT, Claude, and Gemini. Closely related to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
The practice of earning high-authority backlinks and mentions through media outreach, expert commentary, and original research - a critical component of building AI citation authority.
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