Shopping in which an AI agent carries out tasks on a user’s behalf, such as finding products, comparing options and, with authorization, completing purchases.
Start here AEO GEO Google AI Overviews Query fan-out AI citation Grounding
No terms match.
A
A search experience in which an AI system carries out multiple research steps on a user’s behalf. It can search different sources, compare findings and refine its approach to complete a task.
Learn more: Something Strange Is Happening in Search Console →
A reference to a source displayed in an AI-generated answer, often as a clickable link. A citation identifies a source but does not guarantee that the answer accurately represents it.
Learn more: More AI citations. But is your business actually winning? →
An automated bot that accesses web content for an AI-related purpose, such as search discovery or collecting potential training data. Different crawlers have different purposes and access controls.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
Incorrect or unsupported information generated by an AI system and presented as though it were factual. Hallucinations can include invented statistics, sources, products or events.
Learn more: Google is fighting AI manipulation. Will it be enough? →
Visits to your website that originate from links in AI platforms such as ChatGPT or Perplexity. Analytics tools can identify some of these visits, although attribution may be incomplete.
A search experience that uses artificial intelligence to find, interpret and present information. It can combine generated answers with links, product recommendations and opportunities to ask follow-up questions.
A term used for both applying AI tools to SEO tasks and optimizing a website’s visibility in AI search experiences. The intended meaning depends on the context.
Learn more: Good SEO is Good GEO →
A measure of your brand’s presence relative to competitors across a defined set of AI prompts and responses. Calculations vary between tools, so the prompts, platforms and measurement method should be specified.
Learn more: AEO Leaderboard →
The extent to which a brand, website or piece of content appears in AI-generated responses. It can include mentions, citations and recommendations across the platforms and prompts being monitored.
Learn more: AI Visibility Measurement Planner prompt →
A system that responds directly to a question rather than only displaying a list of links. Answer engines can use search results, structured information and AI models to produce their responses.
The practice of improving content and a brand’s online presence to increase their chances of appearing in answers provided by search engines, AI assistants and other answer-based systems.
Learn more: Good SEO is Good GEO →
A robots.txt control token that lets website owners manage whether content collected by Applebot can be used to train Apple’s generative AI models. It does not control Applebot’s crawling or inclusion in Apple’s search results.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
B
Microsoft’s web crawler for discovering and updating pages in Bing’s search index. Making content accessible to Bingbot supports its discovery in Bing-powered search experiences.
A reference to a brand within content or an AI-generated response. A mention can appear without a link, citation or recommendation.
An answer that suggests a brand, product or service as a suitable choice. A recommendation goes beyond naming a brand by presenting it as an option for the user’s needs.
The tone and opinion expressed about a brand, such as positive, negative, neutral or mixed. In AI search, sentiment describes how the answer portrays the brand.
The volume of searches that include a brand’s name or recognizable variations of it. Changes can indicate shifts in awareness or interest, but do not establish which marketing activity caused them.
C
ChatGPT’s capability to search the web and use retrieved information to generate responses with source links. It differs from responses generated without searching the web.
A user agent OpenAI uses for certain user-triggered actions, including accessing web pages. It is separate from OpenAI’s automated search and training crawlers.
Dividing content into smaller passages so a retrieval system can process, store and retrieve relevant sections. The way content is divided can affect whether a passage retains enough context to be useful.
Learn more: AEO and GEO myths we need to leave behind →
The percentage of measured AI responses that cite a particular website or page. For this glossary, it means responses containing at least one citation to the site divided by all responses tested.
Learn more: AI Visibility Measurement Planner prompt →
The percentage of citations attributed to a website out of all citations in a defined set of AI responses or grounding queries. It measures a site’s share of citations rather than how many answers mention its brand.
Learn more: AI Visibility Measurement Planner prompt →
Anthropic’s automated crawler for collecting web content that may contribute to model training. It is separate from Claude-SearchBot, which supports search, and Claude-User, which accesses content for user-triggered requests.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
Content that explains the differences between products, services, brands or approaches. Useful comparisons evaluate relevant factors such as features, pricing, limitations and suitability for different needs.
Learn more: Commercial Page Optimizer prompt →
The maximum amount of information an AI model can process in a single interaction, measured in tokens. Depending on the system, this can include instructions, conversation history, retrieved content and the generated response.
How easily automated crawlers can access a website’s pages and resources. Crawlability can be affected by links, robots.txt instructions, server errors, authentication and security controls.
Learn more: How To Perform An SEO Audit For Free →
D
The practice of earning online coverage, links and brand mentions through newsworthy stories, research, expert commentary or useful resources. In SEO, digital PR often aims to earn relevant editorial backlinks.
Learn more: Digital PR Opportunity Finder prompt →
E
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. These are qualities Google’s search quality raters consider when evaluating content. E-E-A-T is not a single ranking factor or a publicly available website score.
Numerical representations of text, images or other content that encode patterns and relationships. Retrieval systems can use embeddings to find related content even when its wording differs from the query.
A distinct person, organization, place, product or concept that a system can identify. Entities help systems distinguish between things with similar names and understand their relationships.
Learn more: Improving Salience Scores →
F
A highlighted excerpt from a web page that Google displays in some search results to answer a question directly. It is distinct from an AI Overview, which generates a response rather than simply displaying an excerpt.
G
Artificial intelligence that generates content such as text, images, audio or code based on patterns learned during training and information supplied during use.
The practice of improving content and a brand’s online presence to increase visibility in responses generated by AI systems. It overlaps substantially with AEO and SEO.
Learn more: Good SEO is Good GEO →
A conversational search experience within Google Search that generates responses to questions and supports further exploration through follow-up questions and links to websites.
Learn more: GEO, AEO & AI SEO: What's Real, What's Hype →
AI-generated summaries that appear for some Google searches, alongside links to supporting sources. They aim to give users an overview of a topic or question.
Learn more: GEO, AEO & AI SEO: What's Real, What's Hype →
A robots.txt control token for managing whether content Google crawls can be used for certain Gemini training and grounding purposes. It is not a separate crawler and does not control inclusion in Google Search, AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
OpenAI’s automated crawler for collecting web content that may be used to train its generative AI models. Its robots.txt setting is independent of OAI-SearchBot’s search access setting.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
Connecting an AI response to external information, such as retrieved web pages, documents or databases. Grounding can improve accuracy and relevance but does not eliminate errors.
A search query an AI system uses to retrieve information that supports its response. It may differ from the question originally entered by the user.
I
Whether a page is eligible to be included in a search engine’s index. Being indexable does not guarantee that a search engine will index the page or display it in results.
Learn more: How To Perform An SEO Audit For Free →
An open protocol that lets websites notify participating search engines when URLs are added, updated or deleted. It helps communicate changes but does not guarantee crawling or indexing.
The additional useful information content provides beyond what is already available. In content planning, this can come from original research, firsthand experience, new examples or a more complete explanation.
Learn more: AI SEO at Scale: the Wix case study →
Linking from one page to another on the same website. Internal links help users and search engines discover content and understand how pages relate to each other.
Learn more: How To Perform An SEO Audit For Free →
J
Running a page’s JavaScript to produce its content and functionality. Crawlers differ in their ability to render JavaScript, which can affect whether they can access content that depends on it.
Learn more: Vibe Code SEO Checker prompt →
K
A structured collection of entities and the relationships between them. A knowledge graph can connect a company to its products, founders, locations and other associated information.
Learn more: Improving Salience Scores →
L
An AI model trained on large amounts of data to process and generate language. It produces responses using learned patterns and supplied context, and can generate plausible information that is incorrect.
An industry term for efforts to improve how brands or content appear in responses from large language models. Its meaning varies and often overlaps with AEO and GEO.
Learn more: Good SEO is Good GEO →
A proposed Markdown file convention for giving AI systems concise website information and links to useful resources. It is not an access-control file or a requirement for appearing in Google’s AI search features.
Learn more: AEO and GEO myths we need to leave behind →
M
An open standard for connecting AI applications to external tools and data sources. It enables compatible applications to retrieve information and perform actions through connected services.
Learn more: SEO Intelligence Starter Kit →
O
OpenAI’s automated crawler used to help surface websites in ChatGPT’s search features. Allowing it supports search discovery but does not guarantee inclusion or citation.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
P
Information encoded in a model’s parameters through training, rather than retrieved from an external source when answering a question. It can be incomplete or outdated and is not a searchable database of training documents.
Perplexity’s automated crawler used to discover content and surface websites in its search results. It is separate from Perplexity-User, which handles user-triggered access, and is not used to collect training data for foundation models.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
Adjusting results or responses using information about a user, such as their location, preferences, conversation history or connected data. The information used depends on the platform, permissions and settings.
The input supplied to an AI system, such as a question, instruction or request. A prompt can also include examples, source material and other context to guide the response.
Learn more: AI Prompt Library →
An attempt to redirect an AI system’s behaviour through instructions embedded in content it encounters, such as a web page, document or email. These instructions may conflict with the user’s original request.
Repeatedly testing a defined set of prompts to monitor how brands, websites or competitors appear in AI responses. Results represent the tested sample and can change between runs.
Learn more: AI Visibility Measurement Planner prompt →
Q
A technique in which an AI search system issues multiple related searches across subtopics or sources to help answer one question. These searches can retrieve information beyond the user’s original wording.
Learn more: What Is Query Fan Out & Why It Matters →
R
A method that retrieves relevant information from external sources and supplies it to an AI model as context for generating a response. It allows the system to use information beyond what it learned during training.
A website file that tells compliant crawlers which paths they may access. It controls crawling rather than directly controlling indexing, and it does not secure private information.
Learn more: Robots.txt Generator →
S
Creating many pages primarily to manipulate search rankings rather than help users. Google’s policy applies regardless of whether the content is produced by AI, humans or a combination of both.
Learn more: AI SEO at Scale: the Wix case study →
The practice of improving a website’s accessibility, content and online presence to increase its visibility in organic search results and attract relevant visitors.
The goal behind a search or question, such as finding information, comparing options, locating a website or making a purchase. Content should address what the user is trying to accomplish.
A machine-readable file listing website URLs, sometimes with information such as their last modification dates. It helps search engines discover content but does not guarantee crawling or indexing.
Learn more: How To Perform An SEO Audit For Free →
Machine-readable information added to a page to describe its content, such as a product, organization or article. Schema.org provides a widely used vocabulary for this markup.
Learn more: Schema Markup Generator →
T
Evaluations of a product, service or business published by someone other than the company itself. Their independence, evidence and commercial relationships should be considered when assessing credibility.
Learn more: AI Gift Guide Writer prompt →
An industry term describing a website’s perceived expertise, credibility and depth of coverage on a subject. It is not a publicly available Google score, and publishing more pages alone does not establish it.
Information used to teach an AI model patterns during training. It is distinct from information retrieved through web search, uploaded documents or connected tools when the model answers a question.
U
Content created by users or customers, such as reviews, forum discussions, comments and social posts. It can provide firsthand perspectives, although its accuracy and authenticity vary.
Z
A search that ends without the user clicking through to an external website. This can happen when the results page answers the question directly or the user stops searching.
Learn more: Something Strange Is Happening in Search Console →