50 terms · plain language · deep-linkable definitions
AI SEO Glossary
The 50 acronyms, protocols, crawlers, metrics, and concepts that actually matter in 2026 AI SEO. Each entry has its own deep page with the full definition and a related-terms map. Click any card to jump in.
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How this glossary works: we used to ship all the definitions on this single page. To make every term a first-class entity that LLMs and search engines can canonical-link to, each definition now lives on its own dedicated page with expanded explanation and a related-terms map. This page is the index — pick a term to jump to its full definition.
The 50 Terms
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
The umbrella discipline of optimizing for generative-AI surfaces — citation, agent navigation, and first-party data exposure.
Read full definitionAEO — Answer Engine Optimization
The work of getting your brand cited inside AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews.
Read full definitionGPTBot
OpenAI's training-data crawler. Distinct from OAI-SearchBot (live retrieval) and ChatGPT-User (user-triggered fetches).
Read full definitionClaudeBot
Anthropic's training-data crawler. Distinct from Claude-Web (live retrieval) and Claude-User (Project / Computer Use fetches).
Read full definitionPerplexityBot
Perplexity's web crawler. Plus Perplexity-User, the live-retrieval agent that fetches sources at answer time.
Read full definitionllms.txt
Markdown file at site root that gives LLMs a curated map of important pages. Proposed by Answer.AI's Jeremy Howard, Sept 2024.
Read full definitionMCP — Model Context Protocol
Anthropic's open-source protocol (Nov 2024) for connecting LLMs to first-party data sources. Lets a brand expose a server an LLM can query directly.
Read full definitionAP2 — Agent Payments Protocol
Google's open protocol (Sept 2025) for AI agents to authenticate, authorize, and complete payments on behalf of users.
Read full definitionschema.org / Structured Data
The W3C-backed vocabulary for marking up web content with machine-readable types. Foundation of every AI-citation engagement.
Read full definitionEntity SEO
The work of teaching search engines and LLMs that your brand is a recognized entity — through Organization schema, sameAs links, and Knowledge Graph mapping.
Read full definitionCitation Share
The percentage of category-relevant prompts on which an AI engine cites your brand. The closest thing AEO has to a clean KPI.
Read full definitionGoogle AI Overviews
Gemini-powered summary block above the classic Google SERP. Launched as SGE (May 2023), rebranded and made default in May 2024.
Read full definitionAgentic Commerce
The emerging commerce surface where AI agents (ChatGPT Agent, Claude Computer Use, Gemini) complete purchases on behalf of users.
Read full definitionRAG — Retrieval-Augmented Generation
The model pattern where an LLM grounds its answer in retrieved sources rather than relying on training-data memory alone.
Read full definitionStructured Data
Machine-readable annotations on web content, typically shipped as schema.org JSON-LD. The most-leveraged AEO foundation.
Read full definitionAnswer Engine
A search surface that responds with a synthesized answer instead of a list of links — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews all qualify.
Read full definitionGrounding
When an LLM anchors its answer in retrieved, real-time sources instead of training-data memory — the mechanism that produces citations.
Read full definitionKnowledge Graph
Google's structured database of entities — people, brands, products — and the relationships between them. The backbone of entity SEO.
Read full definitionE-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust
Google's quality framework — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Now a de facto standard for what AI engines cite.
Read full definitionJSON-LD
The script-tag format for shipping schema.org structured data — Google's recommended syntax and the one AI crawlers parse most reliably.
Read full definitionFAQPage Schema
schema.org markup that declares a page's questions and answers in machine-readable form — a direct feed for AI answers and People Also Ask.
Read full definitionIndexNow
An open protocol for pinging search engines the instant a URL changes — supported by Bing and Yandex, and a fast lane into Copilot's index.
Read full definitionCrawl Budget
The number of URLs a crawler will fetch from your site in a given window. Wasted on duplicates and parameters, it starves the pages that matter.
Read full definitionCanonical URL
The single authoritative URL for a piece of content, declared via rel="canonical" so engines consolidate duplicates onto one page.
Read full definitionhreflang
The annotation that tells search engines which language/region version of a page to serve — essential for stores selling across borders.
Read full definitionCore Web Vitals
Google's three field-measured UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), CLS (stability) — used as a page-experience ranking signal.
Read full definitionLCP — Largest Contentful Paint
How long until the page's biggest above-the-fold element renders. Good = 2.5 seconds or less at the 75th percentile.
Read full definitionINP — Interaction to Next Paint
How quickly the page responds to taps, clicks, and keypresses across the whole visit. Replaced FID in March 2024. Good = 200ms or less.
Read full definitionCLS — Cumulative Layout Shift
How much the page's content jumps around while loading. Good = 0.1 or less. The metric behind mis-taps and rage clicks.
Read full definitionTopical Authority
The credibility a site earns by covering a subject deeply and coherently — the reason engines trust specialists over generalists on their topic.
Read full definitionContent Clusters
A pillar page for the head topic plus interlinked supporting pages for its subtopics — the architecture that builds topical authority.
Read full definitionInternal Linking
The links between a site's own pages — how authority is distributed, hierarchy is signaled, and crawlers find what matters.
Read full definitionDoorway Pages
Near-duplicate pages mass-produced to catch keyword or location variants and funnel users to the same destination — a spam-policy violation.
Read full definitionScaled Content Abuse
Google's spam policy (March 2024) against mass-producing low-value content — however it's generated — to manipulate rankings.
Read full definitionProgrammatic SEO
Generating large sets of landing pages from structured data and templates — legitimate when every page carries real unique value.
Read full definitionZero-Click Search
A search that ends without a click on any result — the answer was consumed on the SERP or in the AI response itself.
Read full definitionFeatured Snippet
The extracted answer box at the top of Google's results — "position zero" — pulled verbatim from a page that answers the query cleanly.
Read full definitionPeople Also Ask (PAA)
Google's expandable related-question box — a live map of the exact questions buyers ask around any query.
Read full definitionVector Embeddings
Numeric representations of text that place similar meanings near each other — the math that lets search match meaning instead of keywords.
Read full definitionSemantic Search
Retrieval that matches the meaning and intent of a query rather than its literal words — how both Google and AI engines now rank candidates.
Read full definitionQuery Fan-Out
AI engines decompose one prompt into multiple sub-queries and synthesize the results — pages must answer the follow-ups, not just the head question.
Read full definitionBrand Mentions (vs Links)
Unlinked references to a brand across the web — increasingly valuable because LLMs learn brand reputation from text, not link graphs.
Read full definitionDigital PR
Earning coverage, links, and mentions from real publications — the authority channel that feeds both classic rankings and AI citations.
Read full definitionPrompt Visibility Tracking
Running a fixed panel of buyer prompts across AI engines on a schedule and recording who gets cited — rank tracking for the AI era.
Read full definitionShare of Model
The share of AI-engine mindshare a brand holds in its category — how often models name you, unprompted, when buyers ask for recommendations.
Read full definitionAI Referral Traffic
Visitors who click through to your site from an AI engine's answer — small but fast-growing, and the highest-intent referral class in analytics.
Read full definitionOAI-SearchBot
OpenAI's search-index crawler — builds the index behind ChatGPT search. Distinct from GPTBot (training) and ChatGPT-User (live fetches).
Read full definitionOrganization Schema
The schema.org markup that declares who your business is — name, logo, contacts, sameAs profiles — the anchor of your brand entity.
Read full definitionProduct Schema
schema.org markup for products — price, availability, ratings, GTINs — powering rich results, Shopping surfaces, and AI shopping answers.
Read full definitionAI Crawler
The family of bots AI companies run — training collectors, search indexers, and live user-fetch agents — each controllable separately in robots.txt.
Read full definition
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