GEO Glossary
Plain-English definitions for AI search and GEO terminology.
GEO
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of improving a website's content and technical structure so that AI-powered search systems can discover, understand, and potentially cite it.
Read definition →AI Search
Search experiences powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) that generate direct answers rather than lists of links.
Read definition →AI Citation
When an AI model references or attributes your website as a source of information in its response.
Read definition →AI Crawler
A bot (e.g., GPTBot, ClaudeBot) that crawls websites specifically to train or inform AI models.
Read definition →GPTBot
OpenAI's crawler that accesses websites to improve ChatGPT's knowledge base.
Read definition →PerplexityBot
Perplexity's crawler that indexes content for its AI-powered search engine.
Read definition →llms.txt
A non-standard file that can be used to provide explicit instructions to AI crawlers about content usage and attribution.
Read definition →Structured Data
A standardized format (often JSON-LD) for providing explicit information about a page's content to search engines and AI systems.
Read definition →Schema Markup
A specific vocabulary (Schema.org) used to add structured data to web pages, helping machines understand context.
Read definition →Answer Engine
A search system that returns direct answers to user queries, often powered by AI, rather than a list of blue links.
Read definition →AEO
Answer Engine Optimization – the practice of optimising content to appear in direct answers provided by AI search systems.
Read definition →LLM
Large Language Model – an AI model trained on massive amounts of text to understand and generate human-like language.
Read definition →RAG
Retrieval-Augmented Generation – a technique where an LLM retrieves relevant information from external sources (like your website) before generating a response.
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