GEO & AI SEO Glossary
The complete reference for Generative Engine Optimization terms, AI search definitions, and the vocabulary of modern SEO. 23 terms defined.
A
AI SEO
A broad term for optimizing digital presence for AI-powered search. Encompasses both optimizing for AI-assisted Google search (AI Overviews) and pure AI tools (ChatGPT, Perplexity). Sometimes used interchangeably with GEO.
Related: GEO, LLM SEO
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Optimizing content to directly answer user questions in formats AI and voice assistants prefer. Strongly overlaps with GEO but emphasizes the "answer" format — FAQ schema, step-by-step guides, and direct responses to common questions.
Related: GEO, Featured Snippet Optimization, Voice Search Optimization
AI Citation
When an AI tool like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude explicitly mentions, quotes, or recommends your brand, product, or content in its response to a user query. AI citations are the GEO equivalent of organic search rankings.
Related: GEO, AI Citation Optimization
AI Citation Optimization
Tactics aimed at increasing the frequency and accuracy of AI citations for your brand. Includes llms.txt implementation, structured data, authority building, and ensuring AI crawlers can access your content.
Related: GEO, llms.txt, AI Citation
AI Overviews (formerly SGE)
Google's AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional search results. Pulled from crawled pages and shown with source citations. Optimizing for AI Overviews requires GEO-style content: factual, structured, and direct.
Related: GEO, Featured Snippets
AI Search Traffic
Organic visitors who arrive at your website from AI tool referrals — clicks from Perplexity source links, ChatGPT browse results, or Claude references. A new traffic source appearing in analytics as referrals from perplexity.ai, chat.openai.com, etc.
Related: GEO Metrics, AI Citation
AI SEO Audit
An analysis of a website's visibility in both traditional search (Google) and AI-powered search tools. Identifies gaps in technical setup, content structure, schema markup, and AI-readiness. Produces a prioritized action list for improving both SEO and GEO simultaneously.
Related: SEO Roadmap, GEO
C
ClaudeBot / Anthropic-AI
Anthropic's crawlers used to retrieve web content for Claude AI responses and training. Allowing these in robots.txt is necessary for Claude to be able to cite your content.
Related: robots.txt, AI Crawlers
Content Grounding
AI systems use grounding to anchor their responses in factual, verifiable information. Well-grounded content — with specific facts, numbers, and attributable claims — is more likely to be cited. Unsubstantiated or vague content gets filtered out.
Related: AI Citation, E-E-A-T
E
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
Google's quality framework for evaluating content. Increasingly important for GEO as well — AI tools are more likely to cite content from recognized experts with demonstrated experience. Clear author attribution, original research, and citation from authoritative sources all improve E-E-A-T.
Related: GEO, AI Citation
F
FAQ Schema
Structured data (JSON-LD) that marks up Q&A content on a webpage. Creates Google rich results and — critically for GEO — gives AI models pre-formatted question/answer pairs that are easy to extract and cite directly.
Related: Schema Markup, GEO, Rich Results
G
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
The practice of optimizing your website and content to appear as citations or recommendations in AI-generated responses from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. GEO is the AI-search equivalent of traditional SEO.
Related: AI SEO, LLM SEO, AEO
GPTBot
OpenAI's official web crawler used to index content for ChatGPT and training data. Websites that block GPTBot in robots.txt will not be cited by ChatGPT. Explicitly allowing GPTBot is a basic GEO requirement.
Related: robots.txt, AI Crawlers, GEO
H
HowTo Schema
Structured data that marks up step-by-step instructional content. AI tools prefer this format for procedural questions ("how do I..."). Implementing HowTo schema increases the likelihood of being cited in AI responses to how-to queries.
Related: Schema Markup, AEO
L
LLM SEO
Specifically optimizing content to appear in Large Language Model (LLM) outputs. Focuses on making content readable, extractable, and citable by AI models. Includes llms.txt implementation, structured content, and clear factual writing.
Related: GEO, llms.txt
llms.txt
A plain-text file placed at yourwebsite.com/llms.txt that describes your business to AI language models. Similar to robots.txt for search engines, llms.txt helps AI tools understand your brand, products, services, and how to accurately represent you in their responses.
Related: robots.txt, LLM SEO
P
PerplexityBot
Perplexity AI's web crawler used to retrieve real-time information for search responses. Perplexity is heavily RAG-based, making it particularly responsive to GEO tactics. Explicitly allowing PerplexityBot in robots.txt is essential for Perplexity citations.
Related: robots.txt, AI Crawlers, RAG
Prompt Optimization
The practice of crafting content that is likely to match the phrasing of queries users submit to AI tools. Distinct from keyword optimization — focuses on the natural language questions people ask AI, not search engine keywords.
Related: GEO, LLM SEO
R
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A technique where AI tools retrieve real-time web content before generating their response, allowing them to cite current information. Perplexity, ChatGPT with browsing, and Claude with search all use RAG. Websites that are well-structured benefit most from RAG-based AI tools.
Related: AI Citation, GEO
S
Share of Voice (AI)
The percentage of AI tool responses about a given topic or category that mention your brand vs. competitors. A key GEO metric tracked by monitoring tools. Higher share of voice means AI tools recommend you more often.
Related: AI Citation, GEO Metrics
Speakable Schema
A schema.org structured data markup that identifies specific content sections as particularly suitable for text-to-speech. Voice AI assistants (Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri) and AI tools prioritize speakable-marked content when answering spoken queries.
Related: Schema Markup, Voice Search Optimization
SEO Roadmap
A prioritized action plan of specific SEO improvements for a given website. Modern SEO roadmaps increasingly include GEO actions alongside traditional SEO tasks. EasySEO.online delivers 100-action roadmaps combining both.
Related: GEO, AI SEO Audit
T
Topical Authority
The degree to which search engines and AI tools recognize your website as a comprehensive, trustworthy source on a given topic. Built through deep content coverage, internal linking, and being cited by other authorities. Strong topical authority is a prerequisite for consistent AI citations.
Related: E-E-A-T, GEO, Content Clusters