SEO, AEO & GEO glossary

Search Engine Optimization: the set of practices that help your site rank higher in search engine results like Google.

The term or phrase a person types into a search engine, and for which you want your content to rank.

The real goal behind a query: to learn, compare, buy, or navigate. Good optimization answers the intent, not just the keyword.

Search Engine Results Page: the page a search engine returns for a query.

The process by which a search engine stores your pages in its index so it can show them in results.

The journey search engine bots take to discover and read the pages on your site.

A link from another site to yours. Historically one of the strongest authority signals in SEO.

An estimate of a site's credibility and strength, based largely on the quantity and quality of its backlinks.

The tags that define the title and summary a search engine shows for your page in the results.

A signal that tells the search engine which version of a page is the canonical one when duplicate or similar content exists.

A file that lists your site's URLs to help search engines discover and crawl them.

Google's page experience metrics: loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness: Google's framework for evaluating content quality and credibility.

The box with a direct answer that Google shows above the results, pulled from a page.

Longer, more specific searches with lower individual volume but high intent and, together, a lot of traffic.

The three sides of SEO: your page's content and tags (on-page), external signals like backlinks (off-page), and the site infrastructure (technical).

Answer Engine Optimization: optimizing content so answer engines use it as the direct answer to a question.

A system that answers the query directly instead of returning a list of links, like Perplexity or an assistant's answer mode.

A block of text that stands on its own, without depending on the previous paragraph. Makes it easy for AI to extract without losing meaning.

Structuring content as questions followed by clear, brief answers — ideal for engines and assistants to reuse.

Code that labels content so machines understand what it's about: price, author, rating, definition, etc.

Google's “People also ask” block with related queries; a useful source to understand what people are asking.

When the user gets the answer directly in the search engine or assistant, without visiting any site.

Generative Engine Optimization: optimizing to appear and be cited in generative AI answers (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok).

How often and how your brand shows up in AI model answers.

The percentage of AI answers in your category where your brand appears, compared to your competitors.

A mention is when AI names your brand in the text; a citation is when it also links to your site as a source. They are not the same.

The sources AI links or references to back up its answer.

The analysis of which pages and domains AI uses as the basis for its answers in your category.

Whether AI talks about your brand in a positive, neutral, or negative tone within its answers.

Large Language Model: the technology behind assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude.

When a model relies on real-time web search to answer, instead of using only what it “remembers” from training.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation: a technique where the model retrieves external information and uses it to generate a more accurate, up-to-date answer.

The AI-generated summaries Google shows above the search results.

An optional file that suggests to LLMs which content to read on your site; it's a convention, not an access control.

The file that controls which bots can crawl your site, including AI crawlers.

A bot that crawls the web to train models or feed answers: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, among others.

The “signature” a bot uses to identify itself when visiting your site (for example, GPTBot).

The question or instruction a person gives to an AI assistant.

When AI confidently states something false or made up.

Clear, structured, well-supported content that AI can easily pick up and cite.