Reference
AI search glossary
This glossary defines the vocabulary of AI search in plain language: what GEO, AEO and LLM SEO actually mean, how AI share of voice, answer rank and citation share are measured, what llms.txt is for, and which Arabic terms Gulf marketing teams use for the same ideas. Each definition stands on its own, and links to the guide that goes deeper.
What are the core AI search terms?
- Generative engine optimizationGEO
- Generative engine optimization is the practice of making a brand easy for generative AI systems to retrieve, quote and recommend in their answers. It covers the same work as SEO — clear content, structured data, credible sources — aimed at a different consumer: a model assembling an answer rather than a ranked list of ten links.What is GEO? A practical guide →
- Answer engine optimizationAEO
- Answer engine optimization is the practice of structuring a page so a search or AI system can lift a direct, correct answer out of it. In practice that means question-shaped headings, a complete answer in the first sentences underneath each one, and schema markup that says what the page is about.The 12-point AEO checklist →
- Answer engine
- An answer engine is any search surface that returns a written answer instead of, or above, a list of links. Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Gemini are all answer engines: they retrieve passages from the web, synthesise them into prose, and cite some of the sources they used.How to optimise for answer engines →
- LLM SEO
- LLM SEO is the informal name for optimising a site so large language models describe and recommend the brand accurately. It overlaps heavily with GEO and AEO; the distinction people usually mean is emphasis on what the model already believes about your brand, not only on which page it retrieves today.GEO vs SEO: what actually changes →
- Entity SEO
- Entity SEO is the work of defining your brand as an unambiguous thing — a named company with a category, a location, products and consistent facts — rather than a collection of keywords. Models and knowledge graphs resolve entities before they recommend them, so contradictory facts across the web reduce how confidently you are named.Entity SEO: stop LLMs guessing →
- Zero-click search
- A zero-click search is one where the searcher gets what they needed on the results page and never visits a website. AI Overviews and chat answers have widened this: the brand can be named, quoted and recommended while receiving no session at all, which is why impressions and clicks alone now understate demand.Zero-click search in the AI era →
How is AI visibility measured?
- AI search visibility
- AI search visibility is how often, and how favourably, AI answers name your brand for the questions your buyers actually ask. It is measured by asking those questions repeatedly, on a schedule, across several engines and markets, and recording whether the brand appears, where it ranks and which sources the answer cited.How to run an AI visibility audit →
- Answer rank
- Answer rank is the position your brand occupies inside an AI answer that names several options. Being mentioned third in a list of five reads very differently from being the first recommendation, so rank is tracked separately from coverage — a brand can be present everywhere and recommended almost nowhere.Coverage, rank and share of voice →
- Prompt tracking
- Prompt tracking is running a fixed set of buyer questions through AI engines on a schedule and recording every answer. The prompt set is the measurement instrument: it should cover the category, the competitors, the objections and the markets you sell in, and it should stay stable enough to compare month to month.Build a prompt set that measures your category →
- AI OverviewsAIO
- AI Overviews are the AI-generated summaries Google places above the classic results for many queries, with links to a handful of cited sources. They are the highest-volume answer surface most brands will meet, and the citations, not the blue links below, are what capture the remaining clicks.Winning AI Overview citations →
Which technical terms matter for AI crawlers?
- llms.txt
- llms.txt is a plain-markdown file at the root of a site that tells AI crawlers what the site is, what it offers and which pages matter. It is a convention rather than a standard, and it supplements robots.txt: robots.txt says what may be crawled, llms.txt says what is worth reading.Structuring content so LLMs can quote it →Build one with the free llms.txt generator →
- Retrieval chunk
- A retrieval chunk is the passage-sized slice of a page that a model actually retrieves and may quote. Pages are split before they are embedded, so a self-contained answer sitting directly under its heading survives chunking, while an answer spread over three scrolling paragraphs usually does not.How to write quotable passages →
To check your own site against these terms, the free AI crawler checker shows which AI crawlers your robots.txt allows, and the free schema markup generator builds the structured data that says what your pages are about.
ما المصطلحات العربية المستخدمة في بحث الذكاء الاصطناعي؟
- تحسين محركات التوليدGenerative engine optimization (GEO)
- تحسين محركات التوليد هو العمل على جعل علامتك التجارية سهلة الاسترجاع والاقتباس والترشيح داخل إجابات الذكاء الاصطناعي. ويشمل ذلك بناء محتوى عربي واضح موجّه لأسئلة المشترين، وبيانات منظمة تعرّف الكيان وخدماته، ومصادر موثوقة تدعم كل رقم أو ادعاء يذكره الموقع عن الشركة ومنتجاتها في السوق.AI search in Arabic: the GCC visibility gap →
- تحسين محركات الإجابةAnswer engine optimization (AEO)
- تحسين محركات الإجابة هو تنظيم الصفحة بحيث يستخرج منها محرك البحث أو نموذج الذكاء الاصطناعي إجابة مباشرة وصحيحة. ويتحقق ذلك بعناوين فرعية على هيئة أسئلة يطرحها العميل فعلاً، وإجابة كاملة في أول جملتين تحت كل عنوان، وترميز منظم يوضّح موضوع الصفحة ولغتها والسوق الذي تخاطبه.Arabic AEO for GCC brands →
Why do these terms keep changing?
Because the surface is new and three groups named it at once: SEO practitioners called it AEO, researchers called it GEO, and vendors coined LLM SEO. They describe overlapping work. Pick one vocabulary inside your team, define the metric denominators before you report a number, and do not let a renamed metric look like progress.
See these metrics on your own brand
The free AI-visibility audit measures share of voice, answer rank and AI Overview citations for your domain, and labels the evidence behind each one — so the definitions above stop being theory.