57 terms
The AI search glossary
All 26 optimization types and the concepts behind AI search, each defined in a sentence or two.
A
- AAOAgent Actionability OptimizationOptimization
- AAO makes the actions on your site, such as forms, bookings and checkouts, possible for an agent to finish without a human stepping in.Learn more →
- ACOAgent Commerce OptimizationOptimization
- ACO prepares catalogs and checkout for agent-driven shopping, where an AI compares products and may complete the purchase itself.Learn more →
- AEOAnswer Engine OptimizationOptimization
- AEO structures content so search features and AI assistants can lift it as the answer to a question: featured snippets, People Also Ask, AI Overviews and chat replies.Learn more →
- AI Mode
- Google's conversational search mode, where a model answers follow-up questions using Google Search results as sources.
- AI Overview
- The AI-generated summary Google shows above some search results, with links to the pages it draws on.Learn more →
- AIEOArtificial Intelligence-Enhanced OptimizationOptimization
- AIEO applies AI to the optimization workflow itself: automated audits, content drafts, monitoring and prioritized fixes, reviewed by people.Learn more →
- AIOArtificial Intelligence OptimizationOptimization
- AIO is the umbrella practice of preparing content, data and brand signals so AI systems can read, interpret and represent them correctly.Learn more →
- AISEOArtificial Intelligence Search Engine OptimizationOptimization
- AISEO adapts keyword and content strategy to AI search modes, where users ask full questions and receive synthesized answers instead of ten links.Learn more →
- ALLMOAll Large Language Model OptimizationOptimization
- ALLMO tracks and optimizes visibility across all major LLMs at once, because each model cites different sources and answers differently.Learn more →
- Answer block
- A short passage, usually 40–120 words under a question heading, that answers the question directly and can be quoted on its own.Learn more →
- Answer engine
- Any system that replies with an answer instead of a list of links: AI assistants, AI search engines, voice assistants and featured snippets.Learn more →
- ASOAgentic Search OptimizationOptimization
- ASO prepares your site for AI agents that run multi-step research on their own: reading pages, comparing options and shortlisting providers.Learn more →
- AXOAgent Experience OptimizationOptimization
- AXO is UX for agents: clear entry points such as APIs, MCP servers and machine-readable docs that let agents work with your product reliably.Learn more →
B
- BSOBot Search OptimizationOptimization
- BSO manages how search and AI crawlers access your site: who visits, how often, what they fetch, and what you allow or block.Learn more →
C
- Canonical URL
- The one URL a page declares as its main address with a rel=canonical link, so search engines and AI engines don't split signals across duplicates.
- Chunk
- A section of a document that a retrieval system indexes and returns on its own. Pages with clear, self-contained sections produce better chunks.Learn more →
- Citation
- A link to a source shown inside or beside an AI answer. Different from a mention, which names a brand without linking to it.Learn more →
- Crawl budget
- How many pages a crawler is willing to fetch from a site in a given time. Errors, redirect chains and duplicate URLs waste it.
- CROConversion Rate OptimizationOptimization
- CRO improves the share of visitors who sign up, buy or get in touch, using research, clear messaging and controlled experiments.Learn more →
E
- E-E-A-TExperience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
- The qualities Google's quality rater guidelines use to judge content. Named authors, first-hand detail, sources and accurate facts support them.
- Entity
- A distinct thing a search engine or model can identify, such as a brand, person, product or place, with attributes and relationships to other entities.
F
- Fact density
- The share of sentences in a text that contain a specific number, date or name. Specific passages are more likely to be quoted than vague ones.Learn more →
G
- GAIOGenerative AI OptimizationOptimization
- GAIO focuses on the generated output itself: the summaries, comparisons and recommendations AI writes about your company and products.Learn more →
- GEOGenerative Engine OptimizationOptimization
- GEO increases how often generative engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews mention, quote and link to your content when they compose an answer.Learn more →
- Grounding
- Connecting a model's answer to retrieved sources, such as search results, so it can cite them and rely less on what it memorized in training.
- GSOGenerative Search OptimizationOptimization
- GSO targets generative layers inside search engines, such as Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and Bing Copilot answers, where summaries sit above organic results.Learn more →
H
- Hallucination
- A confident statement from an AI model that isn't supported by any source, such as an invented price, feature or quote.
- hreflang
- An HTML or sitemap annotation that links language and regional versions of a page, so engines show the right version in each market.
I
- IndexNow
- An open protocol that lets a site notify Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and other participating search engines as soon as a URL is added, changed or deleted.Learn more →
J
- JSON-LDJavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data
- The format most sites use to add schema.org structured data: a script block in the page that describes it in machine-readable terms.
K
- Knowledge graph
- A database of entities and the facts that connect them. Google's Knowledge Graph and Wikidata are the best known.
L
- LLMAOLarge Language Model Answer OptimizationOptimization
- LLMAO shapes individual passages into self-contained answers: a direct claim, supporting detail and clear attribution an LLM can lift without rewriting.Learn more →
- LLMOLarge Language Model OptimizationOptimization
- LLMO works on the knowledge language models hold and retrieve about you, from training-data presence to the sources they browse in real time.Learn more →
- llms.txt
- A proposed Markdown file at a site's root that summarizes the site and links to its most useful pages for language models.Learn more →
- LLSEOLarge Language Model Search Engine OptimizationOptimization
- LLSEO applies SEO practice to search products built on language models, so the same pages rank in classic results and feed LLM-generated ones.Learn more →
- LMOLanguage Model OptimizationOptimization
- LMO covers large and small language models alike, including on-device and embedded assistants that answer with limited context.Learn more →
M
- Mention
- Your brand's name appearing in an AI answer, with or without a link. Mention rate is the main AI visibility metric.Learn more →
- MMSOMultimodal Search OptimizationOptimization
- MMSO optimizes images, video and audio for search that mixes formats, such as Google Lens, video answers and AI models that read images.Learn more →
N
- NAPName, Address, Phone
- The core details of a local business. Keeping them identical across your site and every listing helps engines trust them.Learn more →
P
- Prompt
- The full question or instruction a person types or says to an AI assistant, usually longer and more specific than a search keyword.Learn more →
Q
- Query fan-out
- When an AI search system splits one question into several related searches, then combines the results into one answer.
R
- RAGRetrieval-Augmented Generation
- A setup where a model first retrieves relevant documents, then writes an answer based on them. Most AI search engines work this way.Learn more →
- RAGORetrieval-Augmented Generation OptimizationOptimization
- RAGO optimizes content for retrieval pipelines: AI systems split pages into chunks, embed them, and pull only the best-matching chunks into the answer.Learn more →
- robots.txt
- A text file at a site's root that tells crawlers, by user-agent name, which paths they may fetch.Learn more →
S
- sameAs
- A schema.org property that links an entity to its profiles elsewhere (LinkedIn, Wikipedia, review sites), showing they all describe the same thing.Learn more →
- Schema.org
- The shared vocabulary for structured data, maintained by the major search engines, with types such as Organization, Product, Article and FAQPage.
- SEOSearch Engine OptimizationOptimization
- SEO improves how search engines crawl, index and rank your pages, through technical health, relevant content and authority signals like links.Learn more →
- SEvOSearch Everywhere OptimizationOptimization
- SEvO treats YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Amazon, app stores and AI assistants as search engines in their own right, each with its own ranking rules.Learn more →
- SSOSocial Search OptimizationOptimization
- SSO optimizes profiles and posts for in-app search on social platforms, which many people now use instead of a search engine.Learn more →
- Structured data
- Machine-readable information added to a page, usually as JSON-LD, that states what the page is about in a standard format.
- SXOSearch Experience OptimizationOptimization
- SXO combines SEO with user experience: the click has to lead to a fast, clear page that matches what the searcher wanted.Learn more →
T
- Training crawler
- A bot that collects web content to train future AI models, such as GPTBot or CCBot. Blocking it doesn't remove you from AI search.Learn more →
U
- User agent
- The name a browser or bot sends with every request. robots.txt rules and log analysis both rely on it.Learn more →
V
- VEOVoice Engine OptimizationOptimization
- VEO goes beyond voice queries to the assistants themselves, optimizing for how Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and voice-mode chatbots pick and present one answer.Learn more →
- VSEOVoice Search Engine OptimizationOptimization
- VSEO targets spoken, conversational queries on Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, where only one result is read back to the user.Learn more →
Z
- Zero-click search
- A search where the person gets their answer on the results page or in an AI answer and doesn't visit any website.
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