Glossary

SEO, AEO and GEO, in plain words

62 terms you'll meet when you work on how Google and AI assistants see your business. Each one in a sentence or two, with a link if you want to go deeper.

By Praveen Kumar, founder of Vectura Digital · Reviewed 19 October 2026. Researched with AI tools, then checked against the sources at the end.

Search basics

SEO (search engine optimization): The work of making your pages easy for search engines like Google and Bing to find, understand and show.; SEO guide
SERP (search results page): The page you see after searching: ads, AI Overviews, the map pack and the normal list of results.
Crawling: When a search engine's program visits your pages to read them. A page that is never crawled can't appear in results.
Crawler (bot): The program that does the crawling, such as Googlebot or Bingbot. AI companies run their own crawlers too.; AI crawler checker
Indexing: When a search engine stores a crawled page so it can be shown in results. Crawled doesn't always mean indexed.
Ranking: Where your page appears for a search. It changes by search, place, device and day, so no one can promise a fixed position.
Organic result: A normal, unpaid search result. It can't be bought; ads are separate and marked as sponsored.
Keyword: The words someone types or says to search. Example: "emergency plumber Austin", "hallmarked gold Pali".
Search intent: What the person actually wants from a search: to learn, to compare, to buy or to find a place. A page should match it.
Title tag: The page title in the code, usually shown as the blue clickable line in search results. Keep it specific and short enough to show in full.
Meta description: A one or two sentence summary in the page code. Google may show it under the title, or write its own.
H1 (main heading): The main heading on the page. Use one, and make it say what the page is about.
Internal link: A link from one page of your site to another. It helps visitors and crawlers find your important pages.
Backlink: A link to your site from another website. Links from relevant, trusted sites count; bought or swapped links can get you penalised.
Sitemap: A file, usually at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml, listing the pages you want search engines to know about.
robots.txt: A text file at yoursite.com/robots.txt that tells crawlers which parts of the site they may read.; Check your robots.txt
Canonical URL: The one address you want search engines to treat as the main copy of a page, when the same content can be reached at several addresses.
Noindex: An instruction in a page's code that tells search engines not to show it in results. Useful for private pages, harmful if left on by mistake.
Google Search Console: Google's free tool for site owners. It shows which searches bring people to your site, which pages are indexed, and problems Google found.

AI search

AEO (answer engine optimization): Shaping a page so a search engine or AI assistant can lift a clear answer from it: real questions as headings, the answer first, facts in lists.; AEO guide
GEO (generative engine optimization): Making AI assistants confident enough to name your business when someone asks for a recommendation. It rests on access, a clear identity and mentions on other sites.; GEO guide
AI Overviews: Google's AI summaries at the top of some results, with links to the sources it used. A page must be indexed and eligible for a normal snippet to appear in them.; Guide to AI Overviews
AI Mode: Google's chat-style search for harder questions that need comparing or reasoning, with links to supporting sites.
Query fan-out: A technique Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use: one question is split into several related searches, and the answers are combined. Example: "best clinic for a root canal in Jaipur" might also search prices, reviews and opening hours.
Answer engine: Any search tool that replies with an answer instead of only a list of links: AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, voice assistants.
LLM (large language model): The kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. It writes text by predicting likely words, which is why it can sound sure and still be wrong.
Grounding: When an AI assistant looks up current web pages and builds its answer on them, instead of answering from memory alone.
Citation (in AI answers): A link or source an AI answer shows for where its information came from. Being cited means your page was used.
Hallucination: When an AI states something false as if it were true, such as a wrong phone number or opening time. Clear, consistent details on your site make this less likely.
Prompt: The question or instruction someone types into an AI assistant. Customers' prompts are usually longer and more specific than search keywords.
OAI-SearchBot: OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT search. Blocking it keeps your site out of ChatGPT search answers.; Is it blocked?
GPTBot: OpenAI's crawler that collects content which may be used to train its models. Blocking it does not remove you from ChatGPT search.
Google-Extended: A robots.txt setting, not a separate crawler, for Gemini model training and grounding in the Gemini apps. Google says it does not affect Search or AI Overviews.
llms.txt: An optional text file at yoursite.com/llms.txt that gives AI tools a short map of your site. Google says its Search ignores it.; llms.txt checker

Content and trust

E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust: what Google's human quality raters look for. It isn't one ranking score, but it describes the content Google wants to show.; E-E-A-T guide
Helpful content: Google's term for pages made mainly to help people, not to attract search visits. Its guidance asks who made the page, how, and why.
Author byline: The line that says who wrote a page, ideally linked to a page about them. A real name helps readers and engines trust the content.
Scaled content abuse: Google's spam term for making many pages mainly to manipulate rankings, usually unoriginal content with little value. AI-made or not, it can get a site demoted.
Hub page: One page that covers a topic broadly and links to every detailed page on it, so readers and engines see the whole subject in one place.
FAQ section: Questions customers ask, answered on the page. Google stopped showing FAQ results on 7 May 2026, but the visible answers still help people and AI.; FAQ builder
Featured snippet: A short answer Google sometimes shows at the top of results, taken from one page and linked to it.

Identity and structured data

Entity: A thing a search engine can identify on its own: a business, a person, a place, a product. GEO is largely about making your business a clear entity.; Entity SEO guide
Structured data (schema markup): A block of code that states facts about a page in a fixed format, such as your business name, address and opening hours. It must match what the page shows.; Schema checker
JSON-LD: The format Google recommends for structured data: a script block in the page code, separate from what visitors see.
sameAs: A structured data field that lists your official profiles (Google, LinkedIn, Instagram), so engines know they all belong to one business.
NAP (name, address, phone): Your business name, address and phone number. Keep them exactly the same on your site, Google profile and every listing.
Brand mention: Any time another site names your business, with or without a link. In Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands, mentions had the strongest link to appearing in AI Overviews.
Knowledge panel: The box Google shows about a well-known business, person or place, built from what it knows about that entity.

Local search

Google Business Profile: Your free listing on Google Search and Maps: address, hours, photos, reviews. Formerly called Google My Business (GMB).; GMB ONE audit
Local pack (map pack): The map with three businesses that Google shows for local searches like "jeweller near me".
Local citation: A listing of your business name, address and phone on another site, such as a directory. Not the same as a citation in an AI answer.
Google reviews: Ratings and comments customers leave on your Google profile. Google forbids asking only happy customers or offering rewards for reviews.; Google reviews guide

Technical

Core Web Vitals: Google's three measures of real visitors' experience: loading (LCP), response to taps (INP) and layout stability (CLS).
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How long the main content takes to appear. Good is 2.5 seconds or less.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint): How quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. Good is 200 milliseconds or less.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How much the page jumps around while loading. Good is 0.1 or less.
PageSpeed Insights: Google's free speed test for a page. It shows real-visitor data when Google has enough of it, and a lab test either way.
Mobile-first indexing: Google uses the phone version of your site to index and rank it. If something is missing on mobile, Google may not see it.
HTTPS: The secure version of a web address (the padlock). Browsers warn visitors away from sites without it.
301 redirect: A permanent forward from an old address to a new one. Use it when you move or rename a page, so visitors and search engines follow.
404 error: The "page not found" answer. A few are normal; links to them from your own site should be fixed.
JavaScript rendering: When a page's words only appear after scripts run in the browser. Some crawlers read only what the server first sends, so important text should be in it.

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