AI search glossary
Speak fluent AI search
Plain-English definitions of the words behind ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews. Each one shows how it plays out for a local business.
64 terms5 topicsUpdated
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AEOvsGEOBeing the one answer vs. being on the AI’s shortlistCitationvsBrand mentionA credited source vs. just your name in the answerSEOvsAEORanking in the links vs. being the answer itselfLocal citationvsCitationA directory listing vs. a source an AI creditsTraining datavsGroundingWhat AI learned before vs. what it looks up liverobots.txtvsllms.txtWho may crawl vs. what to read first
AI search basicsStarter AI assistant A chat tool like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot that answers questions and completes tasks for you. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webStarter AI crawler The bots AI companies send to read websites. If they are blocked, your pages cannot be read or quoted. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter AI Mode Google’s chat-style search tab, where you ask follow-up questions and get AI-written answers with sources. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter AI Overview The AI-written summary Google shows above its normal results, with a handful of linked sources. In practice, and related terms → Measuring resultsStarter AI referral traffic Visitors who reach your site by clicking a link inside an AI answer. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter AI search Finding information by asking an AI tool, which writes an answer, instead of scanning a list of links. In practice, and related terms → Citations & visibilityStarter AI shortlist The small set of businesses an AI recommends when asked “who should I hire?” In practice, and related terms → Citations & visibilityStarter AI visibility How often, and how well, your business shows up when people ask AI tools about what you sell. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter Answer engine Any tool that replies with a written answer instead of a list of links, like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter Answer engine optimizationAEO Shaping your pages so an AI tool picks them as the direct answer to a buyer’s question. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Answer-first writing Putting the direct answer at the top of a page or section, then the detail. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Author byline The name, and often the credentials, of the person who wrote or reviewed a page. In practice, and related terms →
Citations & visibilityStarter Backlink A link from another website to yours. In practice, and related terms → Citations & visibilityStarter Brand mention When an AI answer names your business, with or without a link back to your site. In practice, and related terms → Measuring resultsStarter Branded search Searches that include your business name. In practice, and related terms →
Citations & visibilityStarter Citation A source an AI answer links to or credits. For buyers who ask AI, it is the new page one. In practice, and related terms → Measuring resultsStarter Click-through rateCTR The share of people who saw your result and clicked it. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Comparison page A page that compares options side by side, like products, methods or approaches. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Content freshness How current a page is, and whether it shows when it was last updated. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro Context window How much text an AI can consider at once when writing an answer. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter Conversational search Searching by asking full questions and follow-ups, the way you would ask a person. In practice, and related terms → Measuring resultsStarter Conversion When a visitor does what you want them to do, like call, book, fill in a form or buy. In practice, and related terms →
Content & structurePro E-E-A-T The signals that show a page was written by people who know the subject and can be trusted. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro Embedding A list of numbers that captures what a passage means, so AI can match it to questions worded differently. In practice, and related terms → Content & structurePro Entity A real, distinct thing AI can recognise, like your company, a service, a person or a city, rather than just a word. In practice, and related terms →
AI search basicsStarter Generative AI AI that creates new text, images or audio instead of just sorting or labeling existing data. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter Generative engine optimizationGEO Earning a place in the longer answers, comparisons and shortlists that AI tools write. In practice, and related terms → Measuring resultsStarter Google Search Console Google’s free tool that shows which searches your site appears for, and how often people click. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro Grounding When an AI checks live sources before answering, instead of relying only on what it learned in training. In practice, and related terms →
Measuring resultsStarter Impressions How many times your page was shown in search results, whether or not anyone clicked. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webStarter Indexing When a search engine stores a page so it can show it in results. In practice, and related terms → Content & structurePro Information gain What a page adds that other pages on the same topic do not: new facts, first-hand detail or original examples. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Internal linking Links from one page on your site to another page on your site. In practice, and related terms →
How AI reads the webStarter Knowledge cutoff The date after which an AI model has no built-in knowledge. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro Knowledge graph A map of facts about entities and how they connect, which search engines use to understand who you are. In practice, and related terms →
How AI reads the webStarter Large language modelLLM The kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, trained on huge amounts of text to understand and write language. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsPro LLM optimizationLLMO Another name for making your business show up well in answers from large language models like ChatGPT and Claude. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro llms.txt A proposed plain-text file that points AI tools to the most useful pages on a site. In practice, and related terms → Citations & visibilityPro Local citation A listing of your business name, address and phone number on another site, like Yelp or a chamber directory. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Long-tail query A longer, more specific search or question that fewer people ask, but that is closer to a buying decision. In practice, and related terms →
Content & structurePro Passage A short section of a page that AI tools can pull out and use on its own. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Pillar page The main overview page for a topic, which links out to more detailed pages on the same topic. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter Prompt The question or instruction someone types into an AI tool. Buyers’ prompts are the new keywords. In practice, and related terms → Measuring resultsPro Prompt tracking Regularly asking AI tools a fixed set of buyer questions and recording who gets named and cited. In practice, and related terms →
How AI reads the webPro Retrieval-augmented generationRAG Fetching relevant documents first, then writing an answer from them. It is how most AI search works. In practice, and related terms → Citations & visibilityStarter Reviews Customer ratings and comments on sites like Google, Yelp and industry directories. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro robots.txt A small file at the root of your site that tells bots which pages they may and may not crawl. In practice, and related terms →
Content & structureStarter Schema markup Labels in a page’s code that tell machines exactly what is a service, a price, a review, an FAQ or an address. In practice, and related terms → AI search basicsStarter Search engine optimizationSEO Improving your site so it ranks higher in the classic list of links on Google and Bing. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro Semantic search Search that matches meaning and intent, not just the exact words typed. In practice, and related terms → Citations & visibilityPro Sentiment Whether what AI says about your business is positive, neutral or negative. In practice, and related terms → Content & structureStarter Service area page A page about a specific service in a specific city or area you cover. In practice, and related terms → Measuring resultsStarter Share of voice How often you are named in AI answers for your category, compared with your competitors. In practice, and related terms →
Citations & visibilityStarter Third-party mentions What other sites say about you: reviews, news stories, directories, forums and industry lists. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webPro Token A small piece of text, often part of a word, that AI models read and write in. In practice, and related terms → Content & structurePro Topic cluster A group of linked pages that cover one subject from many angles, around one main page. In practice, and related terms → Content & structurePro Topical authority Being the site that covers a subject so thoroughly that search engines and AI trust it on that subject. In practice, and related terms → How AI reads the webStarter Training data The large collection of text an AI model learned from before it was released. In practice, and related terms →
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